Liverpool shows why Labour in power matters
—Coming to Liverpool for conference? Lucky you. In so many ways, we are a city on the up. New businesses creating jobs, a buzzing arts scene, fantastic architecture. As much a cultural icon as an economic powerhouse, as much a European city as a British institution. All of it defiantly Labour.
But this was not always so. Of course, there was the boom of the 1960s, the Beatles propelling the city to global fame, the world dancing to our tunes. But cultural rise was followed by economic fall with a sharp decline in the traditional manufacturing industries and jobs lost. By the 1980s, Merseybeat felt an age away.
If you had walked the streets of Liverpool in that decade you would have found a very different city. Empty shops, barren wastelands on the banks of the Mersey, one in five people out of work. It was a city in decline, vandalised by a government that had written it off. The Tories brought my city to its knees and then kicked us when we were down when they smeared the dead of the Hillsborough disaster. For Liverpool in 1997, things really could only get better.
But, at the end of the storm, there’s a golden sky, says one of my favourite songs. Liverpool never lost hope and under the Labour government that hope was matched by investment. Children grew up with Sure Start centres, tax credits and the Building Schools for the Future fund. Never was there a better case study of the difference a change in government can make.
In 2008, Liverpool was awarded the title of European Capital of Culture, generating £750m for the economy and cementing the renaissance of Merseyside. Theatres boomed, SuperLambananas took over the city and we finally built a venue capable of hosting the country’s biggest bands and conferences. It is quite likely that we would not be here in Liverpool for our annual conference if it was not for European Union funding, as the Echo Arena would not have been built.
Liverpool is allowed to thrive as a European, metropolitan city when the Tories are not dealing out the cards.
For Liverpool it is not that in the 1960s the people wanted to prosper and in the 1980s they wanted to be jobless. It is the governments that come and go that decide whether Liverpool will prosper or fall on its knees – and that is something we must take control of. We must secure a future for Liverpool that works for everyone.
I do not want to rely on the Tories. Not now, not ever. We need the power and strength to run ourselves. Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson has done a fantastic job protecting the city from Tory cuts by pumping funds into schools, housing and local services.
This is a city known for its feisty attitude and ability to bounce back despite huge adversity. As Joe puts it, ‘We know that our city’s best days are ahead of us’ and we must ensure the Labour party is at the centre of it.
When elected – as we will all fight to make sure he is – metro mayor in 2017, Steve Rotheram will have a big job on his hands to protect Liverpool from Tory cuts.
The city has slowly healed after the 1980s. We now have justice for the 96. We have had millions in EU funding and regeneration across the most deprived areas.
After a Brexit vote and the uncertainty of our future, Liverpool needs a Labour government more than ever. We are still and will remain a European city, open to the world: we have hugely benefitted from immigration and voted 60-40 for ‘Remain’. We must restore hope as we move deeper into the Tories’ second term by fighting hard for a Labour government in 2020.
So please enjoy conference, enjoy the culture and the Merseyside history – but remember, this was not always so and we must work hard as Labour members to maintain our growing northern cities.
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Alison McGovern MP is chair of Progress
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I had the honour of working with children of 2-6 years on theatre/arts projects on Merseyside at different times between 2002 and 2008, particularly in Liverpool and St. Helens. Nothing I saw convinced me that the projects you mention above were anything other than vanity projects. Child poverty remained a stubborn problem even under the Blair & Brown governments whilst better off people in Merseyside were able to drive their children to private schools in 4x4s. St. Helens town centre in 2006 consisted of little other than bookies, pound shops and personal injury claims solicitors, sharks preying on the very poorest (I would be happy to hear that it is no longer like that). These problems can only be addressed by a radical shift in the distribution of wealth and power in Britain. I see no prospect of a return to Blairite policies even beginning to tackle growing inequality – in Liverpool or elsewhere. For you to suggest immediately after the Labour leadership election that “a change of leader is necessary” suggests you have missed a trick somewhere.
Ms. McGovern, I am always encouraged when I read what you write that the future will be a lot better than the present. The conflict I have is that as chair of Progress you chair an organisation that hosts this website and thus encourages the divisive and insulting behaviour of many Progress supporters writing on here. The many achievements of the Labour government were left unchampioned by the right of the party and when people like Owen Jones and Mehdi Hasan, even Jeremy Corbyn were the only ones defending Sure Start, tax credits and the building schools for the future fund, the mainstream moderates of the party were slagging them off as wild extremists and terrorist sympathisers. The mainstream moderates of the party have been in charge for twenty five years. They are far more responsible for where the party is now than Corbyn is. Tony Blair won three elections. Left to their own devices the mainstream moderates lost two.
We now have, for better or worse, some kind of resolution. If you want to promote the prospect of a labour government then I think the sinking of this site into some kind of revisionist second rate Labour Uncut must be halted and someone has to arrest the kind of deluded paranoia that is exhibited in many opinion pieces on here. Quite often the level of untruth, delusion and bile written in the columns on here rivals any extreme that is found in the comments section of any other publication. This is not just difference of opinion it is straightforward disloyalty, not to Corbyn but the party.
For what it’s worth my opinion is that if Corbyn is to become a leader he has to lead the team he has got, even though they have childishly decided not to be led, and if anyone wishes to challenge him they need to have first shown they are capable of working in a senior role, that means working for him. At the moment the Progress side of our party has abandoned the pitch but still hopes to win the game, I am sure you can see the problem with that.