‘This is heart-breaking. Everyone should read this’
‘This is heart-breaking. Everyone should read this’
Frank Cotterell-Boyce responds to our Eldonians investigation — and two leading Labour councillors are out over the parking scandal
Dear readers — welcome back to The Post, where another week of hiring, firing and perspiring lies in wait (we’ll only actually be doing one of those things, perhaps two). Thanks to everyone who shared our job advert for a full-time reporter last week, we’ve already had a number of applications, but do keep them coming in. The full details can be found here, and please share the link with any journalist friends you might have.
Our weekend read about the Knowsley riot, and the complicated question of who was actually behind it, received a fantastic reaction. “A much more balanced piece than the knee-jerk responses following the riot,” was one response. “As always, brilliant journalism from The Post,” was another. If you missed that piece do have a read here.
Thanks also to Frank Cotterell-Boyce, one of Merseyside’s best loved writers (writer of Millions, the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony and that clip of the Queen with Paddington Bear fame) who shared our investigation into the Eldonian Village from last month. “This is heart-breaking and great reporting. Everyone should read this. Eldonian Village was a mini-utopia,” he wrote on Twitter.
Last week paying members of The Post received two great reads. Tuesday saw the second leg of Sophie’s two-parter with Liverpool’s premier writer/cartographer/dream-weaver Jeff Young, a man with a passion for architecture seldom matched in this city or any other. Here’s his description of the Flat Iron building on Victoria Street.
“You’ll see a lot of flat irons in America — in New York, in Chicago. We’ve got one! You can imagine that building sailing towards you. It’s stunningly beautiful, it’s got a magic to it. There are certain Liverpool architects from the late 1800s to as late as the 1950s and they were visionaries. They converted their imagination into stone.”
Then on Thursday we published Damon Fairclough’s review of Rita, Sue and Bob Too, the Epstein's adaptation of Alan Clarke’s 1987 comedy-drama about a pair of 15-year-old girls who end up sleeping with a married man. The question most people would probably ask: can you really stage an appropriate 2023 version of that source material? The answer: probably not.
Editor’s Note: After six weeks of sustained and excellent growth at the start of the year, and gradually developing a sense of ourselves as an unstoppable force of nature, we’re humbled to announce last week’s sensational growth number: zero. Not quite sure what happened there, but hey ho, you can’t win them all, so we’ll be hoping to put that one behind us and push on to the tantalising close target of 900 members by the end of the month. If you appreciate what we do and believe in our mission to restore in-depth, long-form reporting across Merseyside, then please consider taking out a subscription below.
This week’s weather
Monday ⛅ Sunny intervals and a moderate breeze with highs of 13°C
Tuesday 🌧️ Light rain and a gentle breeze with highs of 12°C
Wednesday 🌧️ Light rain and a moderate breeze with highs of 9°C
Thursday 🌦 Light rain showers and a gentle breeze with highs of 9°C
Friday 🌧️ Light rain and light winds with highs of 9°C
Weekend ☀️ Sunny all weekend with light winds and highs of 11°C
This week’s weather forecast is sourced from BBC Weather and it’s for Liverpool.
The big story: Liverpool’s most expensive parking ticket? Two big name councillors pay with their careers
Top line: Two weeks ago, we learned from the Echo that a number of city councillors had used “back door” methods to get parking fines quashed. The timing of the story, just a few months before May’s hugely important all-out council elections, appears to have made an impact. Two long-standing Labour councillors embroiled in the scandal — Barry Kushner and Ann O’Byrne — will now not be standing in the elections. Will more follow?
Context: In May every single seat on Liverpool City Council will be up for grabs. Several parties or ‘movements’ are positioning themselves as ‘anti-corruption’, perhaps mostly notably so far Liberate Liverpool, a group that have been holding regular meetings upstairs at Alma De Cuba on Seel Street, hosted by developer Lawrence Kenwright. Other rumours have abounded of potential anti-Labour pacts among other parties, although nothing has yet been announced. As such, Labour might be feeling the heat.
The Liverpool Community Independents — a breakaway party from Labour who formed last year — suspended their leader Anna Rothery, following the Echo story. Rothery, who had one ticket cancelled, apologised for an “error of judgement”. It appears the party’s swift move was at least in part intended to pile pressure on Labour. They tweeted constantly asking why Labour had not followed suit in its wake, including on 14 February: “Still no word from @LiverpoolLabour on the parking tickets scandal. Will they really just stand whistling while rules are broken?” Alongside Rothery’s suspension, Joanne Calvert also stepped down from the group.
Labour have now followed. Ann O’Byrne, the former deputy mayor who had 17 fines rescinded, has announced she will not be standing, although she said in a Facebook post she was doing so to focus on community work. Meanwhile Barry Kushner, a councillor since 2012, has been blocked from standing again by the party, pending an appeal. In a statement, Lib Dem leader Richard Kemp said:
“Whilst this might appear that Labour is doing the right thing, we should note that Labour have done everything in their power to stop this information coming out. I first raised this officially 18 months ago and the Liverpool Echo had to struggle time and again over 16 months to get their FOI answered which revealed that in fact 14 Labour members have dodged the payment of their fines”.
O’Byrne and Kushner, with 17 and seven fines rescinded respectively, were the biggest offenders highlighted by the Echo. Gerard Woodhouse, the longstanding County ward councillor and subject of our own in-depth investigation last year, had five rescinded, but has already been told he cannot stand under the Labour banner again, for different reasons. Other big names highlighted, like former Mayor Joe Anderson, are no longer part of the party. However, it appears other names embroiled have yet to face sanction. These include:
Nick Small: four tickets rescinded
Wendy Simon, Sharon Connor, Lynnie Hinnigan, Joe Hanson: one ticket rescinded
Bottom line: The parking ticket scandal is awful timing for Labour. Having brought in Liam Robinson to lead the group in December, widely regarded as a safe pair of hands (as Post readers know), their hope would have been to draw a line in the sand between the upcoming elections and the succession of scandals that have mired the council in recent years, mostly notably 2021’s Caller Report and 2022’s energy bill fiasco, which is estimated to cost taxpayers above £16 million. By comparison to those stories, unpaid parking tickets might seem minor. The fact that big players are falling as a result perhaps indicates how precarious Labour’s situation is.
Your Post briefing
A counter demonstration to the riots that took place outside the Suites Hotel in Knowsley two weeks ago, featuring Liverpool mayor Joanne Anderson and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, drew hundreds of people in the city centre. As The Post reported last week on Twitter, the same Instagram accounts that had been instrumental in promoting the original anti-asylum seeker protest began teasing the announcement of a follow up throughout the week, and running polls to gather support. In the end they drew only a small crowd near Lime Street, which was dwarfed by the Corbyn-led event. “Police struggled to keep both sides apart during protests,” the BBC reported. Since the Knowsley protest, which turned violent with the burning of a police van and the assault of an emergency worker, 14 people have been arrested and one charged.
Spotted in Liverpool: Council chief executive Theresa Grant, out for dinner at Gaucho with a cadre of local development bigwigs, a few weeks back on 3 February. Grant pulled up in a blue soft top Audi to meet a number of big-name local developers at the swanky restaurant housed in the former Bank of Liverpool, including Legacie Developments’ John Morley. One of the developers was photographed parked on double yellow lines outside the venue. Know anything about Grant’s developers meetup? Hit us up at editor@livpost.co.uk.
And some more development news. A proposal for 105 flats and 63 student apartments at 180 Falkner Street, the site of the former Liverpool Community Probation Centre, has been rejected after protesters turned up to a planning committee meeting. The developer behind the project is Elliot Lawless, who was questioned by police under Operation Aloft on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud, bribery and corruption in 2021. He denies wrongdoing. Related read: The Georgian townhouse at the centre of Liverpool's political scandal.
Dickie Davies, the Wallasey-born World of Sport presenter, known for the “distinctive white quiff in his fringe and a name that stuck in people’s minds,” has died aged 94. After serving in the RAF as a younger man Davies worked at an amusement arcade in New Brighton, before joining Cunard and heading off to sea. His presenting talents were recognised by a cruise passenger who worked for American TV network NBC, and Davies began calling bingo on his ship. From there he landed a job as announcer, leaving the high seas in ‘61, and over the course of the next decades became one of the most recognisable voices in sport, covering multiple Olympics and FA Cup finals.
Home of the week
Not a home, as such, but an opportunity, this week. With its glorious riverside setting, Rock Park was the vision of Jonathan Bennison in 1836, an early example of Victorian suburban planning for luxury homes. Not a great deal of the six-bedroom property remains, but for £320,000 this Grade II-listed beauty could one day be one of the finest properties in the region again. All it needs is a bit of love (and a few hundred thousand on top…)
Post Picks
🥃 Know your way around a Redbreast and a Bushmills? Enjoy correcting people about the difference between whiskey and whisky? If so, Liverpool Irish Centre’s introduction to Irish Whiskey might be just for you. It’s £7, and the price includes a taste of four whiskeys, washed down with a history lesson.
📽️ The next edition of FACT’s afro-futurist sci-fi adventure screens on Tuesday night with a double-bill. Mulika: about an astronaut who emerges from the wreckage of his spaceship in the volcanic crater of Mount Nyiragongo and has an epiphany. And Crumbs: where a figurine sized superhero embarks on an epic journey that will take him across a post-apocalyptic, Ethiopian landscape. General admission is £10.
🎼 The musical film of the year at the musical venue in Liverpool; Todd Field’s Oscar-nominated Tár — about the genius composer Lydia Tár — is playing at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic on Thursday. The Phil have even added a little flourish on top: an organ prelude from resident organist Dave Nicholas. Tickets here.
🎨 Or, if you fancy yourself as something of a creative genius, try late night painting at Little Peacocks on Friday. Childwall Emporium will bring the paints and the hosts will provide the drinks. The canvas is pre-drawn, so all you have to do is paint in the lines. Sign up here.
Our favourite reads
A long-read in The Guardian that about Liverpool’s saga to have blame justly administered for last year’s Champions League final fiasco. The writer, David Austin, spent a week in Paris after the final appearing on foreign TV broadcasts trying to challenge the false narrative pushed by the French authorities. He describes the battle, now won in the form of an independently-commissioned report putting the blame squarely at Uefa’s door — to challenge the notion that the teragassed and almost crushed match-goers “had brought the carnage upon themselves.” An important read, well worth your time.
Rakib Ehsan claims in The Spectator that the Knowsley protest was “in some ways inevitable”. He believes a system set up to protect the vulnerable has become “survival-of-the-fittest” and that people-smugglers have been allowed to profit amid the chaos, to the tune of £183 million a year for helping groups cross the channel, according to recent French data. Ehsan’s greatest issue, though, is the unfair distribution of asylum seekers in the UK. “That political slogan ‘we’re all in this together’ doesn’t apply in most spheres of life — including the rehoming of newcomers,” he writes, noting revelations in 2017 that more than five times as many destitute asylum seekers live in the poorest third of the country as the richest. The result is intensifying social tensions and communities at breaking point.
“Is the European Capital of Culture now pitching its future identity on an ambition to be the European Capital of Light Entertainment?” asks this somewhat sceptical but fascinating look at the city’s Eurovision plans in Liverpolitan. The piece wonders whether Liverpool’s co-called “natural synergy” with an event widely associated with musical mediocrity is the boast it thinks it is. But before you cancel your order of a sequined frock and chuck your spaceman helmet in a skip, maybe read David Lloyd’s more positive look at the incoming festivities.
Photo of the week
Protesters clash at Saturday’s refugees welcome rally in the city centre. Photo by James Speakman/PA Images via Getty Images.
Letters from readers
Yet another reason to be proud to be a scouser. You make reference to Rowse’s wonderful Queensway Tunnel extractor on The Strand. Walk one mile north and shudder at the grotesque concrete brutality of The Kingsway extractor opposite Waterloo Warehouse. Both carry out the same function but only one makes your heart soar at the skill of those 1930s Liverpool stonemasons, ‘Welcome to Wonderland’, Paula Burnell
Really appreciated this piece. As horrific as the situation was, you really can empathise with both sides. There are significant cultural differences in these countries insofar as the norms re: courtship/gender roles/age of consent, and we can't bury our heads in the sand about it in the interest of not appearing racist. There's nothing racist about acknowledging that people might need time and support to learn the "rules" of another culture (cont…), ‘Fire and fury: The inside story of Knowsley’s night of shame’, Lisa Gaylor
Are any of the characters from the ironically named "save our city" part of this "liberate liverpool" group I wonder?
Things I don't want to happen, joint first place:
Hatton back in Liverpool politics, Anderson back in Liverpool politics, Kenwright involved in Liverpool politics.
While the past 10 years were truly dreadful for Liverpool, it is notable that a select SOME seemed to prosper from its dreadfulness, didn't they?
After everything we've been through, if our politics once again falls to these sorts of characters then the city is truly finished. Having already missed out on 10 years of UK growth, we are at real risk of being talked about in the same breath as Sicily.