News from the humanitarian front line in Ukraine

I was honoured recently to be asked to become the patron of Casus Pax a Liverpool based ‘not for profit’ company, based in Liverpool, that is playing an important role in delivering humanitarian medical aid to the population of Ukraine. They are only small, but Adam and Holly are making a huge difference and often represent the whole of the NGO sector working in some parts of Ukraine on key aid issues.

Please put a date in your diary if you want to hear first hand accounts of what is happening there, what is happening to Ukrainians living her and what we can do to help. With the kind permission of Cllr Liam Robinson, the Leader of the Council, there will be an event in the Council Chamber of Liverpool Town Hall on 23^rd May at 7 p.m. This will feature films from the front line, an exhibition of photographs and the opportunity to contribute directly to assist with the purchase of an ambulance as the Russians keep shooting up the ones

Adam and Holly have recently returned from the front line and have sent me this update which I am proud to be able to share with you.

“We have returned from our most recent aid delivery. It was a complete success albeit against the clock. We will start populating the various social media platforms with content over the next few days as we now have a decent time delay.

The first phase of the run was the delivery of an ambulance and a large quantity of medical supplies to a front line search & rescue and paramedic crew in Pokrovsk, Donetsk. This is within Russian artillery range and although we had a remarkably clear run into the area this is not the norm and I am sadly quite sure that the supplies we delivered with the ambulance will be exhausted quite quickly. 

The Second phase saw us deliver another large quantity of medical supplies to the Ambulance service of Zaporizhzhia, the donation of a second ambulance – this time a smaller, casevac specific vehicle to the Zaporizhzhia Regional Police Paramedics, and the provision of Micro:bit equipment and other education supplies to the Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic University. 

• NPU Zaporizhzhia: The smaller ambulance is ideally suited for the high speed and high agility work which NPU paramedics are carrying out in Orikhiv, again sadly I believe the life expectancy of this vehicle to be measured in months rather than years. This delivery brings the number of ambulances we have provided to 7.
• NPU Zaporizhzhia: In a recent communication, through yourself, with Zoya from QS we established a roadmap for  conducting a multivariate analysis of the long-term mental health benefits and PTSD mitigation effects of a number of specific aid materials which we have been able to place with the NPU Paramedics in Zaporizhzhia. We were able to discuss this with the relevant senior leadership while in Zaporizhzhia and they both recognise the value of such a study and have shown genuine interest in co-operation and data sharing to this end. This is promising and I hope may guide broader humanitarian policies in the future.
• Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic University: The delivery of Micro:bit equipment was very well received. It was a resource which had been explicitly requested and has increased their education resources in this area by a factor of 5. This delivery was enabled by the BBC who are keen to follow up with data analysis to establish the feasibility of further support across Ukraine, an excellent result all round. We also took the opportunity to sign a mutual support declaration of co-operation with the University. This type of partnership is prized in Ukraine as a mark of trust and appreciation but also serves to facilitate easier communication and customs access. Such an agreement is fundamental with respect to rolling out more sophisticated academic outreach and education support this year.

In other news we have been asked to participate in an event at Imperial College London on 1st May which may be of interest to yourself, I am conscious of the late notice, but we were out of communications range when the finalised plans were coming together. I have attached a working copy of the flyer for the event.

I’m encouraged by this deployment. The logistics were particularly challenging, but I believe the results were profound and essential”.

Sincerely,

Adam

If you think that you can help Casus Pax in any way this is how to contact them:

Adam McQuire

Director – Casus Pax 

Studio N, 49 Jamaica Street, Liverpool, L1 0AH

Email: adam.mcquire@casuspax.org

Telephone: 07889605319

http://www.casuspax.org

SSE Energy Solutions – A joke of a company

Fancy pants graphics on the SSE Energy website but appalling service behind the scenes.

I am writing this whilst waiting for SSE Energy Solutions to respond to my phone call. As I start the blog I after 22 minutes I wonder how many more minutes it will be until they answer!

This is not the first time that I have had marathon phone calls. I have had 3 more in the past two weeks. Let me explain why I have to talk to them in the first place.

I have just taken over a new commercial premises. SSE Energy recognised that I had taken over and eventually after about 2 months sent the right documentation to open the account for gas and electricity. However, they appear to have lost the initial meter readings that I sent in so that they knew the amount of both invoices we would use. This was call one!

So, they sent me invoices for far more power than we could possibly have used. I rang up for an explanation and was partly mollified by SSE explaining that they add unpaid invoices to current invoices which is not at all clear on their invoices, but this still left the situation that I had used nothing like the power that they were suggesting. During the course of this conversation, it transpired that I should not be needing to provide reading at all because the electric meter is a smart meter, and they would work internally to change this. The gas meter is not but we use hardly any gas! This was call two.

BIG interruption. I spoke to an operator after 32 minutes

Then I had to take the meter readings and send them through. This took about two minutes when I could actually speak to some but 27 minutes to wait for the call the be picked up. This was call three

Then on Saturday I received two invoices and two final demands. The amounts on the final demand did not correspond to any of the amounts on the invoices. This it transpires because they were on an invoice for the first month after we moved in, but they had not actually sent me. There had been no attempt 12 days after I sent the meter readings that the invoices needed adjusting. So, the operator has now seen that I have sent the readings and tried to enter them but could not do so.

They are now recording the information in a ‘case file’ so that when I ring again (yes at least another 20+ minute call) everything will be clear to the person I talk to. Eventually we ended the call after one hour and five minutes with us being no further forward than that they will not come in and try and turn our power off.

It also transpires that the information that I was given last time was wrong. Neither the gas nor electric meter are smart ones so that they will need to be manually read until smart meters can be put in. It’s like trying to deal with Kafka on an off day!!

SSE will no doubt suggest that all this could have been done online. In future I will try and use the online route but before you can do this everything needs to be set up properly and that is what has taken so long. I first contacted SSE right at the start of January. On 22 April I still have not got an accurate invoice or a coherent explanation of what the hell is going on. This is call 4 and ended after one hour and ten minutes.

I am afraid that this charlatan approach to customer service is not the only one. My own council, Liverpool, has an appalling record for long waits and often cut-offs before someone gets connected. I spent a long time recently on two enquiries with my bank which I had been unable to resolve by electronic means. This apparently, was because some wrong information had been inputted at the bank end.

You might pick up from this that I am hacked off. You would be absolutely right! It seems to me that the only consideration that major companies have is to cut cost. This is good all round yet not good if the system that they establish just does not work effectively. My guesstimate is that I have spent more than a working day trying to sort this out and that their staff have spent at least half a day so far.

Of course, in the old days the utility companies would send round a meter reader to do the readings and sort out difficulties like this. I would have had to pay an extortionate amount for the meters to be professionally read and would not be able to know in advance when they would be coming to know that someone was there.

So how much has actually been saved by this new methodology? Three tenths of bugger all if you include the cost of my time and phone calls!!

Is it too much to ask that big companies spent a bit less on advertising how good they are and spent a bit more to ensure that the service that they provided was really good and fully responsive?

Care leavers and those in care must be at the heart of our work

I was a real privilege to chair a conference today which brought together almost 100 people with a passion for working with care leavers and assist them in creating good lives for themselves.

When the LAMIT Board, which I have the privilege of chairing, met in its annual strategy session two years ago we decided to use half of the dividend that we receive from our investments in CCLA to fund a social cause linked to the core work of councils whilst returning the other half to reduce the costs of running the fund and therefore improve the return on investment for our councils.

So, what should we do with that dividend? Well within five minutes we unanimously agreed that the priority would be improving the life of care leavers. Our board is composed of councillors from all Parties across the United Kingdom some of which, like district councils in England and councils in Northern Ireland do not have prime responsibility for care leavers but which nevertheless have a range of responsibilities under relevant Acts of Parliament. We also work with Town and Parish Councils many of which are also involved in a variety of ways in helping care leavers.

However, we all accepted both that we all have a moral responsibility for caring for these youngsters but also that there are things that all councils can do to help put our arms around them to help them have a better start in life.

Why do we think that this is such an important priority? Because those children coming through the system are amongst the most disadvantaged in the Country. Let us not overplay this. Many children go through the care system and come out strongly at the other end of the process. They have been fortunate to find good fosterers or have been adopted by people who give them the love and support that they need. But many are not that lucky. They go into a system which is segmented and in which there can be a failure of continuity.

I have been to see our Care Leavers Council in Liverpool and the money that is wasted in our so-called care system is almost criminal. So, let’s start with the criminal justice system. Too many care leavers end up in the criminal justice system moving from petty crime into harder crime and once in it is almost impossible to get out. In many places there is little, or nothing done to help transition from prison or young offenders institute into non institutional life. Within weeks or months many reoffend as they have been put, with little support, into appalling hostels that should be destroyed.

They then look for housing and what they get is often inadequate. Too many landlords are seeing care leavers and the care system more generally as a ready source of cash rather than a way to help those in most need.

We then often offer too little in the way of advice for finding training and support and even less emotional support for people who have already received far too little support as they move along the journey from childhood, through adolescence to adulthood.

As policy makers and supporters, we should be ashamed of what is happening. What we do is wasteful of money in that we do not provide the early support that would keep many more youngsters out of an expensive institutional life. But even more important than that it is wasteful of lives and potential. The youngsters I meet in Liverpool are not evil or stupid it’s just that we have never given them the right support to enable them to thrive and contribute back to the society which we all belong to.

Let me make clear that none of this should be seen as an attack on any of the people involved in trying to give support. Too often the cry goes up that its all the fault of lefty social workers or uncaring probation officers. In some cases that may be true but those who should take the most blame are people like me who have failed to make the case for a coherent, loving and properly funded joined up system in which they can work

To take things further LAMIT have committed £600,000 a year for three years plus running costs to this project whilst the United Kingdom Community Foundation has received support from17 of the regional community foundations to match that funding. It is essentially what I call a Grandma and Grandpa fund. It’s an ability for us to respond to the requests from kids who often have no mums and dads and therefore no Grandmas and Grandpas to respond to that regular request which starts with the grandchildren being extraordinarily well behaved and then you have them say your name with a particular tone of voice, “Graaandpaa”. To which the ritual response from Grandpas is to reach for our wallet. Grandmas are a bit harder!

Ben Robinson, the Deputy Chief Executive of the UK Community Foundation, gave details of this how this will work later but this was not easy. We have allowed the local community foundations to establish their own priorities and methodologies. This is not a sign of weakness but of strength. How can we sit in London and devise strategies which meet the needs of care leavers in hugely differing environments from rural Somerset to urban Liverpool.

But this relatively small fund is not enough. The second part of our programme then is to work in our localities to use the convening power of CCLA with its remit to and from churches, charities and local authorities to bring together or augment partnerships and practices. Over the course of three years, we will be hosting a range of local activities in the areas to which we have given funding to highlight not only the working of the fund and what we learn from it but also to bang the drum on behalf of these youngsters. The drum banging is designed both to improve the way that those organisations with responsibility work better together but also try and bring in extra resources to this field at a time when cash is tight.

The first of these sub regional events will take place in Liverpool in September and we are working with Somerset to hold a similar event in early 2025. CCLA will work with the local councils to convene the churches, charities, businesses, and local authorities in an area and then also organisations, usually public sector, who need to be convinced of the opportunities that come from cooperation.

We must all:

• Challenge what your organisation does to help care leavers in to good homes, good employment, and good training.
• Dive deep down the cushions of our metaphorical sofas and let us have some cash. Between CCLA and UKCF we can find good homes for the money not only in existing projects but also by extending the work to other areas.
• Ensure that your organisation either locally, nationally, or both is part of a network which will provide a continuum of care and support.

We must always ensure that the decisions and actions are co-produced with care leavers themselves.

I will be making an announcement in mid-May about a new programme in Liverpool in which LAMIT, the Lancashire and Merseyside Community Foundation will be working together on a three-year programme of work. In the meantime, I will be redoubling my efforts to try and ensure that these young people, who are often the most disadvantaged our country’s and city’s children get the fair chance in life that they deserve.

Looking on the Bright Side of Liverpool

One of the volunteer groups I visited recently is the Liverpool branch of the UK Ukraine Association. Here volunteers are working to help youngsters mostly displaced here by the war to continue to speak their lank and embrace the Ukraine culture.

One of the most difficult things about being is a councillor is that you are continually presented with a series of problems which need solving. Some of these are very personal, I’ve just received a letter from an elderly couple who have clearly been cheated by a rogue builder. Some of them are big scale like the problems of the thousands of people living in housing inside our city which is only damaging their health and their future prospects.

This can give you a real sense of despondency and perhaps makes us over estimate the depth of those problems and what we need to do about them. No-one puts a note through the door saying, “I want you to know I had a great day yesterday”, and no officer writes a report saying that all the issues in their area of expertise have either been resolved or are on the way to being resolved.

I know that Liverpool has many problems and that 60% of our population live in areas of deprivation. I do not want to minimise those problems. But as Deputy Lord Mayor for the past 11 months, I have become increasingly aware of the army of people and organisations that exist to tackle those problems head on and provide comfort to those that need it.

In and around my own ward I can think of three organisations that exist to further the common good. Penny Lane Wombles, and I am one of them, exists to keep our neighbourhood clean. There are many similar groups in the City. Allerton in Bloom maintain all the planters on Allerton Road, Rose Lane and Dovedale Road. The Friends of Harthill and Calderstones Park fought to keep the 13 acres of Park out of the hands of developers and have created a marvellous wild flower area in the old council depot. Strikingly most of the people who run and service these groups are women!

I have recently become an ‘ambassador’ for two groups in the city that are doing marvellous things. Casus Pax is a Liverpool based not for profit company which is a leading NGO bringing humanitarian aid to civilians in Ukraine. Started by two young post graduates it collects much needed medical supplies and gets those supplies to close proximity to the communities near the front line where the murderous activities of the Russian forces can create havoc.

I just love working with St Vincents School for the Visually Impaired. I go to see Dr John Patterson its irrepressible headteacher determined to only agree to do 3 things to help him and always come out with an armful of jobs!! To see the young people at that school develop lives of promise and hope in very difficult personal circumstances is hugely heartwarming.

Last night I attended a gala dinner of the Liverpool Lions where a former Labour Councillor, Ian Francis, is one of the key motivators. One of the tables was occupied by people from a home for those with learning difficulties. What a great time they had, and they were just one of the charities that the Lions help, and they gave me a cheque for the Lord Mayo’s charity fund which I will deposit with the Town Hall next week.

I believe that the role of the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, which I am due to become on May 15^th, is threefold. Firstly, to look at the problems and opportunities of the City and those that are beavering away either as volunteers or professionals to deal with those issues. Secondly, it is to thank those people. Too often we take people for granted and do not thank them for the many hours of dedicated support that they provide. Lastly, it is to help them raise money for the things they do. Volunteer and charity organisations cannot replace the funding that is provided, or should be provided, by a resourced state machinery and proper taxation. However, they can add to the provision and provide extra support for the most hard-pressed people and the communities in which they live.

Already my diary is beginning to fill up with organisations who want me to share their work and talk to both their volunteers and the people they exist to help. I will be out with groups who help people recovering from breast cancer, for those who look after children who are neurologically disadvantaged. I will meet organisations supported by the Council such as the care leavers council and a college for those with learning difficulties. I will be going out to see the wonderful work being done by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in brining music to schools in North Liverpool and going with them to some of the health settings where music is used to assist with the wellbeing and improve the recovery times of patients.

One of the key things that always strikes me about those who volunteer is their energy and vigour and the fact that they get so much out of the volunteering experience. It gives them an aim in life outside the day-to-day. It gives them satisfaction in seeing being benefitting from their efforts. It gives them a new network of friends and acquaintances who they see outside their normal volunteering role.

I hope that in my year as Lord Mayor I will be able to meet many more wonderful organisations and publicise their work. At each council I intend to bring three ‘good news’ stories to enable the council to know a some of the good things that they themselves do not have time to think about. These won’t be the big stories such as the naming of the new liner or the D Day commemorations but the small organisations with their innumerable acts of kindness which make a city a better place to live.

If you want to volunteer to do things in your community or in the city as  whole just google the issues or the area that you are most interested in and you will find a wealth of information which will enable you to leap into action.

Around the World – without leaving Liverpool!!

Last night I had a great time at the Shah Jalal Mosque in Granby at an event arranged by Cllr Hasan. It drove home to me just how many people from different backgrounds make up the wonderful city of Liverpool.

It is some time since I ventured forth to put some ideas and that is because I have been travelling the world enjoying different music, languages, food, and drinks. The best bit of all this was I have been able to do so without once leaving the great City of Liverpool which is a melting pot for some many cultures, faiths, and nationalities. Ove the past three weeks I have met the Ukrainian, Polish, Irish, and Romanian communities topped off last night with an event at the Shah Jalal Mosque with many representatives of communities from throughout the Muslim world but especially from Bangladesh and Yemen.

I have also taken part in an Italian food evening. Food does seem to be a key way in which immigrant communities integrate into a host community. My wife Erica’s grandparent walked from Italy in the 1920s and set up a shop making ice cream. Many of the people present in the Mosque last night owned ‘Indian’ takeaways or restaurants. If the food I was given last is representative of that which is served generally I intend to undertake a tour of them all in the city after I have been Lord Mayor.

One of the reasons that I love Liverpool is this wonderful mixture of people from all over the world. There are significant numbers in the wider Liverpool City Region from 110 different nations. We can truly claim to be, “the world in one city.”

I was particularly heartened last night by the comment that was made to me repeatedly that the people of Liverpool are overwhelmingly friendly and accepting of people from different faiths and cultures. This was not only a theme from last night but one that was repeated to me in all the national gatherings that I have attended recently. I am not surprised at this because, after all, Liverpool is a city that is founded on immigration.

The first large group of immigrants was from the Irish community. Many of them came because of the Potato famines more than 200 years ago but there was already a sizeable community here. Even today more than 50,000 people who live in the city alone can trace back through time their Irish ancestry. I am trying to get the Irish Consulate, based regrettably in Manchester, to hold their annual St Patrick’s day event here in Liverpool as testament to that fact.

As with many of the immigrant communities many of them hoped to move on or move back but they were unable to do so. The reason that the East Coast of the USA has so many big American/Irish communities is because they arrived there from Liverpool. More wanted to go but died from weakness before they could. I often pause at the Plaque which commemorates this sad fact which you may have seen in the bombed-out church in Hardman Street.

When I hear complaints about immigrants it is because they come to our country to take advantage of our generous benefits and are therefore scroungers. There was absolutely no sign of that in any of the communities that I have met with. Last night I talked to business owners, lecturers, council employees, charity workers, engineers, and architects. All of them in work and contributing their skills and enthusiasm to make our city work and thrive. It was particularly nice to be able to talk about the wonderful game of cricket with them!

The communities all understand what hardship is and therefore give generously in many ways to those in most need. The Al Rahma Mosque, for example, gives 300 free meals every day to people who do not have money. A lot of these are not Muslim. There is an Indian Restaurant in Liverpool that gives a free Christmas on 25^th December to those that are of the Christian or no faith that cannot afford a little something at that time of year when want is most felt.

Many people who intended to move on or home actually stay here. Already within the Ukraine community, which has built up because of the Russian invasion of their country, there are those who are wondering whether their future is here or back home. I suspect most will go home but for others they may have no home or city to go back to such is the foul behaviour of Putin in targeting civilian communities. Perhaps their children will have made good friends here. Perhaps they will have started courses that are not available to them back home. Perhaps, best of all, they just feel very comfortable in our city.

But whatever they do I hope that they will always keep their country of origin in their hearts and minds. I want them to be Ukrainian Scousers or Bangladeshi Scousers or Romanian Scousers. I want them to bring their music and cultures, their initiative, and skills here so that we can build a truly 21^st century city. By staying here but remembering where they came from, they can help us build up links with the business, educational and cultural worlds of their former country which will enable us here in Liverpool to create jobs and wealth.

In my year as Lord Mayor, I hope to go out and visit many more of the communities from other parts of the world who are helping to build the rich mosaic of cultures in our City. I love seeing the different cultures and sampling the different food (If anyone offers you Ukraine honey cake accept it – it is marvellous).

If we are to thrive as a city in an increasingly connected world, we have to use all our connections as fully as is possible. Having people here from 100 countries is a great start to putting Liverpool back into the heart of international trade and commerce which it once enjoyed.

Why is your council tax so high?

Tomorrow, 6^th March, Liverpool Council will vote to increase its council tax by just under 5%. Some of the reasons for this are of its own making but far more problems have been caused by a failure of governments to reform a corrupted system.

If I were to ask the average council tax payer, “what do you think we spend your money on?” they would probably say potholes, streetlighting, parks, libraries and all the things that they can see outside their front door, and which have an enormous effect on their lives. In fact, they would be wrong. Almost 70% of the council tax which is raised by ‘upper tier’ or unitary councils is spent on acute child care and acute adult care. The demands on the councils who cover these areas has grown exponentially as we live longer but become frailer and more children are presenting as being in need of acute care because of mental and physical health and behavioural problems.

As councils finalise their budgets, which all of them have to do by 9^th March, the Government is trying to portray all councils as being profligate and incompetent. Their second not cunning plan is to pretend it’s all down to councils who spend money on consultants and programmes to encourage fairness and diversity. There is an element in which this is true. There have been 13 section 114 notices given out by councils who are effectively bankrupt, and which have frozen all but essential services which they are legally obliged to provide. These are spread out almost equally across Labour and Conservative authorities and, up to this point, have been in places where there has been a comprehensive break down of managerial or political leadership.

Some of these councils have strayed far from their core competences and invested in property or scam solar panel schemes, or projects to provide cheap electricity which ended up costing fortune. Liverpool has its own story to tell with the appalling blundering and lack of managerial and political leadership, during the Joe Anderson years, which destroyed the basic controls which provide reassurance on value for money which taxpayers should rely on.

What the Tory Government says then to shelter from the storm of criticism about the way that councils are funded just is a complete nonsense. The money spent on consultants is tiny and almost all of it is paid out to fund successive bidding applications for a plethora of funds from the Government. The money spent on diversity and equality is less that 0.1% of the local government spending. If we abolished the lot, and I don’t think that we should, it would make no real difference to the level of overall spending.

As they look at what we spend money on the Government should appreciate that not spending money through councils causes more spending elsewhere in the governmental system. If we do not deal with families with problems early, then children get taken into care. One child can cost between £50,000 and £350,000 a year depending on the extent of their physical or mental problems. One frail adult who is in a hospital bed can cost us at least £750 per night in a general ward when they would prefer to be at home as long as possible which is also a lot cheaper. My late Mum would say that the Government is being ‘penny wise and pound foolish.’

In my view there are three things that can be done in the short term:

1. The Government needs to bring in three-year spending settlements. If councils knew how much money they were getting over three years instead of an annual settlement they could come up with better purchasing and delivery proposals which would save money.
2. The Government needs to abolish the plethora of funding schemes and make an assessment, based on indices of deprivation and the cost of providing services, and provide a lump sum to councils so that they can decide local priorities and integrate spending in a meaningful way.
3. Councils must do far more to look ahead and design services, especially in those very costly care services, to choke off acute demand by doing far more prevention work. They also need more freedom in the way they provide services to prevent an over use of an often-greedy private sector.

All these and more will make things better but will not solve the problem. What we need is a root and branch reform of local government finances which will tackle the systemic failure of a corrupted system. Basically, we are using a system which is more than 200 years old. Thatcher tried to change it to a ‘poll tax’ in the early 90s but that was such a disastrous move that the system had to be abandoned after just three years and we reverted to another type of property-based tax which we currently use.

This new system was supposed to have property values checked and new valuations made every 7 years. In fact, in England there has been no revision at all, and we are still using tax bands based on 1991 assessments of the rent that could be obtained for a property. Property based taxes are never fair taxes as they give no real indication of an ability to pay. Property taxes based on values more than 30 years old create a systemic distortion which fails to recognise the relative decline and fall of neighbourhoods over time.

A property-based tax is also regressive in that poor people have to pay more out of their income to pay it than wealthy people. If you live in a 2-bed terraced house in Kensington Liverpool, you pay more council tax than someone in a luxury mansion flat in Kensington London.

The system needs major change. None of the three major Parties, including my own Lib Dems, have yet to put in place the establishment of a full review to give the fairer system that we need. The problem will be that those who benefit from change will be thankful and forget. Those that lose by change regret it and remember it. This has produced a statis which no-one is prepared to break.

If we did anything else based on a 200-year-old system modified 30+ years ago we would be laughed at. But when all that Governments need do is blame those that try and make the system work on the charge of incompetence nothing will change.

Why Did Sunak Make that Speech?

What was that speech yesterday all about? It contained little that was true and gave no suggestions to deal with the problems that he thinks exist!

On Friday night I made the mistake of thinking that Sunak might be about to say something useful and interesting. I even dreamed, albeit briefly, that he was going to do the decent thing and resign and take his accursed government down with him. How stupid I was. The speech was neither of these things it was all about….. well to be honest I am not sure what it was about, but I am sure of the two reasons that it was delivered:

Firstly, Sunak is desperate to distract attention from his own woeful mismanagement of the economy, the health service, housing and, well just about everything really! To be fair it isn’t just him it’s the whole bloody lot of them!

Secondly, he is desperately trying to unite his own Party. There are two things that are stopping them tearing themselves apart. The knowledge that although there is recognition that they are going to lose the next General Election, but some want to go down further than others; and the fact that the only thing that can unite most of them is a red rag statement about Johnny Foreigner, albeit couched in a carefully modulated voice and sometimes reasonable tones.

Our Leader Sir Ed Davey made these points very clearly and succinctly:

As I argued in my last blog there is no huge threat to our democracy from raging mobs invading the offices, homes and meeting points of MPs, Peers and councillors. There are some problems caused by a tiny, tiny element of the population who actually believe the rubbish, mostly imported from the United States of America. They then get over excited, often fuel themselves on alcohol, drugs or self-righteousness and turn up spouting profanities and illegalities at those of us who have been elected to do our job. It is absolutely right that we must be vigilant to ensure that this tiny group of crack pots do not actually do any harm to individuals or to our democracy.

I meet thousands of people every year as I wander around my Penny Lane Ward and Liverpool more generally, and those who disagree with me and I manage for the most part to have a highly dignified exchange of views and an acceptance that on some issues we will remain far apart. That is, after all what democracy is all about. On other occasions we can seek to reach out to find some more shared viewpoint. I am always keen to listen to the lived experience of people whose lifestyles and experiences are different from my own. That enables me to prepare better policies and represent people better within the Council when we meet.

For my part I am often better informed than many others because I am a part of the system which readily is given access to information sources. Very little that I talk about contains information that is not readily available but I do have better access to it in the form of the reports that I receive on a daily basis for consideration within the council.

So who is causing the trouble. Well in large part to rancour is engendered by leading members of the Tory Party with big gobs and small brains. Who seriously would ever listen to Gullis or 30p Lee? Who could possibly take Liz Truss or James Cleverly (AKA Jimmy Dimly according to John Crace) seriously. Well about 10% of the population I would guess. Even most Tory voters baulk at the rubbish they spout. Clearly even most Tory voters would prefer decent services to minor tax cuts. They do not like, admire or support an extreme rhetoric which focuses on the disadvantaged in our society and especially on immigration.

Immigration and foreigners is now making the Tory Party into a one trick pony. Subtly or sometimes not subtly immigrants are woven into the problems and blamed for those problems when the Tories have no answer to those problems.

Let’s just take the question of employment. The care sector is short of 120,000 staff and the NHS is short of 100,000 staff. Many of those jobs are in areas which are classed as unskilled and where necessary skills and basic training can be applied immediately. The lack of a suitable workforce and by that I don’t mean doctors and specialists but at a much lower level is endangering our lives and leading to people not being able to get into hospital when they need to or get out of hospital when they want to.

It is not only health and care where there is a staff shortage. The hospitality sector is short of everything from chefs to waiters to cleaners. The building industry is short of a whole range of skills and finds it difficult to take on UK apprentices. Of course, we also need that army of seasonal workers to pick our tomatoes and slaughter our livestock.

Instead of discouraging immigrants we should be giving them work to do when they arrive so that they are not a drain on our finances, and we do not need to hire barges to house them.

The fact that the PM used his first appearance outside Number 10 since he was selected as PM is a sign not of care or compassion for our country or our way of life but was a selfish gesture designed to unite his rabble of a Party against an enemy that does not exist. His speech will not discourage but will encourage mob actions. He should be ashamed of himself. As Ed Davey rightly said the only way to unite the Country now is to hold a General Election where the issues can be debated, and we can fight out what the people really want.

Disturbance in the Council Chamber but not mob rule

Councillors were forced out of the chamber last night by a tiny group of demonstrators but there were not enough of them to be a mob! (photo David Humphreys)

Last night, for just a few minutes, the adult services committee of the Council was briefly forced to close by a handful of abusive cranks. Why they were there is only known to them. They have turned up before and complain about covid vaccination Bill; Gates now knows where we are, 15-minute neighbourhoods which they don’t understand, and no one wants to introduce what they think they might be; and even someone who is convinced that the Earth is flat!! No, I am not making the last one up in the age of jet flight!! We don’t actually know why they were there because there was absolutely nothing on the agenda which remotely connected to any of their pet hates.

The way that they behaved was absolutely disgraceful. This how David Humphreys of the Echo reported it:

City Safe staff had to remove the protestors from the town hall, with the doors bolted and shut to the public afterward. The angry demonstration occurred as another committee met in another room where members discussed councillors’ safety.

Despite the rain, more than a dozen people initially gathered outside the Town Hall just before 5pm with yellow placards seen at previous demonstrations last summer. A large white banner was tied to railings outside reading “no more lies.”

The meeting was initially delayed as members of the public were admitted but asked to leave any items outside of the chamber. As discussion progressed on how the city was developing its public health annual report, one woman shouted: “We would like to know what earth you’re all living in. How dare you sit there and call yourselves councillors?”

Another person said: “You’re all criminals” while one shouted: “You work for us.” One person said the Cllrs would be “tried for crimes of genocide and treason” and said, “people are fully awake.”

As one was led out, they shouted, “shame on you” and “you’re going to hang for committing treason.”

What is quite clear is that in a democracy, and we are still a democracy, no-one has the right to disrupt lawful meetings of the council and threaten councillors in this way. The reason that we call ourselves councillors is because we have been elected by the people of Liverpool to be councillors. They claim that they speak for the people, but we do not. Well, I got 1,200 votes last May and they got a handful of votes when they were nominated by mistake by the Liberate Liverpool Group in wards across the city.

I was actually in the Town Hall but blissfully unaware of all this. My wife Erica, however, saw all that was going on because she was sitting in the entrance hall of the Town Hall waiting for me to finish a meeting. She watched the demonstrators arguing about having their bags searched and she told me that two of the most aggressive people reeked of cannabis.

My meeting of the standards and ethics committee actually looked at the problems of safety for councillors well away from the action. It is clear that we can be under threat by a handful of people. One came to my advice centre last week and had a good and shouty go at me. I then left to get some coffee and he followed but returned to berate a young woman who was helping me as I mentor her as she wants to be a councillor. In all the years that I have done outside advice centres it is only this man who has turned up several times who has been abusive.

We agreed at our meeting that we would ask our Director of Community Safety to provide a full report on how we can be supported as we go about our community duties and our homes where we are much more open to abuse than in the council chamber.

All this, however, is far removed from the absurd nonsense that Rishi Sunak was spouting at about the same time yesterday. There is no mob rule in the UK. If we take the Liverpool example there were at the most 12 people involved in this out of the 500,000 who live in our city. On Saturday I walked through the street with a mixture of 300 Ukrainians and Brits protesting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There was absolutely no hostility from the demonstrators and absolutely no hostility towards the demonstrators

If we look at the vast numbers of people who attend demonstrations in London where people from all over the country converge there is little danger or nastiness. What nastiness there is usually comes not from the demonstrators but from anti demonstrators who dislike the subject of the demo. We saw that graphically before Christmas when Tommy Robinson and a handful of like-minded nasties turned up to ‘defend the cenotaph’ when the demonstrations protesting about the Gaza conflict were nowhere near the Cenotaph. They then went on to try and pick fights elsewhere and several were arrested. I don’t think that any of the demonstrators were arrested as they carried out there right to peacefully protest in our democracy and draw attention to their beliefs.

Sunak knows all this so why is he trying out a page from the Donald Trump playbook? It is because he has absolutely nothing to say. He and Braverman, Anderson and Gullis have nothing to offer and no way of defending the appalling mess they have got the country into. They invest enemies, claim things about those enemies simply to distract people from the problems of the NHS, economy, education, and the environment. By talking in this way Sunak is actually encouraging the sort of behaviour that he theoretically objects to.

All of us who stand for public office and particularly those of who get elected have the right to be able to carry out our work in safety. Of course, safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that we can do this. But there are no mobs out there. The vast, vast majority of people who have complaints and causes they want to espouse do so legally and peacefully.

We must not let our contempt for a handful of people, many of whom are clearly suffering from psychiatric problems, to interfere with the inalienable right of people to make their views known to democratically elected decision makers.

Does Parliament really care how many people die in Rafah?

I believe that Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, was right to allow a number of amendments yesterday. We must break the binary parliamentary system if we are to have a Parliament we can be proud of.

I was very busy yesterday so had little time for watching the telly or listening to the radio to find out whatw as happening to the parliamentary debate about the situation in Gaza. However, I hoped for the best in terms of the quality of the debate but found out that we got the worst. This was the so-called ‘Mother of Parliaments’ at its very worst with little concern about the subject under discussion and lots of concern about seeking to make political capital out of other people’s misery.

There are different views about what has happened in Gaza and why. I have my own which apportions elements of blame to all parties with special loathing of HAMAS who are the immediate cause of the problem. In some ways though such views are irrelevant., Within Gaza there are thousands of people at risk of dying and following the 30,000, mostly women and children, who are already dead. Surely, in the name of humanity, we should be making these women and children are first concern alongside the remaining hostages taken in October last year, but that is not what happened yesterday.

Firstly, the SNP put down a motion which could only have one purpose which was to try and create splits in the Labour Party. Labour put down an amendment to it to try and avoid such splits. The Tories then put down a further amendment just to cause trouble. The Liberal Democrat amendment, which was the only one to look at the long-term prospects for peace and how to build that sort fo solution was not accepted for debate but unusually, but not uniquely, the Speaker selected both the Towry and Labour amendments foe debate and vote.

Now to me that seems very sensible. It’s what we do in local government, certainly in the Town Hall in Liverpool. Here the mover of the amendment moves and speaks on the motion, all other amendments are moved and spoken to and then there is a general debate on the subject as a whole. We then return to vote on all the amendments and then the motion as a whole. Sometimes there needs to be a little give and taken in the process to ensure that a coherent motion is carried. That usually proceeds without the spite or rancour that we saw in the Commons yesterday.

Our parliamentary system is one of two sides. There is a governing party and there is an opposing main party with other parties being in the mix. This binary system is perhaps the only way you can deal with complex legislation which involves many votes. But yesterday’s debate was not on a piece of legislation designed to encompass the spirit of the Commons and Country. The problems of Rafah and many others are too complex to be dealt with by a simple Yes and No vote.

Of course, this behaviour and set of practices are themselves symptomatic of a voting system which allows to preferences and where, in most elections the votes are only really relevant in about 100 constituencies and even there usually just between the two leading parties int hat area. This leaves many people effectively represented by people they want to get in and where governments, sich as this one, are elected with large majorities on a minority of the vote.

Incidentally, was it not funny hearing Jacon Rees-Mogg inadvertently supporting the concept of proportional representation when he pointed out that if the Tory and Labour votes had been added together in Bridgewater Labour probably would not have won. He may or not be correct because under a proportional system people vote slightly differently as they express their preferences down the line. But in fact, he was broadly right about a principle which ahs has consistently voted against.

So, we need to reform the voting system and then reform Parliament. Then, perhaps, just perhaps, we may be able to debate complex issues like Gaza more rationally, more thoughtfully and come to motions on which there is maximum agreement and minimal disagreement.

Which brings me back to Gaza. I am by no means an expert on Middel East issues but Layla Moran, whose Christiam relatives are sheltering in a church in Gaza is just such an expert. She has laid out a series of things which need to be done which basically amounts to all sides (and it is more than Israel and Palestine now) recognising in the short term i.e. NOW the humanitarian issues in the area and demand a case fire. She then goes on to talk about how to build a permanent peace and who might and should be involved.

What history does tell us is that there are no winners in wars, only sides that do not lose as badly as other sides. It is the way that the ‘winners’ deal with the ‘losers’ that will tell us whether peace will last in Gaza or any other area of conflict.

I think that by ditching convention of this emotive and divisive issue the Speaker did the right thing but Parliament is not his to change or amend. The whole of our parliamentary system is a mess, and it is unlikely that most self-serving MPs and Lords will seek to change it. So, it is up to ‘we the people’ to demand change and make sure that we have a parliament of which we can be proud rather than ashamed.

Slava Ukraini – Heroiam Slava

The brave bully boys of the Russian forces love to attack ambulances like this one which carry no weapons.

Today I had the privilege of listening to listen to inspiring talks from three front line medics from the Ukraine forces. Their bravery and the bravery of all the armed forces of the Ukraine must be recognised. We must also thank them for the work that they are doing to protect the whole of Western Europe from the crazed tyranny of Putin and his desperate army.

When they fight to defend their eastern borders, they are defending our eastern border as well. When they die to defend their democracy, they die to defend our democracy also.

The men and women of the armed forces of the Ukraine are showing incredible courage and incredible innovation in fighting the loathsome Russian regime. But as we have heard from these three medics today courage and innovation are not enough. Human lives have been sacrificed to stop the invasion and recover the stolen territories.

I was particularly appalled to learn that the emergency sector, especially medical staff and ambulances, are particularly attacked by Russian forces. They are the lowest of the low and are, of course, committing a war crime when they do this.

These ambulances carry no weapons except most of them have one, a grenade, which they would use to kill themselves rather than fall into Russian hands.

The UK as a whole must be steadfast in our support for Ukraine president and people. We in Liverpool have helped by becoming Kiev on the Mersey last year, when we hosted the Eurovision Song Contest.  Also, by hosting Kyiv Pride and welcoming the Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra.

We cannot as a city take unilateral action in support of the People and President of Ukraine, however there are for things that we can do:

Firstly, I hope that we will renew our relationship with our sister port of Odessa and build a new sustainable friendship with Kyiv Council and its people and provide practical support for their struggle

Secondly, we can support those Ukraine citizens who are now living here. Some have come temporarily and some to live here permanently. Many are women who have brought their Children with them to keep them safe while their men fight the good fight.

Thirdly, we can put pressure on our Government and our allies to stay the course with the Ukraine people and support them in struggle and in the heavy costs of rebuilding when victory has been won. In particular, we must continue to supply the arms and munitions that they need. If the West falters now tens of thousands of lives will have been lost and the Russians will be much closer to us and seeking more countries to invade.

Lastly, we can help by importing their products. I personally have offered to help a company which imports the Country’s wine. In addition to buying from Ukraine we can also invest there. So many people now need prosthetics that they want to set up businesses to build and fit them but need financial support. Let’s hope that other opportunities exist for more pleasant businesses.

On every possible day and every possible occasion, we must publicly show our support for the country and its people. We must ensure that Russia and its allies see our contempt for a despotic regime that slaughters innocent women and children, had invaded a blameless country and continues to murder its own defiant citizens like Alexei Navalny.

Slava Ukraini – Heroiam Slava

Glory to Ukraine and Glory to their Heroes