Saturday, 6 May 2023

Have Liverpool voters sent Labour the message - 'Do as you wish, we'll keep on voting for you?'

Yes, opposition parties had a few good results against Labour, in this May's local elections, in the crisis riven local authority that is Liverpool City Council but in many wards the message to Labour was, in effect, carry on we'll back you whatever you do.

Is this blind loyally to a political party a Liverpool thing or are there other cities and towns across the UK where the electors will pretty much always back a political party no matter what?

You may be thinking at this point that Robertson’s a Liberal so he would be anti-Labour, but I assure you I'm no loyal Lib Dem member, indeed Liberals by instinct tend not to be loyal to any form of political authority/leadership. The political pain caused to the Lib Dems by the Clegg era Tuition Fees debacle was hugely felt personally, yet I also celebrated the fact that electors in the UK would turn against a political leader who, in their eyes, said one thing and then did another.

The scandals of recent years surrounding Labour-run Liverpool City Council have been almost too many to detail; here are but some of them -

Commissioners being sent in to run the Council. Hard-hitting reports on the Council's many failures. Car parking tickets cancelled. And what about the energy bill scandal which cost the city and local schools millions?

Maybe Liverpool voters don't, in general, vote on local issues so in effect the City Council can do as it pleases and many folk will just say ‘well it's long been a mess, nothing will change so we'll just let it go’. Your guess is as good as mine, but I do wish voters would get angry about local services which are being poorly run under any local authority/party. Just grumbling about those poor services but then electing the same political party which has been managing those services is somewhat bizarre in my book.

Of course I realise that austerity will have been a significant driving factor in Liverpool's endless crisis events but you have to ask why many other local authorities have coped with the appalling consequences of austerity far better.

Local leadership does matter and any political party in power at any level of government, where things are failing,  needs to be given the boot. Get angry like you did with Clegg, I have no problem with that, in fact I encourage it: it's good for our democracy.

1 comment:

  1. I feel your frustration. I've generally tended to think that local politics should be substantially disconnected from national politics, though I realise this is an unrealistic ideal. It is a puzzle how just loyal voters tend to be to their tribal parties when it comes to local elections. I understand your view on Clegg but I felt he did his patriotic duty. If you believe in coalition government (and I know you do) you have to compromise, surely? For me the problem was the original promise was flawed as it was unaffordable (especially in the circumstances of the time) and unjustifiable (it can't be right to focus so much support on the young people who go to university). But even more it was politically opportunistic. Which is why it cam back to bite him. Still it wasn't the first unrealistic promise made in a manifesto nor has it been the last!

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