The sport I love is actually in crisis

Being born up in Nottinghamshire, it’ll be no surprise to anyone who knows anything about cricket that I love the game. Larwood, Voce, Rice, Sobers, Hadlee, Randall are my cricketing heroes and trips down to Trent Bridge to watch County Championship matches are my highlight of each year.

Looking over Trent Bridge from the Derek Randall suite - June 26

 

 As a Notts supporter I obviously want my team to do well and in 2025 we won the County Championship under the excellent leadership of Haseeb Hameed and I was over the moon with delight. But below the surface all is far from being well with the way cricket is structured in England.

Lancashire’s members are effectively involved in a civil war with their own leadership/committee, Yorkshire are trying to demutualise creating all kinds to trouble within that club’s membership. Quite a number of the smaller counties are going bust. The Hundred has taken the best weeks of the cricketing year out of the calendar for all other formats. Those peak summer days should be there for the County Championship which is now shunted to the beginning and end of each season as an after-thought.

Like all major sports these days it’s all about money and the selling of souls for it is what happens. With regard to Lancashire their committee have successfully redeveloped Old Trafford; indeed you could say they’ve done remarkably well. However, on the pitch Lancashire cricket has been pretty dire for quite some years and that’s why the Lancashire members are in open rebellion. Having a brilliant ground but a crap cricket team is not a good mix for a club that exists to be a great cricket team that just wants to be better than their bitter rivals across the Pennines.

Yorkshire, we’re told, needs money and a lot of it in the form of private investment to redevelop its Headingley ground and the powers that be think this can’t be achieved without demutualising their structure so that it becomes a private company. As a Liberal mutuals mean everything to me and in my humble opinion we’ve spent far too many years taking mutuals, such as building societies, and turning them into banks. Yes, I can hear all you Conservatives out there shouting only private investment is any good whilst you decry and plan to try to take more mutuals into private hands. I get it, you don’t like common ownership and neither, sadly, does much of our political establishment with even my own party of choice being well meaning but actually doing little to promote mutuals.

And what about cricket on TV? Cricket sold its soul to Sky many years ago meaning live free to view cricket is rare indeed these days. I’m sure money was the rather obvious reason to move to pay per view TV but the unintended consequence has been to make the game one that few people take an interest in as it’s hardly ever seen these days. And no the partly free to view Hundred is not cricket; it’s probably nearer to baseball than the English summer game.

For me the sweet spot for short format cricket was the much missed 40 over Sunday League. I struggle to look upon the Twenty/20 (T20) as cricket at all.

The beleaguered county teams have reacted to them being sidelined by using You Tube to show their games and a great innovation it has been, although some counties coverage is sadly dire and not up to the high standard of say Nottinghamshire’s You Tube feed, which brilliant and I watch regularly.

So how can cricket be saved in England both from outside factors and indeed from itself? A few ideas of mine…….

* The ridiculous Hundred needs to be changed to the more normal, if too short, T20 format.

* England contracted players need to allowed/encouraged to play for their counties too when at all possible.

* The high summer weeks need County Championship games to be played.

* There may well be a need to be a reduce the number of fully professional county teams – presently 18 - say down to 12.

* Three Divisions of 6 teams, each playing 12 County Championship games per season, with the 3^rd division being semi-pro.

* The County 50 over cup needs to be taken seriously. Presently it’s not and unsurprisingly it’s the format that the England team often struggles most with in recent years.

But will I defend mutual run clubs to the bitter (probably very bitter if Yorkshire is anything to go by) end? Yes I will, unless an alternative structure can can be found where county club members can have a very significant say in the running of their clubs. And I don’t mean here some kind of consultative forum where tea and sympathy is handed out by the powers that be only for everything the members have said to be totally ignored. I accept that we live in a very commercial world and no matter how much I find it distasteful sport will continue to be about money first and last and always. I just hope cricket will not become as discredited as football has in the process.

Lancashire CCC has ended up in civil war probably because, it inadvertently or otherwise, pushed its members, who actually own the club, into the long grass. Doing so whilst not having a competitive cricket team, which is the be all and end all for the members, has been a recipe for how not to do things. For all the financial progress and much improved stadium, what’s the point if there’s only a second rate team to go and watch in the cricket season?

Am I optimistic? Well I try to be, as cricket is very important to me. It’s my go to thing for relaxation in my retirement either at Trent Bridge or via You Tube. I do like international cricket but county cricket is more important to me. It’s great that women’s cricket is coming on so well even if the best international team is still the Aussies. Another piece of good news this summer has been the England men’s team wicket keeping coach being Sarah Taylor, who is the best keeper I’ve ever seen male or female. So yes, I’m still just about optimistic that cricket will get itself off the self-made sticky wicket it finds itself batting on but, being realistic, it’s going to need a lot of heavy rolling.

PS. I drafted this piece on the very day that Garfield Sobers passed away but not knowing that sad fact. RIP Garfield the greatest cricketer of them all.

 

Planning (as in land use) and why it’s an utter mess

 

The huge Maghull East Urban Extension before building commenced

 

Unless you’ve been on a local authority planning committee you’ll only really have come across it if you’ve applied for permission to build say an extension on your house or have participated in a campaign to try to stop an unwelcome planning application. Even then you’ll not really know all the ins and outs, but then who does?

I’ve been prompted to write this posting following two recent conversations

The trouble is Planning law and regulations change often, so what you thought was the case just a couple of years back may no longer be so today. You see governments of all colours love to tinker with Planning, like they do with the running of the NHS.

When was the last time you didn’t hear a government saying that more houses need to be built? I bet it was many years ago. Of course, governments set targets for house building (which are rarely, if ever, met), they tell local authorities to ensure more houses get built and they get them to adopt plans that’ll supposedly make sure they’re built, or maybe not. They slacken Green Belt restrictions or tell local authorities to do so to allow more house building. Then, when all else fails and the houses aren’t built to the required numbers, they blame the Planning system for being too slow, too bureaucratic or local authorities for hindering house building. This routine flows through pretty much all governments and has done for as long as I can recall being involved in politics (1980) and it’s probably been the case well before that arbitrary date of mine.

Developers only do what’s in their best interests

Land developers/building companies don’t just build when they have purchased the land and have Planning Permission no matter how loud governments shout at them. They’ll only build when is suits them, in other words when they can sell quickly and at a high price. If the housing market is in the doldrums they’ll sit on the land until it and the economy pick up. Following that aside let’s get back to the Planning system.

There must be literally reams and reams of Planning documents, regulations, advice and guidance produced over the years by both governments and local authorities and frankly only local authority senior planning officers, Planning Inspectors and specialists in the field of Planning will have any detailed knowledge of them. It’s a world all of its own, full of acronyms and in-language probably meant to keep ordinary folk at arms length; a bit like the management of education, pretty much beyond all but those deeply involved.

Why do we need more houses?

Well, a big reason is because we tend to live in smaller family units. I can recall the days when 3 generations of families lived in one house but that’s unusual these days. But it’s not just the number of houses, it’s the type of housing units that’s the big issue.

For example, we have too few social housing properties (council houses/housing association houses), far too few, and that dates back to ‘Right to Buy’, yet we build hardly any new ones. This, in turn, pushes those who have no choice but to rent into private sector renting and again, in turn, government needs to subsidise the rent payable as it’s well beyond the means of many poorer renters. So governments have effectively decided to subsidise private renting rather than build sufficient new social housing. There are other things missing from our housing stock as well, such as too few smaller units (1 and 2 bed), too few adapted houses/bungalows for people with disabilities/the elderly. Building 3, 4 and 5 bed houses is what makes the most money for developers/builders so that’s what we mostly get, like it or not.

Planning Committees

I only spent a couple of years on a Planning Committee of my local council and it was the last two years of my time as a borough councillor. Being knee deep in planning regulations and effectively being told by professional planning officers how I had to treat each application didn’t endear me to Planning. It was being told to act in a quasi-judicial way rather than looking at the balance of issues based on my own judgement that so ill-suited me. As a free thinking Liberal, doing as I was effectively told to do went against the grain so to speak.

Don’t get me wrong the planning officers were invariably nice and well informed people just doing their jobs based on the regulations (seemingly ever changing regulations) sent down to them by whichever government was in power at the time. It was definitely me not fitting into what felt like a straight-jacket which was forever being tightened (as regulations were relaxed) restricting my ability to have any meaningful say in outcomes. Suffice to say I did not enjoy it or frankly see much purpose to it. Getting blamed for approving applications I actually thought were as inappropriate as those who were opposing them was a frustrating process. Ordinary folk hope that planning committees will hear all the evidence presented to them and make the right decision. In reality, many things that are put forward as ‘objections’ are not allowed to be considered, no wonder people who have engaged in the Planning process leave feeling that the system is stacked against them; it is!

Get building on high grade agricultural land

But I suppose what really put me off Planning was the decision to build the massive urban extension to the east of Maghull; building that is ongoing now. Back in the late 1990’s I led what turned out to be a successful campaign to stop building on the very same piece of land. My motivation was very much that the fields in question were pretty much made up of the highest grades of agricultural land that has long grown the food that we eat. It made no sense to me at all to even consider such land for building purposes. Sadly, some 10 years later the very same land was put forward for house building again (some 1600 and counting houses) and absolutely no allowance for the high grade agricultural land was given at all!

The UK is hardly food self-sufficient, in fact it’s very far from it, yet we build on high grade agricultural land without a care in the world. What kind of planning, with a small p, is that? Depriving ourselves and future generations of excellent food producing land is complete and utter madness! So my involvement with Planning has left me feeling the system is stacked against our better interests because, to me, it obviously is.

Planning should never should be considered in isolation because it not only affects house building but also, industrial uses, our environment, health facilities (they rarely, if ever, expand to meet new housing developments) education (as in school places) and transportation (because we keep building car-dependent developments). And for the sake of clarity I’m not one to decry all house building, indeed I’ve long tried to champion the building of social housing because, in my view, the lack of it is at the very heart of our present housing crisis.

A political punishment?

And to close this little rant what I think is an amusing aside. I could never quite get my head around why a small but significant group of councillors, across all political groups, actually wanted to be on a Planning Committee. Let’s say it was 20% of councillors, whilst the other 80% would not go anyway near it (with or without a barge pole) and considered it a political punishment if they were placed on it!

The Maghull East Urban Extension as building work commenced

 

 

The NHS Walk-In Centre Maghull Doesn’t Have

Although retired from active politics these days I did notice some social media comments about the lack of an NHS Walk-In Centre in the town during the recent local elections and thought I’d put together a bit of a potted history of the matter.

Maghull Health Centre in 2019

Back in my time as a local Sefton Councillor (1999 - 2015) and indeed as Leader of the Council (2004 – 2011) considerable efforts were made to try to resolve this problem, not least by my then Council colleague Geoff Howe.

When the concept of NHS Walk-In Centres was established it didn’t take long for the former Litherland Town Hall to be identified for such a Centre and as we all know it’s been there for maybe 20 years now. At the time, an obvious concern was that the public transport links to the Centre, particularly from the East Parishes part of Sefton Borough (Lydiate, Maghull, Aintree & Melling) were, at best, poor. On that basis I made clear that whilst supporting the Litherland Centre I wanted to put on record the need for a similar type facility in Maghull. This would be most likely be achieved by the rebuilding of Maghull Health Centre.

Maghull Health Centre had been constructed around the early 1970’sfollowing the considerable efforts and campaigning of a Maghull-based GP, Dr. Reg Yorke. It’s still, in 2026, very much as it was built at least on the outside, although refurbished a few times inside. The point being that the population in the East Parishes has continued to rise whilst the Health Centre has not moved much with the times so to speak.

The pressure to rebuild this Health Centre has therefore always been there for at least the past 25 years yet all that pressure has failed to produce results. It’s as though it has never been a top priority for NHS planners and even if it was the money has not been there to actually make it happen.

I recall, it must have been around 2010ish, that after more pushing and shoving by Cllr. Geoff Howe and others I got a phone call pretty much out of the blue from a senior officer on Sefton Council who told me that he was now sure the NHS was going to take the project forward. I was utterly delighted but sadly soon very disappointed, frustrated and even being blamed for saying publicly that the battle had been won when in fact the NHS had not pressed the start button or they’d had second thoughts very soon after doing so. I never really got to the bottom of why Sefton Council had been told the project was finally a runner when it wasn’t.

Around a similar time period (2008 – 2010) two other significant building projects were being taken forward in both Maghull and Lydiate. We’d won a very long-running campaign to get a swimming pool/leisure centre built in the area by Sefton Council and it’s presently thriving on KGV Park. However, it’s not as originally conceived. Yes, there was always going to be a gym & swimming pool, but the plans did not include the moving of Maghull Library into it. That only came about because the NHS pulled out of the original scoping for the building. It was to have had an NHS facility within it probably associated with GP’s based there being able to prescribe, where appropriate, fitness classes (swimming and gym) for patients in the very same building. An innovative idea which the likes of Cllr. Geoff Howe and I were only to willing to back but sadly the NHS pulled out. The space that was originally pencilled in for the NHS became available around the very time a condition survey had all but condemned the old Maghull Library building. The rest, as they say, is history.

Along side the Leisure Centre project but quite separate to it Lydiate Parish Council was planning and indeed building its ‘Village Centre’ facility in Lambshear Lane. The then Chairperson of the Council, Dave Russell, was very keen to try to draw the NHS in so that they could deliver some health services from the building. Talks took place but sadly the NHS was unable to take up the offer of the building being partly constructed with them in mind. Yet another lost health opportunity in Lydiate and Maghull.

Personally, I found it hard to build a meaningful relationships with NHS health planners not least due to the ever changing methods of doing business caused by regular reorganisations. Not only that people seemed to move jobs by the minute, a bit like the Police so you had to keep starting all over again.*

It’s all rather a depressing story health-wise from my active campaigning days, although I do realise that others will have been trying to reactivate the NHS Drop-In/Rebuild of Maghull Health Centre project since the likes of Geoff Howe, Dave Russell and I ceased to be local councillors

* It’s worth bearing in mind that at a national and local level we’ve been through quite a number of NHS reorganisations in recent times. Locally, we gained two Primary Care Trusts in Sefton Borough (North & South), then they were merged after a few years into one Sefton Primary care Trust, then we went on to Clinical Commissioning Groups, and well you get my drift…...

 

Just 13% of those voting put an X in the Tory box in Aughton!

I made mention before the English local elections of a reasonably well to do community on my doorstep – Aughton, West Lancashire. To me that community has always been Conservative, at least that is until quite recent times. Indeed, I was once told of a tongue in cheek-type remark along the lines of ‘you used to have to show your Conservative membership card to buy a house there’.

Aughton Landscape

 

You see, I cycle a lot around Aughton and have done so for maybe the past 15 years. When you cycle you notice things. The lack of Conservative posters and stake boards has been an obvious one. I only saw one house with a Tory stake board in this May’s elections.

What I also noticed, in the last election when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader (2019), was Labour posters on expensive Aughton properties. That would just not have ben allowed when Aughton was true blue. But this year I didn’t spot any Labour posters.*

Back in the 1990’s, when I was a Maghull Town Councillor, I went to a Parish Councils conference in London organised by the National Association of Local Councils (NALC). It seemed to be dominated by Conservatives from the Shires and not really the place for a leftie Liberal like me. But what I recall most about it was actually the train ride home where I found myself sitting by what turned out to be a lady who told me she was a Conservative Councillor on West Lancs Council and an Independent member of Aughton Parish Council. That combination of being party political on one council whilst being independent on another, for the same community, struck me as most odd. She was a nice lady but every inch a Conservative and, of course, I expected nothing less from an Aughton councillor. That was around 30 years ago, for context.

Today, I looked at the election result for the ward that covers Aughton Civil Parish and what seems to be the Holborn area of Ormskirk. The Conservative candidate received just 13% of the votes cast and came 4^th! The winning candidate was from the ‘Our West Lancashire Party’ with 39% of the votes cast.

Would the last Conservative in Aughton please turn out the lights comes to mind, but seriously, this shows how fundamentally our politics has changed even in wealthy communities that were once rock solid Conservative.

The headlines from this May’s English local elections have pretty much all been about the hammering that our governing Labour Party suffered and it was of catastrophic proportions, but the losses the once formidable Conservative Party also suffered are of great significance too.

* I obviously don’t cycle every road in Aughton so I may have missed some political posters, I might add.

 

A brush with a Brian Rix-type farce

I use eBay quite a lot and rarely have any issues with it, but I have to relate this, with hindsight, quite ridiculous story. I know some folks really despise eBay but I’ve never fathomed why.

 

A few weeks back I ordered a set of 10 small modelling paint brushes, but only one of the set arrived through my letter box a few days later. I contacted the seller to tell them what had happened and that the packaging was intact so the other 9 brushes could not have fallen out. I even told them which of the individually numbered brushes I actually received. Of course, I asked them to send me the other 9 brushes.

The response was simply that what was dispatched to me was what I ordered. I pointed out in return that what I ordered was 10 paint brushes but only one had arrived. I got no further response.

So what next? A grumble to eBay which a few days later ended up with them telling me that the seller had informed them that I’d got what I ordered so no refund was due to me.

I appealed, pointing out, again, that I only received 1 of the 10 paint brushes, that I didn’t want a refund, I just wanted the seller to send me the other 9.

eBay then came back to me saying I was due a refund (what I’d specifically NOT asked for) and that I’d soon get a pre-paid return address label to send the one paint brush I actually held back! By my calculations I then had no paint brushes at all!

The label arrived and the single brush was despatched back to the seller. But why did the seller want a single brush back, when they could have spent the postage sending me the other 9 brushes? It’s been a brush with a mad, mad world, but at least I got a refund for the 10 paint brushes that I've now had to order from another eBay seller..

*****

For the youngsters amongst you Brian Rix was an actor-manager, who produced a record-breaking sequence of long-running farces on the London stage. I think he’d be proud of my little farce.

 

Why trams won’t be appearing in Liverpool

No, don’t worry, this is not another rehearsal of why ‘Merseytram’ failed back in the early 2000’s. That one has done the rounds probably too many times!

 

Back when the Tories were in power (pre June 2024) they allocated money to Liverpool City Region for transport infrastructure improvements and Labour has, in effect, confirmed that chunk of money. As any Merseysider will know the money is in significant part to pay for buses dressed up as trams and they’ll be running, we’re told, to Liverpool (John Lennon) Airport. Readers with longer memories will recall the first ‘Merseytram’ line was NOT going to go to Liverpool Airport and that caused quite a stink back then. So the City Region leaders knew what would happen if they talked about any new transport infrastructure without making an airport link, from the city centre, a priority.

Bendy-Buses!

Why not resurrect the tram scheme and build the first line to……. well you know where? Well, what they actually came up with were ‘Bendy-Buses/Boris-type Buses/Gliders’ (there may well be more names for them but I’ll omit the rude ones), in effect buses dressed up as trams and it seems our Labour gov’ confirmed the money could be spent on them. So, I guess, we’ll be getting them at some point.

Tram Raid

But why no trams? I’d always thought that the Tory and now Labour governments would be reluctant to fund trams in Liverpool/Merseyside due to cost and maybe the political hang-over from the ‘Merseytram’ demise. I had no evidence of this but felt that was the situation. Then Private Eye No.1672 (3^rd to 16^th April) dropped through my letter box and bingo on page 17 under its ‘Signal Failures’ column my thoughts were effectively confirmed under the heading ‘Tram Raid’.

West Yorks shunted back into sidings

Yes, that article is actually all about the farce over in West Yorkshire where their long promised tram/light rail system has been given more green then red lights than you could shake a stick at. And yes, of course, it’s been kicked back into the long political grass once again. But it’s the reason why it’s been kicked into the long grass that links to Liverpool City Region not proposing a tram system. You see it’s the words ‘might not be trams after all’ and ‘check whether [wait for it] buses would be more viable’ in that Private Eye article that made the penny drop for me. In essence Liverpool City Region was almost certainly told, by the last Tory government, don’t ask for a tram system as we won’t fund it and despite Labour coming to power in June 2024 the ‘advice’ has still been the same.

No Merseytram II

So now I think we know why Liverpool City Region leaders put in a transport bid for bendy-buses when, like West Yorks, local folk were fully expecting Merseytram II to be proposed by our local leaders. They didn’t bid for what they knew we all wanted/needed on Merseyside because they’d been told not to bother and they didn’t want to end up in the eternal shall we/shan’t we position that poor old West Yorks is in! Pragmatic, you could say, but my feeling is that settling for 3^rd best in a contest where trams were both number 1 and 2 could well come back to haunt Liverpool/Merseyside Labour leaders.

                                             What Liverpool won't be getting - 

A Geater Manchester Metro tram in Rochdale

 

 

Why are Lycra* wearing cyclists so upsetting?

Being a lefty Liberal, an atheist, a cyclist and a railway enthusiast means I understand what it’s like to be in a minority. I’ve never wanted to follow any crowd (Andy Burnham’s a crowd follower to me), to fit in, to keep up with the Jones’s etc. etc.

 

 

So what’s this odd rant all about then? Well, whilst I’m pretty much opposed to banning many things (because we Liberal’s don’t really do that sort of thing) I’m starting to worry about those who seem to get quite upset over cyclists wearing Lycra. When throwing insults at cyclists, usually on Facebook, keyboard warriors feel the need to do so by referencing what some in the cycling fraternity wear i.e. Lycra-type clothes.

Whilst not being a Lycra wearer when cycling I do see other cyclists with such get-ups on and yes older men, with a beer belly, can look, how should I say, interesting! But why does this bother many non-cycling people to the point where they feel the need to say ‘Lycra wearing cyclists’ as though what others wear is anything they need to be concerned about? Would it maybe help those who find cyclists wearing this type of garment upsetting if they averted their gaze?

But is it actually the type of material used to make cycling garments that those opposed to it are really upset about? Could it be that, in reality, they just dislike cyclists wearing bright colours? I wear bright colours when cycling so that I’m more easily seen by vehicle drivers; so it’s a safety thing to me. However, I once had a conversation with someone who disliked cycling who told me that cyclists wearing ordinary clothes are OK, or words to that effect. This may, in a non-scientific way, back up my mad theory that it’s the bright colours not the Lycra which some non-cyclists find upsetting.

 

Taking this theme a bit further, my observations tell me that cyclists not wearing bright clothing (usually black/dark clothes) are more likely to cycle on pavements. Now, don’t get me started about cycling on pavements! I view it as I do parking vehicles on pavements i.e. it gets me as irrational as folks who’re upset over ‘Lycra wearing cyclists’.

So why this rant now? Well, across the country councils are installing many new cycling paths and there’s nothing which seems to annoy folks more than improved cycling facilities on our highways. ‘Waste of money’, ‘no one will use them’, ‘use the money to fix pot-holes instead’, ‘I’ve only ever seen one cyclist using that new cycle path’ etc. etc. Oh, and yes, the anti-cycling rants often reference ‘Lycra wearing cyclists, or in the case of new cycling infrastructure the perceived lack of them.

Now, of course, all the money being spent (it’s actually not much in the great scheme of things) is an investment in the future. Many people who don’t cycle would do if they felt safer, so build safer cycling facilities on our highways and the theory is that the trend will turn from from petrol-heading to cycling, at least for shorter journeys. There’s not going to be a massive rush to get a pushbike, for every few hundred yards of new cycle path constructed. That won’t happen until we achieve a significantly improved safer cycling network across the country.

 

 

And yes, of course, some folks will always oppose cycling possibly on the basis that they don’t/won’t do it and for the life of them can’t see why anyone else could or would. Oh, and one final thing – as I often say, bad drivers make bad cyclists and bad cyclists make……… you get my drift I’m sure.

All driving age cyclists I know carry insurance and they’re also vehicle drivers, in case you may be wondering

*Lycra is a premier brand of spandex or elastane fiber known for exceptional stretch, recovery, and durability. As a synthetic polyether-polyurea copolymer, it is used extensively in activewear, swimwear, dancewear, and compression garments to provide a close fit, comfort, and freedom of movement. 

 

Carney seems to be everything Starmer is not

When you watch and listen to Canadian Prime Minister, now effectively leader of the West, Mark Carney you can’t but think that this guy knows what he’s doing, why he’s doing it and that he explains things well.

Carney comes across as confident and that he’s someone you can trust to get difficult jobs done. Let’s face it Canada is suffering the effects of Trumpism like no other country*, but instead of allowing themselves to be bullied Canadians, led by Carney, are digging in and fighting Trump every inch of the way, so it seems.

The UK meanwhile suffers from a significant lack of confidence in the government of Kier Starmer. Elected in June 2024, it seems to sway from one crisis to another, with U-turns in policy becoming commonplace. Attempts to creep around Trump have been excruciating at best and Brits really don’t know what Starmer’s plan is, because he’s never outlined one and may not even have one.

Carney and Starmer are chalk and cheese politically, despite both of them probably being decent human beings trying to do extremely difficult jobs.

So why are the two of them viewed so very differently? Carney, whilst being an economist running the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, has clearly got how politics works, probably because he’d done business with so many leading politicians in his previous life. Starmer, on the other hand, was effectively plucked from his legal background, without those promoting him, seemingly realising that he was significantly lacking in political acumen and goodness has that been exposed. Starmer has had to learn on the job how to be a PM and a party political leader and unsurprisingly he’s made many a misstep along the way. Canadian voters respect and trust Carney, UK voters are despairing about Starmer’s faltering leadership.

Will Canadian voters turn against Carney at some point? Probably they will, but at least he hit the ground running in a clear direction and has been able to take Canadians along with him. Starmer on the other hand looks to be lost and unable to take his own party along him, let alone UK voters.

Politics is brutal and Starmer is in a terrible bind. He can probably do nothing about his plight and can hope that ‘events dear boy, events’** turn in his favour.

* Mexico may be another

** PM Harold Macmillan supposedly said this and it’s oft quoted, but I understand there’s little to actually pin it down to him in terms of evidence.

 

On the passing of Jesse Jackson

You couldn’t have lived through the 1970’s and 1980’s without hearing of Jesse Jackson, the larger than life civil rights campaigner from the USA.

I have two distinct memories of him. The first being from the excellent Wattstax concert in Los Angeles of 1972 and second of seeing him at Liverpool University’s Mountford Hall in December 2008.

Being an avid Isaac Hayes fan I have a CD of his performance at Wattsax where Jesse Jackson was the MC introducing Hayes and getting the packed crowd at the Los Angeles Coliseum hyped up. The day-long concert featured virtually every artist signed up to Stax, and it was a positive reaction to the civil rights riots of 7 years prior in the Watts community. You could call it a black Woodstock. Of course, Stax also realised it would be a great showcase for those on its books, so good business as well as good social perspective.

Here’s a link to YouTube where Jesse Jackson winds up the crowd and the entrance of Hayes to the Coliseum stage:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiO3Bg2Dw6M&list=RDWiO3Bg2Dw6M&start_radio=1

Many years later, during my time as Leader of Sefton Council, I received an invitation to see Jackson in Liverpool. As it was Capital of Culture year for Liverpool it was probably why he was visiting. I still have my ticket and here it is:-

 

My recollection is that Jackson made a great characteristic speech and it was a privilege to be there listening. What I also recall though was his entourage of quite a number of formidable gentlemen, with whom you would not mess, who were clearly there to keep him safe.

So one of the most prominent civil rights campaigners has passed on and in his case I’m quite sure we’ll never see his like again. RIP Jesse Jackson.

 

Railway Liveries - Some good, some not so

To a rail enthusiast like me this is an important matter, to everyone else maybe not, but here goes anyway.

A Class 777 EMU in Merseyrail livery

 

On balance I don’t like the Merseyrail livery on their new(ish) and sadly rather unreliable Class 777 EMU’s. I feel that an opportunity was lost and at little extra cost batches of these new trains could have been vinyl wrapped in the various previous iterations of former BR and Mersey Railway trains of the now Merseyrail Network. Having them all look the same, well, it’s boring and unimaginative.

The draft GBR livery

 

So, what about the proposed Great British Railways draft livery? Well, it seems to have gone down badly. Yes, it’s striking but is it a good livery? Probably not. It’s clearly based on a stylised Union flag, although whether that’s intended to be a nationalistic nod to the current fashion of roundabout painting is not clear.

Apart from British Airways using a different 1980’s stylised version of the Union flag on their planes, much to the disgust of former PM Thatcher (who famously covered up a BA model plane tail fin with her handkerchief) I’d say that jingoist liveries are actually rather un-British.

If I had to point to a rail liveries I do like then Trans Pennine Express, LNER and ScotRail come to mind:-

Trans Pennine Express at Berwick-on-Tweed

 

ScotRail & LNER together at Edinburgh Waverley

 

As I said at the start of this ramble through modern-day railway liveries this subject may be what amounts to a nerdy matter to many folk who just want our rather unreliable railways to run on time without the oh so expected cancellations. I too want reliable trains but I want them to look well too. 

With regard to Merseyrail there was a clear opportunity to celebrate the railways and their liveries that came before the present Merseyrail Class 777's so, as a heritage inclined person, I really do point to a missed opportunity.

 

Robbie Fenton RIP – A great former local councillor

 

 

My friend Robbie Fenton died last Saturday, she was 84 and had been in poor health for quite a long time. She passed away in Lakeside Care Home in Southport where I visited her in her final weeks. I must say that the care home staff were really great, welcoming and caring during my visits.

Robbie was born in Maghull (on Northway, if I recall correctly), went to Ormonde High Secondary Modern School (now Maghull High) from the day it opened (September 1954) and lived for all the years I knew her on Haigh Crescent in neighbouring Lydiate. She participated in the formal opening ceremony of Ormonde High a year later in 1955 and a while back showed me the pamphlet produced about that notable event.

Whilst she was well, helping others was in Robbie’s blood so it’s no surprise that she spent many years on our local councils – Maghull Town Council, Lydiate Parish Council (both with her husband Tony who died a couple of years ago) and Sefton Borough Council – Park Ward (1997 – 2012).

What I noticed most about Robbie in her council days was how she’d be like a terrier trying to resolve problems brought to her attention. She wasn’t one for writing letters or sending emails but wanted to speak to people and council officials directly on the phone. She was persistent too, yet the council officers she pushed along seemed to like her, as did the residents she tried to help.

 

She campaigned for an improved health centre in Maghull; sadly a campaign that is still to be won. She battled to try to stop the closure of Lydiate Ambulance Station and of course she tried to defend the Green Belt around Maghull & Lydiate, but it was the small everyday matters that were Robbie’s bread and butter – pot holes, overgrown trees, uncut grass, litter etc. where her terrier-like approach usually got the job done.

 

I’ll miss my chats with Robbie. In her latter years I would stop and talk to her a couple of times each week whilst on my daily cycle rides. She would always ask after other folk whom we both knew and she clearly worried about those in poor health or difficult circumstances.

 

What if I’d turned out a Reform supporter?!

I was born in a coal mining town in Nottinghamshire which now has a Reform MP. Could I have ended up being of the far right as opposed to being the Social Liberal of the left that I am, if I’d stayed in the town of my birth?

What factors come in to play in shaping our societal/political views? If I’d stayed in Kirkby-In-Ashfield instead of leaving it aged six, due to my Dad’s job, what different influences would I have been exposed to than those I have been on Merseyside, where I’ve lived since the age of 10?

Obviously, family influence will always be a significant factor in political leanings, religious affiliations and sporting club support for many folk of my and indeed previous generations. Having said that, all 3 may well now be becoming a thing of the past for younger generations.

I do very much follow my family’s sporting support being a Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club fanatic, with a football following for Mansfield Town and Nottingham Forest. However, I have rejected my family’s Church of England religion and am an atheist. With regard to politics, my family was a mixture of Conservatives and right-wing working-class Labour supporters whilst, of course, I opted for both trade unionism and Liberalism. The caveat here is that I’m pretty sure my Mum was akin to a Chapel Liberal, although she rarely spoke about politics. My Dad’s parents were solid working-class, council house dwelling, Tories with Grandad being a regular at the local Conservative Club. Grandma was stridently anti-Catholic and antisemitic. Politics on my Mum’s side of the family is something I know nothing of at all.

Away from family our friends can, of course, influence us too. In my case there’s no doubt that my old friend Andrew Beattie, who died in 1999, was a very significant influence on me. Andrew was a free thinker from an early age. I got to know him when we were both 11 and at school together. We discussed music, politics and religion; Andrew had little to no interest in sport. He was from a strongish Labour background and like me a Church of England family affiliation. One of our class friends Russell was a coloured lad and I can’t recall anything being said of a racist nature about him. Andrew rejected religion as a young teenager, whereas I was probably still following it until around 4 years later when I was 17ish. The 1979 General Election and the lead up to it was of great interest to us both and to settle where we stood politically we decided to read the manifestos of the 3 major parties. That led us to conclude that we were actually Liberals and we both joined the old Liberal Party in 1980. So without doubt Andrew was a very significant influence upon me.

Another influence on me was becoming a lifelong trade unionist from 1975. I joined the union on starting work in the civil service, pretty much as all my work colleagues did. There was no closed shop but union membership in Inland Revenue offices across the country back then would be in the high 90%’s everywhere. Not only that senior managers encouraged everyone to join the Inland Revenue Staff Federation (IRSF). I went to union meetings, found them interesting and around the time I decided I was a Liberal I also became active in my union. I was an Office Secretary (shop steward), branch committee member and then spent 22 years as a Branch Secretary, also doing odd bits and bobs for the union at a regional level too. The union itself morphed into PTC and then into PCS as it is today. I learned a lot as a trade union activist, not least how to negotiate, how to respect the views of others and how to keep calm under pressure; skills I found very useful as I climbed the political ladder.

Despite my Grandma’s anti-Catholic/anti-Semitic prejudices (which my Dad held too) religious divides were something I knew little of until I started work in Bootle on Merseyside. Two things happened which are still like memories of yesterday, although both took place in the mid-1970’s. Firstly, next to the building I worked in was an Orange Lodge Hall. It did cheap lunches and was a regular hang out for some of the civil servants I worked with. On being taken there for the first time I saw a dart board with a picture of the then Pope on it and blurted out my surprise only to be told to shut up, with an explanation after we’d left. I was in a place where practising Catholic colleagues did not tread and stupid remarks about the dart board picture weren’t made! The second event was related to the first as one day I turned up for work to be met by a huge number of people lined up in the road playing drums, whistles etc. On walking into work and asking, quite innocently, what was going on outside I was viewed as being most odd because I had no idea. Explanations flowed from my colleagues both from a Catholic and Protestant perspective. I’d seen nothing of Orange Lodges in my years living in Kirkby, Rochdale and Maghull even though Maghull was only half a dozen miles from Bootle. I soon learned about deep religious prejudices, how cross-religious marriages were much disapproved of and how religion divided the City of Liverpool with it’s two major football clubs having their origins in religion too. Quite a learning curve indeed for a late teenager.

The other big influence on me was working, on a part-time basis, with people who had disabilities from my teens into my 30’s. I worked at The Maghull Homes (a transitioning epileptic colony) which is now the Parkhaven Trust. I met many residents who suffered from epilepsy and who often had other disabilities too and many of them became my friends. You can’t be around people with disabilities without it giving you a whole new perspective on life and that experience making you think how lucky you are. It’s an experience all young people would benefit from in my view.

As a political aside I got talking to a chap called Phil, whom Andrew and I went to school with, about a year ago and he told me about a female history teacher at our school who was active in the old Liberal Party and that he’d talked to her quite a bit about politics. I have no recollection of this Liberal inclined teacher but she certainly had an influence on Phil who dabbled in Liberal politics too in the late 1980’s.

So yes, I was subject to influences on Merseyside that I would probably never have encountered back in Kirkby, although goodness knows what influences I missed out on too. My theory is that certainly back in the 1960’s Kirkby was still a pretty insular mining town, as many mining areas were back in the day, whereas Liverpool back then was a seaport with world-wide influences. I moved from insular to world-wide without really noticing it until later I guess.

Obviously, I could still have gravitated to the political left and indeed have become a free thinking Liberal back in Kirkby but my feeling is this would have been more unlikely than likely. But, if Ed Davey could come from a similar East Midlands community just down the road from where I was born then anything is possible I suppose.

To conclude I grew up from the age of 10 rejecting religion, embracing people of colour and those with disabilities and steering very much to the left of politics. Indeed, I feel that whilst it is often said that people get more right wing the older they get, pretty much the opposite has happened to me. My only nod to what may be considered the political right is that I’m big on law and order in our society.

What would be interesting for me would be to sit down with Kirkby-In-Ashfield people born in 1958 to understand the influences they encountered particularly in the areas of religion, racial prejudice and politics.

Oh and yes, I do have a couple of irrational prejudices, a deep dislike of Yorkshire County Cricket Club (I think Geoff Boycott is responsible for that – well he did run out my Notts & England cricketing hero Derek Randall) and I really don’t care for tattoos (no idea where that one came from). And one big regret, whatever happened to all those cooperative shops that were once everywhere in the East Midlands and which were created by the Rochdale Pioneers, a town I lived in for 4 years in the 1960’s? So my positive prejudice is wanting to see a significant rise in cooperative businesses, but maybe that’s just my Liberal prejudice shining through?

 

OK, I admit it, I’m a big fan of Alfred Waterhouse buildings

I think the first of his buildings to really catch my eye was Liverpool University’s Victoria Building atop Brownlow Hill. The brick/stone & terracotta work on the outside is quite beautiful and the tiles inside are to die for.

 

Victoria Building Clock Tower, Liverpool

 

 

 

Inside the Victoria Building

This started me looking out for Alfred's buildings and two obvious ones, in Liverpool city centre, are the North Western Hotel adjacent to Lime Street Station and the Prudential Building in Dale Street. 

North Western Hotel, Liverpool

 

If you look you’ll see a number of Prudential buildings across the country where Waterhouse, or indeed his son, were the architect. The one in Nottingham springs to mind as it also has a statue of Brian Clough very close to it. 

Prudential Building Nottingham with Brian Clough Statue

Another is in Newcastle, where part of it is now Portofino Italian Restaurant. Well, I had to have a meal there on a recent visit to the North East. Great Italian food surrounded by Waterhouse tiled walls, what more could I ask for. 

Insdide Portofino Newcastle

 

The Portofino web site says ‘Set in a magnificent Victorian Grade II listed building, a fittingly opulent setting’ and ‘The building is grade II listed and was built in 1891. It was one of 27 branches of Prudential Assurance Company, all of which were designed by prolific 19th century architect Alfred Waterhouse. Alfred Waterhouse also designed the Natural History Museum in London and many other government, educational and commercial buildings, across the UK. The interior is lined with fainece tiles, which were produced by old firm "Burmantoffs Pottery" from Leeds.’

Prudential Building Newcastle

 

Born (1830) and raised in Aigburth, Liverpool Waterhouse set up his first architectural practice in Manchester and then, as his fame spread, in London where, of course, his quite wonderful Natural History Museum may well be his crowning or, at least, his most well known glory.

 

Natural History Museum, London

Whilst he did not design the cathedral-type Rochdale Town Hall, when the clock tower burnt down he designed the replacement tower. This is an utterly magnificent building even though Alfred only had a later hand in it. What’s more it’s recently been carefully restored and is on my bucket list to visit, even though I’ve been in it a number of times prior to it being restored; indeed I took my Cycling Proficiency Test there in the mid 1960’s.

The Clock Tower of Rochdale Town Hall

 

Waterhouse and his son designed a great many buildings all over the country and we’ve all probably laid eyes on quite a few of them possibly without realising it.  

Wigan is another town where his works can be found and here’s an interesting YouTube video where Sean Jinks gives a talk, in Wigan, about their Waterhouse buildings and some of them in Liverpool, Manchester and London. It's a long video but if you're interested in architecture it will, I'm sure, be of interest:-

Sean Jinks talks Waterhouse -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp6V93fwJ6Q&t=5005s

I was prompted to write this blog posting following my reading a recent article in Liverpool’s rather excellent on-line newspaper ‘The Post’ and because of my recent visit to Portofino Newcastle. 

Here’s a link to 'The Post' website – It’s a subscription news outlet I might add but with some articles being accessible without subscription. If you live on/are interested in Merseyside subscribing to it is, in my humble opinion, very worthwhile indeed - https://www.livpost.co.uk/