‘Cynical, dishonest and shameful’: Labour goes on the offensive as election draws closer
‘Cynical, dishonest and shameful’: Labour goes on the offensive as election draws closer
Plus: The Post teams up with The Fence for an exciting collaboration
Dear readers — though we often begin this newsletter heaping lavish words of praise onto a plucky independent media company whose output belies its diminutive size, it makes a nice change that today we aren’t talking about ourselves. This week we’re teaming up with The Fence, the brilliant magazine and newsletter, a copy of which is one of just a few items that seemingly live forever in my backpack.
That means this week’s weekend read will be served up by the good folk of The Fence — a beautiful essay about the slippery definitions of Scouseness from Southport native Josh Mcloughlin. It also means we’ll be giving away a gallery-grade copy of the accompanying illustrated map to one of our paying subscribers (by Vanity Fair’s Paul Cox, no less). More details on that tomorrow. We’d encourage you to take out a subscription, which costs £30 a year for four editions, alongside their free weekly newsletter — Off The Fence — both of which feature cracking investigations, offbeat essays, wonderful drawings and general shenanigans. If you'd like to know what you’re getting yourself in for first, here’s a tasting menu:
A staggering investigation into Queen Ethelburga’s, a fee-paying school whose proprietor is a convicted paedophile.
A fascinating piece reported on our patch, looking at the aftermath of Emad al-Swealmeen attempt to bomb Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
An exploration of what goes down if you want to buy a goblin on the internet.
Today’s edition is as jam-packed as ever. Our Big Story focuses on a row that has opened up ahead of the council elections as Labour’s leaflets turn personal. On top of that, we’ve got postcards for Putin, DJs in St George’s Hall and Italianate architecture in Wavertree.
Our weekend read about air pollution in Liverpool and Sefton had a storming response, with tons of great comments and shares on social media. “Journalism of the highest standard,” were the words of one tweeter. “Shocked by this article. Deserving of a more widely-seen documentary to raise awareness. How many more will have suffered these conditions by 2040 if nothing is done?” wrote another astute commenter. If you missed it, catch up here.
Last week paying members received two fantastic editions. Our new (loan) signing — data whizz Daniel Timms — served up a cracking Tuesday read with more maps than your heart could desire looking at the startling rise of property prices in the city centre (he discovered that the average property in Liverpool City Centre now sells for 60% more than before the pandemic!). And on Thursday we asked why Liverpool company Bibby Marine had signed a lucrative deal to put more than 500 asylum seekers on an offshore barge?
Editor’s note: The Post has been flying of late, skipping past the big 1000 paying member milestone at the start of last week to find ourselves on 1032 today. That’s handy, because everything we do is reader-funded and the more people we get on board, the more ambitious projects we’ll be able to undertake. Pieces like the weekend read on air pollution can take months to compile, speaking to numerous experts, affected residents and trawling through documents from council meetings. Then the editing process — which involved three different editors — takes weeks more. We believe the end result is worth it but it certainly isn’t a cheap way to do journalism. If you’d like to support our continued growth, please consider a subscription for a very reasonable £1.25 a week.
This week’s weather
Monday 🌦️ Light rain showers and a gentle breeze with highs of 9°C
Tuesday ☀️ Sunny and a gentle breeze with highs of 10°C
Wednesday ☁️ Light cloud and a gentle breeze with highs of 12°C
Thursday 🌧️ Light rain and a moderate breeze with highs of 13°C
Friday 🌧️ Light rain and a gentle breeze with highs of 12°C
Weekend 🌧️ Light rain showers and a gentle breeze with highs of 15°C
This week’s weather forecast is sourced from BBC Weather and it’s for Liverpool.
The big story: Who's afraid of the Independent councillor?
Top line: Tensions are boiling over in Liverpool’s politics ahead of next month’s all-out council elections. A leaflet distributed by the Labour Party in Garston targeting ex-Labour councillor Sam Gorst — who is bidding to retain his council seat for the Liverpool Community Independents (LCIs) — has prompted the leaders of the Lib Dems, Liberals, Greens and LCIs to join forces in condemnation, calling it “cynical, dishonest and shameful”.
Context: Every single Liverpool City Council seat is being contested on 4 May (as well as all outs in Wirral, and roughly a third of seats in Halton, Sefton and Knowsley). Due to the ward boundary changes recommended by the government’s commissioners, the number of wards is rising from 30 to 64 in Liverpool, with many single member wards, while the total number of councillors is being cut from 90 to 85. In short, these are the most important local elections the city has seen in a long, long time.
Gorst is one of a number of dissident Labour councillors who jumped ship last year, joining the LCIs, a breakaway party more aligned with the Corbynite left. Branded “Garston Residents News” and headlined “SICKENING”, the Labour leaflet details Gorst’s supposed “record of shame”, including the following:
Accusing Gorst of jumping the queue within his housing association.
Bringing up his old social media comments calling Queen Elizabeth II a “useless b****” and former Labour MP Luciana Berger a “hideous traitor”.
Warning of a return to the “dark days of Militant” (a reference to the LCIs refusing to vote for Labour’s recent budget).
Labour have defended the leaflet as factually accurate to the Echo, saying:
"The so-called Liverpool Community Independents love mouthing off, but don’t like it when we hold up a mirror to what their candidates say on social media. We think the voters in Garston have a right to know, which is why we’re holding them to account.”
But the quartet of party leaders called it “cynical, dishonest and shameful” and called on Sir Keir Starmer to step in and prevent “further fake leaflets, personal attacks and bogus social media accounts”. Steve Radford, leader of the Liberals, said this in a press release:
“It is a totally cowardly way by Labour to attack someone masquarderading as a residents news letter...As an ardent supporter of our constitutional monarchy I find it deeply offensive the monarchy is being cynically used as a political football in a local election.”
The rise of the independents? Labour’s leaflet, warning of “Independent Danger” clearly nods to one of the key themes in the build up to these elections. As well as the LCIs, a new group of independents, named Liberate Liverpool and backed by Signature Living property developer Lawrence Kenwright, will be standing 30 candidates with an anti “fraud and corruption” message. Liberate drew criticism online for past homophobic comments made by one candidate (who has since been ejected from the group), but are said to have distributed 250,000 leaflets of their own around town, a remarkable number for a grassroots organisation. Between them and the LCIs, this election will see over 50 Independent hopefuls.
Bottom line: Despite taking significant reputational damage over the last few years — most notably from the Caller report, the costly energy bill gaff and the parking ticket fiasco — Labour will still be confident of retaining a majority on the council. Nonetheless, aggressive leaflets like this suggest they are at least taking the independents seriously.
Your Post briefing
Postcards for Putin: Local kids have been writing postcards to Vladimir Putin, insisting that the Ukrainian community in Liverpool will “carry on loving life” and “celebrate what’s good” during May’s Eurovision celebrations, as preparations ramp up. Meanwhile, a number of Ukraine-themed Eurovision gifts — including badges, pins and ribbons — have been popping up around town, including being worn by staff at Broadgreen Hospital. The project is in aid of British-Ukrainian Aid, a charity which has been supplying first aid kits, ambulances and evacuation vehicles to Ukraine for the war effort. Dr Natalia Tronenko, the charity’s co-founder, told The Post they were “very grateful” for Liverpool’s support ahead of Eurovision, helping them to “raise funds and save more lives”. You can buy your own products here or here, with a percentage of the proceeds going to British-Ukrainian Aid. Or, you can donate to the charity directly here.
Why isn’t air pollution a doorstep issue at the upcoming council elections? It isn’t only us asking the question – local campaigner Paul Fawkesley has also been trying to turn the tide, and is urging residents across the city to write to their councillors and council candidates. You can check out his website here, which shows pollution levels at addresses and schools around the city as well as a rundown on what response, if any, there has been from the local would-be elected representatives (spoiler: there’s generally very little).
Has New Ferry become a hotbed of anti-social behaviour? The Wirral town has been singled out as experiencing one of the sharpest rises in public order offences in the country, after a think tank reported Britons are feeling less safe out on the streets. A Post tipster recently drew our attention to the town, where residents have complained about “a massive increase in intimidating behaviour” and “parts of the town you’d be afraid to visit in the evenings”. And a recent piece in the Financial Times spoke of “gangs of 30 or 40 children [who] hang around the boarded-up shopping precinct or the corner of the park, starting fires and throwing missiles at passers-by, terrorising locals.” In the Echo it was described as “something out of The Purge”. Last month, evening dispersal zones were announced. Is New Ferry deserving of its newfound reputation for bad behaviour or are these reports getting out of hand? Let us know at editor@livpost.co.uk.
And finally, a woman who went viral online appealing for help finding her parrot, Channel, during lockdown, has been charged over a £792,000 cannabis haul. The frantic search for the pet, an African grey, made Sandra Hannah a momentary sensation in 2020 after she recorded herself searching the streets near her home, shouting: “My parrot has just flew away out my garden. CHANEL! Her name is Chanel, she’s gone towards the canal.” A joint operation between Merseyside Police’s investigations team and the National Crime Agency led to the discovery of 237.6kg of cannabis resin imported from Spain, valued at £792,000.
Post Picks
🏛️ A silent disco at St Georges Hall promises Grade A DJs in a Grade I listed building. You’ll have three channels of 90s music to choose between on state-of-the-art headphones, and the hall will be illuminated in spectacular fashion. It’s not until July, but early booking is advised.
🎶 Or if 90s DJs and their “bangers” isn’t quite your speed, Stravinsky’s explosive The Rite of Spring (which caused riots when it first came out in 1913) is being performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, led by star conductor Domingo Hindoyan. Be quick, tickets are selling very fast.
📸 Leroy Cooper — whose arrest aged 20 in 1981 was one of the sparks that started the Toxteth riots — has a photography exhibition in the Museum of Liverpool’s Skylight Gallery, described as an “evocative and insightful images are a love letter to the city and the Liverpool 8 community”. Don’t miss it.
👂And some listening for the homebodies among you. Local Lib Dem leader Richard Kemp discusses the sad fate of the Eldonians on The Critical Friend (the newsletter of the South Liverpool Debating Society). Suffice to say, he has “strong feelings”. Listen here.
Home of the week
An abundance of exposed brick, decorative tiled ceilings and a bathroom so slick you’d feel reluctant to take a shower, are the stand-out features of this Wavertree flat. Hollystead House, its Grade II-listed stuccoed building, dates back to the 1870s and has an Italianate style with castellated turrets. The flat is on the market for £325,000.
Our favourite reads
One of the best pieces we’ve read in months courtesy of Ed Caesar at the New Yorker, who delved into the criminal underworld to look at the fallout from European police breaking into encrypted phone networks. It isn’t a piece that focuses on our region, but we know that the Encrochat bust caused huge ripples through Merseyside crime circles, with hundreds of arrests. The whole thing is brilliant — and informative — but the stand-out moment finds Caesar sat with Montenegrin gangsters in the back office of an auto-body shop, who find his questions to be quite unwelcome: “The trafficker turned away from me and said, in so many words, that he was going to beat me up and leave me in a ditch somewhere.”
The Guardian explores the fight to end Hillsborough abuse and “tragedy chanting”. Journalist Tony Evans describes the trend as the “banterfication” of Hillsborough, and Louise Brookes — who lost her brother Andrew 34 years ago — says it’s been worsening over the last decade, with chants about “victims” or direct references to the tragedy increasingly common. The piece cites a few possible explanations for this. “An increased polarisation of society, exacerbated and reflected by social media,” is one obvious reason, but also the “jealousy and resentment” caused by Liverpool’s success in the past few years.
How much is our political outlook shaped by the media? Ahead of tomorrow’s Post interview with Dr David Jeffery, whose new book looks in-depth at the decline of the Tories in Liverpool, here’s an Unherd piece from 2019 analysing the effects of the city’s boycott of The Sun on the Brexit vote. A belief that spread in the wake of the referendum, where 58% of Liverpudlians voted to remain, was that it was the Sun-free environment that caused a downtrend in Euroscepticism, but Tom Chivers isn’t so sure, finding an altogether simpler explanation.
Open Newsroom
If you want to tell us about a story or give us some information, please email editor@livpost.co.uk. We are always happy to speak to people off the record in the first instance, and we will treat your information with confidence and sensitivity.
We’d still like to speak to anyone who has worked within (or has knowledge of) Sefton Council’s Children’s Services department for a piece we’ve had in the works for a few months. Any insights at all would be greatly appreciated — email jack@livpost.co.uk.
In preparation for the upcoming all-out council elections, do get in touch with any tips, gossip, predictions. We’re all ears.
Letters from readers
I moved my family from Seaforth to the Wirral 20 years ago, largely due to air quality issues and my wife's worsening asthma. Following some backpacking around some lovely parts of the world in the mid 90's, on return, the poor air quality was noticeable even then. Despite having many happy memories over 13 years in Seaforth I have no regrets in moving. The issue has deteriorated drastically. Most of my friends and family still live in the surrounding areas and regularly attend Save Rimrose Valley meetings, ‘Toxic air is choking Merseyside’, Paul Drury
Having lived near Millers Bridge in Bootle it was common knowledge that there were releases during night hours from the dock based plants. It was variously ascribed to a rape seed plant but this was denied in the Bootle Times. This didn’t smell like fire, and it induced nausea in many. Some of those recycling sites have terrible health and safety records so it isn’t a leap to imagine they’d not care about air quality either, ‘Toxic air is choking Merseyside’, Mike R
Paul O Grady so loved Birkenhead he decided to be buried in Kent. Much as he loved dogs I think Lily Savage would have made some comments about the line up of dogs on the street! Something like watch your stilettos girls you'll need to clean them! RIP Paul O Grady wherever you are!
Regarding ASB in New Ferry I fear that like in Kirkby the residents will suddenly recognise problems only when asylum seekers are housed in New Ferry Sorry to be cynical about Merseyside friendliness but there you go !