The North is still in recession? Does anyone care?

A couple of weeks ago, the latest economic growth figures showed a 0.5% growth rate for the first quarter of 2011.  This follows a negative 0.5% growth rate for the final quarter of 2010.

Given the total lack of calamitous panic, I take it everyone is ok with 0% growth over six months.  People were primed to look for evidence of two quarters of negative growth which would have meant the UK was in recession again - cue stories about Osborne's economic package hurting too much, etc.

But...... What if parts of the UK are still in recession, but we just don't know it?

The ONS doesn't research regional growth figures quarterly, like it does nationally, but we do have some evidence about how the North is responding to the national picture.

According to the North West Regional Intelligence Unit, GVA growth in the North West and North East since 1990 has averaged 1.5% - six points behind the UK average of 2.1%!  (Yorkshire was only 4 points behind on 1.7%)  On this basis, arguably the last quarter of 2010 affected the NW and NE by growth of -1.1% and in the first quarter of 2011 at -0.1%, giving us two quarters of economic growth and our Northern Recession.

However, the fall in GVA during the last recession affected the region differently, losing 4.2% in the region against 4.6% nationally.  This comparison is only a 0.4% differential, meaning the North (just) scraped by with only 0.1% growth in 2011.  This is also using figures from before the Comprehensive Spending Review, which may be enough to wipe out that 0.1% glimmer of hope.

The CSR is the reason the NWRIU's economic forecast panel believes that there will be a 0.5% differential between the NW's and UK's growth, but probably not for a couple of years yet when the impact of the CSR really kicks in.

Probably.

As I frequently tell people, taking an accurate picture of the economic story in the UK is a relatively new phenomenon.  The new Labour Government in 1997 came in to power bringing in not just regional policies, but also the analysis to inform them for the first time.

Picture this - we are one of the 8 largest modern economies of the world and until the year 2000, we simple never bothered to count the size of our economy in the 9 different regions of the country.  It's the equivalent of the US saying "I know, just divide by 52 and that's what each State's economy is worth."  If it had been France we'd be laughing at them.

Yet, that is the situation we were in.  And it appears there is no sign of improving that situation.  The ONS produces a snapshot each year which tells us how each regional economy did over the last 12 months, but is it really too much to ask that as the UK figures come out we know how our region is doing as well?  Maybe then we would know how our region is really doing in the face of real economic change.

Personally, I still find it morally bankrupt that we as a developed nation are willing to know so little about how our economy works and monitor its progression.

I'm not advocating regionalism - I'm advocating a truly national approach.  You fix a house by tackling the individual problems in each room, not replastering all the walls when we need a new window in the bedroom and a new lightbulb in the bathroom.

SH

Liverpool Lib Dems explained

In a homage to the new leader of the Liverpool Lib Dems, Paula Keveaney, I have taken it upon myself to explain how she got the position, through the medium of Seinfeld:

First, how she got the job: (courtesy of the daily seinfeld)

George: So I still haven’t heard about that job.
Jerry: Yeah that’s a tough one. What are you going to do about that?
George: I have an idea.
Jerry: Yeah?
George: I show up.
Jerry: What do you mean you show up?
George: I show up. I pretend I have the job. The guy’s on vacation. If I have the job, it’s fine. If I don’t have the job, by the time he comes back, I’m ensconced.
Jerry: Hmm. Not bad.
George: What’s the worst thing that could happen?
Jerry: Well, you’d be embarrassed and humiliated in front of a large group of people and have to walk out in shame with your tail between your legs.
George: Yeah, so?
----------


Obviously there was actually a democratic contest of sorts, but it is a sign of how unpopular the Lib Dems have become in Liverpool that three of their biggest hitters, Warren Bradley, Paul Clein and Mike Storey have all disappeared in the last few weeks.



Lastly, how Warren Bradley is rumoured to have quit:

SH

An analysis - Merseyside boundary figures released

On Friday, the Boundary Commission released the electorate results for the UK.


These are the figures that will be used as the basis for allocating new boundaries in advance of the next election, in order to reach the Conservative's magic number of 600 constituencies - a reduction of 50 from the current number.

Every constituency in the UK will be reviewed, while the Boundary Commission rejigs the political map to make sure each is within 5% of the UK electorate quota of 76,641.  Therefore each constituency must have between 72,810 and 80,473 voters.

In Merseyside, only Knowsley, Liverpool Riverside, St Helens North and St Helens South & Whiston are currently within this range.

Across Merseyside there is a total electorate of 1,010,822, which if divided by the electorate quota gives us 14.01 seats, compared to the current 15 we have now.  Therefore, we can expect to lose one seat within Merseyside.

What is not clear is how the boundary commission will reach its conclusions - will it create constituencies that cross county boundaries? There is an expectation they will, but with Merseyside managing an almost perfect divisible number of 14, it's still possible that won't happen here, except for one awkward problem - the River Mersey.

Looking at the numbers there are severe deficiencies in seats such as Birkenhead and Wirral South on one side and Liverpool Walton and Liverpool Wavertree on the other - each only managing a touch over 62,000.  But they're on different sides of the Mersey.  When sticking to county boundaries you reach the intractable problem of cross-river constituencies which almost nobody in their right mind thinks is a good idea.  The solution therefore will probable mean seepage into the surrounding counties of Cheshire and Lancashire.

Ellesmere Port and Neston, with 66,965 voters has got to be worrying about whether it is a sacrificial lamb to both Wirral and Cheshire Seats, sitting in the middle as it does.  This would protect Eddisbury and Tatton (both just over 65,000) from change and leave unharmed two Conservative frontbenchers.  (Is Stephen O'Brien a frontbencher?  Haven't seen him in a while....)

Or we could just abolish the seat with the fewest voters, Wirral West (only 55, 077) removing the Wirral's only Conservative MP. If not, savvy Labour seat-seekers should start showing an interest in Wirral West as it absorbs an almost 40% increase in voters from nearby, more labour, areas........

A final note - the electorate figures for Liverpool are 315,865 in contrast to the population of 441,900 at the last census - just 71%.  No other evidence should be necessary that this is a flawed methodology for calculating how people are represented.  It isn't hard to use our imaginations to work out why a Conservative government would want to restructure the whole democratic system in this way.


You can see the numbers and news release for yourself at http://www.boundarycommissionforengland.org.uk/ 

A prediction - Compared to the forests, the backlash behind boundary changes will catch the Gov't by surprise

We can all be slightly amused by the sight of the Government blinking in the headlights of hundreds of thousands of chelsea tractors as middle England reacted to the potential sale of the country's forests.

However, it gives us a nice indication of how the country might behave at the next big cross-party (or rather non-party) reaction.

My belief is that the response to the forests sell off was huge because it is definitively a bad thing.  Only really, really evil people who want to chop down trees were in favour.  Opposing the sell off was only possible because there was no downside, no repercussions, to opposing it in the eyes of middle and upper England.

We can sometimes forget that not everyone is opposed to NHS reform.  Not everyone is opposed to the budget cuts.  Some people think that if you can't afford private childcare, then don't have children.  Despite the anger, the shouting, the petitions and the banners there are people who believe what is happening is right or, at the very least, aren't sure enough to change their behaviour or vote differently because of it.

But the trees.......  How can anyone agree with selling them off?!?  The sleeping giant of small 'c' conservatives was rustled out of bed and lumbered to battle.

And the next issue that will set them off?  Boundary changes.

Boundary changes will affect everyone, they will drive bulldozers through traditional barriers, run roughshod over county perimeters, throw history overboard the sinking ship of Britain.

The spluttering sentinels of traditional values will wake up one day to be told that their identity, their mental boundaries, must be moved because a bureaucrat with a calculator says that the previous constituency reached the magic number of 75,000 residents some miles away and they now live in Constituency 432(Lower) - Name undesignated.

These are the ones who care about postcodes and what it says about their town.  They care that their lives are associated with one town, or a county, and not the other one.  They care about the history of it.  They care who they share their constituency with and they care about the insurance premiums they believe will rise because of the change.

They CARE.    In capitals.

And they will care that history, identity, common sense, will all be ditched for numerical superiority.

And they will write to their MP - Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem alike.  In the thousands.  

And there will be no reason not to.

And the Government will not be ready for them.

Two (Facebook) lives are better than one

A recent ruling by the Liverpool Standards Committee has made it official.  We have more than one life.

A couple of weeks ago, a decision was made not to take action against Sharon Green for posting a picture of a class of disabled children, giving them the names of Labour's cabinet, because of a ruling in Ken Livingstone's favour that gave politicians a right to behave disgracefully as long as they are not acting in an "official capacity".

All fine and dandy - don't agree with it, but do understand it.

However, I think Liverpool's Standard Board have gotten their interpretation wrong.  Because the infraction was on Facebook.

Ken Livingstone called a journalist a nazi.  At one definitive point in time.  It passed.  It was not said again.  Ken Livingstone had the opportunity to say it again.  He could have got up in the morning, poured a bowl of cornflakes, picked up his phone and called him a nazi.  But he didn't.

We are able to investigate that single moment of time - evaluate context and Ken Livingstone's status at that point and make a judgement about that action.

Sharon Green's disgraceful picture was on her Facebook for three months.  For the infinite points in time over three months it was visible.  Understanding new media is also to understand time and the neverending nature of it.  Think of it as being hit by a ball.  Having a ball thrown at you once is bad enough - setting up a machine to throw an infinite amount of balls in your general direction so that you can walk into them is much worse.

Her defence against the accusations were that the offence was not made in her official capacity as a councillor, which leads me to two counter-defences:

Firstly, at some point during those three months she was acting in her official capacity. The moment she walked into a council building or handed out a card, or delivered a leaflet with her name on she was acting in an official capacity.  And in my mind even if she was a million miles from the nearest computer, then the photograph was instantly in breach of the standards code at that moment in time.

Secondly, is the entirely reasonable view that we cannot have two lives at once.  Apparently, because the Facebook profile does not belong to Councillor Sharon Green the disgraceful behaviour doesn't count.  Sharon Green is therefore not the same person as Councillor Sharon Green on Facebook.  Unless she has two different facebook accounts (and I still don't consider that valid) then it is simply not valid to believe the public or anyone else will make that distinction.

Would an employer overlook a inflammatory racist rant on the radio, just because you weren't in work at the time?  Or, another way, how does the public know when the official councillor starts and ends? The truth is they don't.  and neither should the standards board.

#Liverpool - Highlight a problem and automatically tell your council....

For most of my life political career, since joining the Labour Party in 1995, I've had the engagement of people in the political process as a personal passion.  Working for the Labour Party during the Wirral South By-election, we had a youth mobilisation campaign targeted at first-time voters, that I believe was the most sophisticated used before (and since) without overt political party politicking.

There is huge amount of potential in the likes of www.theyworkforyou.com in connecting people with small g government and working for an MP, I already see the impact such sites have had.  But the development of new tools to focus on geographical connections, harness issue-based reporting, build local coalitions around issues, topics and problems can unleash a powerful force of human endeavour.  Local authorities should embrace such change, because of the money they can save.

Walking home from work the other day I noticed a house alarm going off, which had been blaring since the morning.  "who do you call?" I thought to myself. The Police is over indulgence (if not bad value for money) and I remembered a New York experiment where local government introduced a non-emergency emergency number.  Brilliant, I thought - except for a population as small as Liverpool's it probably doesn't make economic sense.  But with the web anything is possible....

Third party websites are now possible, where the information can be automatically passed on to the council.  Anything is possible - graffiti reporting tools - anti-social behaviour...the opportunities are endless.

When I became chair of the British Youth Council I toured the country arguing for youth participation and encouraging young people to engage. (I even opposed the UK Youth Parliament because it meant only one person would be elected and take part, rather than the youth council model which teaches every participant to represent themselves).

I went freelance 18 months ago in order to free up time to write a book, Everything every adult should know about politics, because everywhere I worked I met people who thought what I did was magical or secret, like there was dark art to speaking to your local councillor or MP.  In business the first thing I ask is whether the company has spoken to the local MP or councillor and it is often no.  We have built a society that  is so unknowledgable about how our country is run that citizens are not even aware that they can engage their local representatives.  And, frankly, I think we are all poorer for it.

I also believe local politics are going to be key to this - the great frontier of our new engaged society.  Public Affairs companies are beginning to twig, even though the loss of regional development agencies has set out-of-london decision making back by years.  But people are also beginning to realise there is a new reality shaping and in the time-honoured-fashion of only realising what you've got until its gone, they are appreciating the importance of local structures.

Sometimes I'm proud of being able to be non-political in favour of encouraging people to participate whatever their persuasion.  I think it takes a strong sense of duty to be able to challenge people to step out of their routine and think for themselves about how they feel on a particular topic.  I'm proud that I have beliefs, but I'm more proud that I can help others find theirs.  and I relish the opportunity to use as any tool possible to do that.

Twitter and Facebook are also important, but can be dangerously insular, cliquey and self-referential.  I believe this is why so many new groups start up, because the social investment required to enter an existing one is so great.  Only those that have done well, like mumsnet, show an affinity for low barriers of entry.

That is the real recipe for success.  Activists want to be able to defend or promote a change in their life, without devoting the rest of their life to it.

The future of the Lib Dems?

In conversation with a marketing student and Lib Dem member the other day we discussed their membership's obvious problem with a leadership which seems completely oblivious to the crash course the party is headed on.

While we talked and touched upon the challenge coalition parties have in Europe it occurred to me that their problem is not entirely a problem of the now - their misfortunes could have been written in stone months and months ago.

Of course I'm not in any way justifying the actions of Nick Clegg and the other Lib Dems in government, but from a marketing perspective there is a very simple problem of brand identification which is in danger of completely annhilating the party and the hard work of thousands of members and councillors who are about to pay the penalty for having to face the electorate and do exactly that - justify their existence.

As our discussion continued we touched on the Lib Dems fundamental problem - they can't take credit for whatever good they have brought to the coalition (if any).  They have a fundamental brand identification problem.

During the General Election (when they presumably assumed they weren't going to win), the Liberal Democrats campaigned as an equal against the other two political parties.  With the benefit of hindsight, its clear they should have chosen a completely different path.

Let's just pretend that the Liberal Democrats had only campaigned on issues of economic growth - their manifesto had been full of ideas and decisions about the economic priorities of our country.

For a start, the coalition might actually have a plan for growth.... but also any ideas that did surface would be identified as Liberal Democrat ideas.

The size of the rightward swing of the government has subsumed the efforts of a small party to locate itself in the centre.  Depending on the left-right spectrum as a means to define your party in coalition politics is quite frankly, so last year.....

Instead, the Liberal Democrats need to learn a distinctive voice - not just to be the 'other' voice - and in doing so accept that they are not one of the larger political parties but an influencer, a powerful additive.  In marketing terms, they are the mixer people add to their drink of choice.

In making this change, the political landscape in Britain may be changed forever.  Oh, wait, it's too late - that might have happened already..........