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

[Bobby Hundreds]

1 hour ago, sir roger said:

You only need to buy one copy of Private Eye to see that corruption is endemic at every level of politics all around the country.

Yup although reading private eye is like trying to read an Athletic article on a Nokia 3310

[Strontium]

You knew something was up when all that student accommodation kept being greenlit, we must have enough student flats now to house every undergraduate in the north west.

 

Thank goodness for the brief period of sensible leadership when Liverpool One and the Arena got built, we won Capital of Culture, the schools went from being the second worst in the country to above average etc, I dread to think where we'd be without it.

[Section_31]

7 minutes ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

Agree but that nuance will be lost on the rest of the world. The decision makers in big multi nationals will see the headlines about corruption and take their money and jobs elsewhere. This perception stuff is toxic and long lasting.  People should be much angrier about what appears to have happened, its put the reputation of the city as a place to invest and create jobs back years. 

 

Can't see why big business would be arsed, big business doesn't come here anyway save for the kind of people who'd be happy to deal with a corrupt council (developers with shite projects and the like). 

 

Liverpool is an absolute black hole for careers and ambition, all anyone in authority cares about is getting you to fill forms in so they can draw down European money. You either work for the public sector, or for one of the surviving 'advice' agencies designed to encourage private enterprise, but doesn't/cant', failing that your best bet is to set up a Lebanise pie shop on Bold Street and try and access some of that student debt dollar. I'll go out on a limb and say Liverpool's economic model isn't geared towards long term success.  

[Bjornebye]

5 minutes ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

Agree but that nuance will be lost on the rest of the world. The decision makers in big multi nationals will see the headlines about corruption and take their money and jobs elsewhere. This perception stuff is toxic and long lasting.  People should be much angrier about what appears to have happened, its put the reputation of the city as a place to invest and create jobs back years. 

I was more pointing it out to city residents on here who might have thought it was the whole council. 

[sir roger]

19 minutes ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

Hatton was hanging around the council long like a bad smell for years after he was kicked out. For a while, he ran a planning consultancy business in the city openly bragging he could "get things done".  

Don't they all  ?

[Anubis]

9 hours ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

I thought the Northern Party was a fucking awful idea but then you see what Labour have to offer.

 

Does the monster raving looney party still exist.

Still plenty for the Dodgy Boroughs column then.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

35 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

 

Can't see why big business would be arsed, big business doesn't come here anyway save for the kind of people who'd be happy to deal with a corrupt council (developers with shite projects and the like). 

 

Liverpool is an absolute black hole for careers and ambition, all anyone in authority cares about is getting you to fill forms in so they can draw down European money. You either work for the public sector, or for one of the surviving 'advice' agencies designed to encourage private enterprise, but doesn't/cant', failing that your best bet is to set up a Lebanise pie shop on Bold Street and try and access some of that student debt dollar. I'll go out on a limb and say Liverpool's economic model isn't geared towards long term success.  

Its not. All set up for tourism and students. 

 

When the City Region came about all the local councils and Cheshire (Warrington/Widnes) all talked about manufacturing and warehousing and they talked about Liverpool being a central hub but that fat cunt dismissed it in every meeting and still went for the tourist and student route. 

 

The city has so much potential but its being wasted. Again. 

[Skidfingers McGonical]

8 hours ago, VladimirIlyich said:

He was the first to roll out the covid testing in the countrt,wasnt he? And I'm not saying it was solely to do with this but to be fair to chippy tits he has been a thorn in their side for a while on other issues,I believe. 

There was defo a sweetener to this and I think you are giving Fat Joe a bit too much credit. 

[Bjornebye]

Aren't they building a few office blocks for a sort of 'tech' area down the Baltic Quarter? Whats happening with the movie studios development on the old Littlewoods site? No excuse for the new hospital not to be up and running. Feels like we get close but the plus pulled. Hopefully change is made for the better in terms of development and I include Bramley Moore in that. 

 

Good to see they are getting on with the Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot. 

 

 

[Kepler-186]

56 minutes ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

In my opinion, Heseltine, a Minister under Thatcher, did more for the city and bought in more regeneration money in the 1980s than any politician since the war. He was the architect of its transformation from an economy based on shipping into one based on leisure and tourism. There should be a statue of him in the City but there won't be becuase of blinkered party tribalism. 

Yeah, an International Garden Festival to replace the I don’t know 40,000 odd jobs the city had shed, alongside a certain Tebbitt who told everyone to get on their bikes. 
 

Travel and tourism is concentrated on

the city centre. 
 

Just like the Lego student gaffs. 
 

Dead high streets like something out The Wire. 
 

LCC did bring in a landlord scheme but seeing as most Tory MPs are landlords it got scrapped. Now some areas are HMO rabbit hutches. 
 

You’ll be telling us Tories care about the vulnerable next. 
 

Brexit: a Tory solution. 
 

37 billion quid up the spout. 
 

Nuclear weapons. 
 

The fishiest, dodgiest Tory Minister Jenrick calling out plassy gangsters in

the House today was brilliant TV. 
 

Statue of Tarzan, my arse. 
 

 

 

[Section_31]

13 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

Aren't they building a few office blocks for a sort of 'tech' area down the Baltic Quarter? Whats happening with the movie studios development on the old Littlewoods site? No excuse for the new hospital not to be up and running. Feels like we get close but the plus pulled. Hopefully change is made for the better in terms of development and I include Bramley Moore in that. 

 

Good to see they are getting on with the Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot. 

 

 

 

The baltic quarter looks great but I suspect nobody there gets any real support, save for what they get from each other. 

 

I've dealt with a few tech companies round that way and they openly say they don't bother with the liverpool scene because there's no point. Was speaking to a woman who runs a business incubator and she says even she doesn't bother going to the various networking and business events any more, she was moaning about the "same old loud faces off the telly" tuning up for the pictures but not doing anything to help, I presumed she meant Rotheram but maybe she means Anderson.

 

I don't know how much of it is down to corruption and how much is incompetence though. 

 

Manchester has got a really decent agency scene, media, advertising, digital marketing companies and the likes, fuck all like that here save for a very small handful. You either work in the passport office or Gap.

[Kepler-186]

22 minutes ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

I begrudgingly concede you have a point but I wish you didn't. The city used to be the powerhouse of the western world, now its students, Beatles tourism and hen nights. I find it really depressing. 

Let’s not get too misty eyed about how Liverpool claimed its position as the second city of the Empire, while the Irish many of us are related to were starved out of their own country.nor ignore since 1979 the way successive governments have treated once proud working class communities. 
 

Even Liverpool One has got empty stores now, and there wasn’t one Liverpool based business in there. 
 

You’re right, though it is depressing. 

[Bobby Hundreds]

Bloody hell chin up Jenrick will sort it.

[Bruce Spanner]

[sir roger]

Cross out the bits about highways and property and you could use that for the Government's covid contracts response

[Kepler-186]

1 minute ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

The one person who did the most damage to the City was Malcom Purcell McClean. He's the source of most of the post war decline. 

Don’t I know it! We’re now a lovely Free Port area, motorways through green space, and cancer rates through the roof by ours mate. 
 

However, Peel have owned both banks of the Mersey and periodically release visions for Liverpool and Wirral Waters. And each time the vision is less and less impressive. 
 

As has been pointed out, big companies don’t need to be here. Peel talk big about the Liverpool 2, but shipping firms are one step down from off shore finance. Maersk took money to move head office functions to Old Hall Street, then pulled a fast one. 
 

Look what they did to “Cannery” wharf in the 80s when the rest of the country was left to rot. 

 

 

[Lee909]

This shit happens everywhere

 

We have a Tory MP and a Lib Dem local council where I am. And the past 10 years has been nothing but shite. 

 

The town was revamp for modern outer London. By that I mean we have the shopping centre, about a quarter of the shops are shut. The high Street which is the top end is food a few bars. The lower end of the top of my head has 

2x Costa

3x Starbucks

1x Pret

1x Cafe Nero

2x Greggs

2x Wurtzels

McDonalds

KFC

Burger King

Load more sushi, burger, Pizza places

 

That's the 'Shopping' side of the town 

 

The once thriving market was fucked off cause the Lib Dem major wanted to extend the intu centre and built a fuck off 4 story Debenhams, a cinema and some shite clothes stores. The Debenhams closed within 18 months. Took longer to build the bastard. 

 

The market stall holders were fucked off round to the old carpark of what used to be Clemence(now a fuck off massive Globe buffet) and nobody goes there. 

 

What was once a outer London Market town has in the last 10 years been drawn more into a outer London sithole like Harrow. 

 

And now its flats, flats and more flats. 

By the junction they've agreed to build 1200 flats in a tiny area by the junction(parking spaces for less than half, including a 28 story block) and hundreds more elsewhere. And all hiding behind the government won't let us say no. 

 

And the cunt responsibie ended up in the house of Lords. After she put out leaflets showing her engaging with the local community and going door to door. Only the door the picture was taken was her own. 

 

Corruption and government go hand in hand these days. Pretty much careerist just lining their own pockets. 

 

Need to bring back Atimia and exile. 

That cunt Patel talking about a island in the Atlantic, good send all them fuckers there. St Helena sounds good

[stringvest]

1 hour ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

Agree but that nuance will be lost on the rest of the world. The decision makers in big multi nationals will see the headlines about corruption and take their money and jobs elsewhere. This perception stuff is toxic and long lasting.  People should be much angrier about what appears to have happened, its put the reputation of the city as a place to invest and create jobs back years. 

None of them were coming anyway.  There has been zero serious attempts to persuade business or industry back, apart from the odd shiny thing on the periphery designed to distract.  Film set and stag weekends.  Yippee do.

[stringvest]

9 minutes ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

Liverpool has one of the lowest GDPs per head of any major city in the UK.

 

There's a good table here.

 

Brookings list of metropolitan economies in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

 

There's a whole PHD to be written on why other post industrial cities have reinvented themselves more successfully. 

You only have to look at the Adelphi hotel to see how Liverpool has been run over the last 50 years.  A fine building, reduced nothing so much as a squat, and meffs are barbecuing cheap meat in the ballroom.  A hotel and a city run by clueless morons who try to squeeze long after the pips have squeaked.

[Bruce Spanner]

Ghost towers...

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/26/ghost-towers-half-of-new-build-luxury-london-flats-fail-to-sell

 

Built to launder and hold money in place, big tax write offs and a way to avoid tax as they're technically run at a loss.

 

Capitalism 2.0

 

And some poor schmuck in Beijing can't sell a flat they've lost their forutne on, by buying in to quick profit capitalism pyramid schemes, because no poor schmuck in the local area can afford to buy one becuase capitalism has bought all the land and priced them out.

[Lee909]

1 minute ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

I think the only way to change anything is for decent honest people to stand in local elections as councilors as

 

Maybe 

I'm more tempted with the V/Frank Castle route to be honest. 

[Anubis]

3 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:

Ghost towers...

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/26/ghost-towers-half-of-new-build-luxury-london-flats-fail-to-sell

 

Built to launder and hold money in place, big tax write offs and a way to avoid tax as they're technically run at a loss.

 

Capitalism 2.0

 

And some poor schmuck in Beijing can't sell a flat they've lost their forutne on, by buying in to quick profit capitalism pyramid schemes, because no poor schmuck in the local area can afford to buy one becuase capitalism has bought all the land and priced them out.

It’s scandalous that this goes on when we have such a drastic need for social housing.

[Bruce Spanner]

7 minutes ago, Colonel Kurtz said:

Good link. Some poor couples would have bought these flats for £500k though, trying to get on the property ladder, start a family etc. Now they stuck with a massive mortgage, negative equity and living in a 1/2 empty tower block. 

 

Yep, all a massive stitch up from government allowing planning, to the lies during off plan build discussions, to the poor sap who ends up lumbered with one of these ticky tacky gilded cages.

 

They make lots of money for everybody involved, but the person who owns the 'luxury' box.

[Bruce Spanner]

7 minutes ago, Anubis said:

It’s scandalous that this goes on when we have such a drastic need for social housing.

 

Tip of the iceberg, they're all over the country and some are designed and initiated to never have tenants or people to buy them, they are so lucrative they don't need to be in the financial considerations, any of the former is a bonus.

 

They hold money which is untaxable as capital gains can't touch it as they are technically run at a loss.

 

In some cases they'll get huge tax rebates as well.

[Barrington Womble]

1 hour ago, Bjornebye said:

Aren't they building a few office blocks for a sort of 'tech' area down the Baltic Quarter? Whats happening with the movie studios development on the old Littlewoods site? No excuse for the new hospital not to be up and running. Feels like we get close but the plus pulled. Hopefully change is made for the better in terms of development and I include Bramley Moore in that. 

 

Good to see they are getting on with the Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot. 

 

 

Didn't we massively fuck up the pitch to bring C4 to Littlewoods, got knocked out in the 1st phase because the bid was pretty incompetent? 

49 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

 

The baltic quarter looks great but I suspect nobody there gets any real support, save for what they get from each other. 

 

I've dealt with a few tech companies round that way and they openly say they don't bother with the liverpool scene because there's no point. Was speaking to a woman who runs a business incubator and she says even she doesn't bother going to the various networking and business events any more, she was moaning about the "same old loud faces off the telly" tuning up for the pictures but not doing anything to help, I presumed she meant Rotheram but maybe she means Anderson.

 

I don't know how much of it is down to corruption and how much is incompetence though. 

 

Manchester has got a really decent agency scene, media, advertising, digital marketing companies and the likes, fuck all like that here save for a very small handful. You either work in the passport office or Gap.

They won't work for gap anymore, it's not opening back up.