Joe Anderson, Derek Hatton arrested among others....

[Harry Squatter]

Every time I drive past this student block in Islington it always reminds me of the Jawas vehicle. I keep waiting for a droid sale outside but it hasn't happened yet. 

 

 

[johnsusername]

39 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

I'm gonna vote for Yip, I'd already decided, partly because my local councillor keeps ringing me about her preferred candidate, seemingly unaware that she had the exact same conversation with me the day before. 

My wife's a primary teacher who has frequent work interaction with Yip and says he's an absolute prick. Know it all, bully, dodgy finances - allegedly, of course.

[Anubis]

26 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

I'm gonna vote for Yip, I'd already decided, partly because my local councillor keeps ringing me about her preferred candidate, seemingly unaware that she had the exact same conversation with me the day before. 

I’m going to vote for Stephen Yip as well. I think we need somebody independent but also well versed in the socially conscious aspect of the City, and who will be able to attract the expertise needed to start setting things straight.

 

His campaign site is here.

 

https://yip4mayor.com/

 

[Harry Squatter]

8 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

It's fucking unbelievable that. Is that block not grade 2 listed to prevent this type of shite? 

The council seems to bend over backwards for the owner. He tried opening a hotel in Cardiff and he got hit with loads of fines for delaying the project.

[johnsusername]

I've had the misfortune to work in the Liverpool public sector since 2006 and most of the local councillors are only interested in getting their pictures in the weekly newspapers to impress their neighbours. They ignore the advice of experienced officers and just do what they think will make them look good. They use council press teams as their personal PR and unfortunately nobody will stand up to them (until now, maybe).

 

I have a mate who was the PA for one of the Merseyside mayors and he was constantly pissed - she'd turn up at his house to pick him up for a function and he'd already have been drinking. 

 

They're all tin pot. 

[Harry Squatter]

 

 

Liverpool just has a load of Cox and Evans councillors.

[johnsusername]

10 minutes ago, Doctor Troy said:

 

 

Liverpool just has a load of Cox and Evans councillors.

Haha, that's like one of my photo calls. Actually I'm now sinking into a deep depression...

[Section_31]

31 minutes ago, johnsusername said:

I've had the misfortune to work in the Liverpool public sector since 2006 and most of the local councillors are only interested in getting their pictures in the weekly newspapers to impress their neighbours. They ignore the advice of experienced officers and just do what they think will make them look good. They use council press teams as their personal PR and unfortunately nobody will stand up to them (until now, maybe).

 

I have a mate who was the PA for one of the Merseyside mayors and he was constantly pissed - she'd turn up at his house to pick him up for a function and he'd already have been drinking. 

 

They're all tin pot. 

I don't think that's a liverpool thing that's a Councillor thing. 

 

The folks over in Halton are barely sentient. I've never met a more underwhelming collection of humanity. 

[Bobby Hundreds]

2 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

I don't think that's a liverpool thing that's a Councillor thing. 

 

The folks over in Halton are barely sentient. I've never met a more underwhelming collection of humanity. 

I know a Councillor in Halton. Nice guy.

[Marko121]

In my job, i have contact with many councillors.  A classroom of 5 year olds are better behaved 

[Section_31]

The good ones who go in with ambition usually get it beaten out of them, maintaining message (or non message) discipline quickly becomes more important than speaking up and trying to get things done for their community.

 

I know one who got bollocked by a more senior colleague because she kept knocking on doors in the ward as it was "making more work for them". 

 

The council model should be torn up. It should be far, far easier for the average person to stand, access funds for campaigning and run to represent the area they live in than it is. Instead, they have to align themselves with the existing established party, and being picked to stand will depend on a million things, the last of which would be how much they care about where they live or how skilled and articulate they'd be at the job.

[Barrington Womble]

1 hour ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

Smaller number of high profile candidates fighting for seats, the Tories and Lib Dem’s will start taking Liverpool much more seriously now. They only need to win 8 each to form a coalition. Add in a couple of independents and it’s even less. The leafy suburbs could easily switch on the back of this scandal particularly if it gets to court and Anderson goes down in a very public trial. Hard to be knocking on middle class doors getting out the Labour vote when your last mayor went to prison for corruption. The Labour Party needs a complete clean sweep of the current members, Starmer issuing apologies, high profile visits to the city to talk of rebuilding trust etc. If he doesn’t take this shit storm seriously then I think Labour will lose control within 2 years. 

I'm sure that story plays well down the local conservative club. But personally I can't see any way the Tories get 8 people elected out of 30. It's over 25 years since they won a seat at all. 

 

 

[Barrington Womble]

17 minutes ago, Marko121 said:

In my job, i have contact with many councillors.  A classroom of 5 year olds are better behaved 

Yip's poster looks like it might be a done by some 5 year olds! 

[Barrington Womble]

1 hour ago, Anubis said:

I’m going to vote for Stephen Yip as well. I think we need somebody independent but also well versed in the socially conscious aspect of the City, and who will be able to attract the expertise needed to start setting things straight.

 

His campaign site is here.

 

https://yip4mayor.com/

 

I think this election is really tough. I don't intend to vote labour, but I certainly don't intend to vote lib or Tories either. But I know little to nothing about Yip. 

 

I didn't realise it's also the city region mayor vote. This could cause a disaster for Rotherham, but I bet he's been more than aware of what is going on. 

 

These are truly low times for the labour party and the left in general. 

[aws]

I spent thirty years acting for some of the top developers in the UK - schemes in London, Birmingham. Manchester, Leeds etc.  Not one of them would go anywhere near Liverpool and it wasn't because they didn't like Scousers. 

Before that I spent ten years in local government which taught me that party politics should have no place in it. 

[Barrington Womble]

11 minutes ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

I think a Lib Dem/green coalition has more chance than a lib dem/conservative one but I’d rather see an independent party made up of decent honest non partisan people take control. Something has to change to pull the city out of this spiralling nosedive into corruption and economic oblivion. It’s in danger of becoming the Naples of the north west.  

I don't dispute a lot of that. I also don't think it's healthy in any situation for someone to have an unsurpassable dominance. But unless I'm am wrong, we currently have a FPTP system of local government, so it's pretty tough for any new group of people to gain control, even the greens.  

 

I voted green in the last local and European elections (despite being a labour party member). But I did so locally in the knowledge it was a bit of a wasted vote. Obviously in the Europeans (for as long as it lasted) the vote for green was able to make a difference because of PR. I would like to see a form of PR at every level of government. 

[Strontium]

2 hours ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

16 decent people is all that is needed, there must be at least a couple on here. 

 

I can tell you're new here. 

[Harry Squatter]

Liverpool city council every time there's a new block of student flats that need planning permission. 

[Section_31]

37 minutes ago, aws said:

I spent thirty years acting for some of the top developers in the UK - schemes in London, Birmingham. Manchester, Leeds etc.  Not one of them would go anywhere near Liverpool and it wasn't because they didn't like Scousers. 

Before that I spent ten years in local government which taught me that party politics should have no place in it. 

 

Was there any change in perception when the Lib Dems were at the helm or was it an officer issue?

[tokyojoe]

2 hours ago, Doctor Troy said:

It's been there quite a while but the original building was one of the nicest designed buildings in the city with a flat iron style design. But they decided to lump this on the top.

 

 

How the fuck was that allowed to happen? The sheer crassness of that indicates greased palms is the only reason.

[Section_31]

Was driving through town yesterday and more student flats have shot up all around the Royal, you're talking in the last 10 weeks or so, just everywhere and ugly as fuck. Students bring in zero council tax too.

[Harry Squatter]

12 minutes ago, tokyojoe said:

How the fuck was that allowed to happen? The sheer crassness of that indicates greased palms is the only reason.

Loads of people kicked off about it, not just heritage fundamentalists. It all got rushed through despite everyone knowing it was going to look shit. 

 

Yet other developments get binned or completely altered when there's even one objection from a self interest group.

[Harry Squatter]

9 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

Was driving through town yesterday and more student flats have shot up all around the Royal, you're talking in the last 10 weeks or so, just everywhere and ugly as fuck. Students bring in zero council tax too.

The ones by Lime Street are awful. The ones built around 2002 just look like the Moscow project flats at the end of the Bourne Supremacy. 

 

They then built another grey block building in front of it and approved the shit Lime Street project. 

 

An original design for Lime Street had a sleek modern glass tower next to it but all the heritage mafia got involved saying it was too tall and would ruin the feel of the area. Completely ignoring the fact that St John's Market and the Penny Farthing faced it. 

 

 

[Harry Squatter]

Obviously none of this impacts negatively on St George's Hall.

[aws]

30 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

 

Was there any change in perception when the Lib Dems were at the helm or was it an officer issue?

I didn't notice any difference. It's a problem that runs far deeper than which party is in control or a few councillors/officers on the take. It's fear - fear of ceding control, fear of losing power, fear of change, fear of someone else making a profit, fear of making decisions. It's not unique to Liverpool - the Welsh valley councils have suffered the same failings with the same results for decades. 

Manchester has had the opposite approach ever since the IRA bomb in the 90's. The end result is striking.