THE TOWER OF LONDON

This historic building has been at the centre of my thoughts this week for two completely different reasons.

 

The discovery of the bones of Good King Richard is inevitably linked to the story of the Princes in the Tower. There is no proof Richard killed them by the way. Instead the king should be remembered for being a damn good governor of the North of England. We could do with him now. However I must remember this is principally a business blog in the present time.

 

Even with that in mind, the Tower of London loomed up this week because the Liverpool Embassy in London is located near the Tower. Liverpool in London, to give it its more correct title, is a project to give entrepreneurs from the city a base to work from and to signal a confident Liverpool open for business.

 

It opened its doors in Royal Mint Court two years ago and the original backers of the project could have been heading for the Tower if some of the critics had been proved right. A gimmick that won’t last would be a polite way of summing up the reaction of the sceptical.

 

In 2011 the inspiration for the idea came from Guy Wallis a senior partner in the Liverpool offices of the business law firm DWF. It was backed by our own Frank McKenna and Joe Anderson, the leader of Liverpool Council.

 

Two years on the project has generated £1m additional sales for Liverpool companies, and attracted £20m of new investment. Those are the hard figures but it is in the intangible networking opportunities that the project has justified its funding by the council and private sector. £58 pounds return for every £1 invested according to its backers

 

The ringmaster is Chris Hayes, the Liverpool in London manager. He arranges quarterly networking events, dinners and hundreds of one to one meetings between Liverpool business people and potential clients in London. You can use the facilities free for a day but Chris Hayes wants people to sign up to the business club thereafter.

 

The private sector have stepped up to a limited extent to back Liverpool in London but it is still a 70/30 split in favour of the city council. As we know the authority is facing mega financial pressures and it would be handy if more firms came on board. That said Mayor Joe Anderson was in upbeat mood when he spoke at a second anniversary event for the embassy this week.

 

He announced that funding was secure through the next two years and he hoped for a couple of years after that, but he wanted more people to use the facilities at Royal Mint Court. He sees Liverpool in London playing a vital part in getting over the good news about major capital projects happening in Liverpool and hinted that a major announcement was imminent on the £5.5bn Liverpool Waters project.

 

A number of Liverpool business people spoke of their practical experience of using the facility in the capital. John Porter of Crosby Associates told of his success in developing the mobile app used by the London Chamber of Commerce and said it was as a result of having a base in the capital.

 

Liverpool Vision are strong supporters of the project and their flamboyant CEO Max Steinberg says Liverpool in London will be crucial to the projection of next year’s International Festival of Business being held on both sides of the Mersey.

 

Our own Frank McKenna pleaded for more positive coverage of this and other projects in the local press which he claimed was sometimes sabotaging jobs coming to the city by its coverage.

 

The event ended with Guy Wallis reflecting on the success of his vision and hoping that Mayor Joe Anderson could meet Mayor Boris Johnson on Tower Bridge to mark the success of Liverpool in London. So come on Boris you owe us that.

 

 

LORDS OF THE NORTH

I’m not as bothered that the ancestors of some current peers are bastard sons of Charles the Second than that so many of them come from the South East of England.

It’s a fact that the vast majority of the 826 members of the House of Lords are either from that corner of the country or live there now.

This means that most members of the upper chamber who play a crucial role in our law making know little or nothing about our neck of the woods, so roll on regional peers.

The way in which a reshaped House of Lords will be elected has received little attention from the Westminster Village journalists. That’s not surprising as most of them are from the London area.

However the bill to be debated on Monday contains plans that could give a real voice to the North. 80% of the new house will be elected by proportional representation. These new democratic Lords will sit for one 15 year term and they will be elected from the regions of England. So the North West, North East and Yorkshire will be able to elect representatives who know about our patch and its people.

This proposal will also have the advantage of reasserting the concept of the North West of England. The Coalition has spent two years comprehensively wiping regions off the map. Now they are beginning to realise the usefulness of uniting Cumbria, Lancashire, Cheshire and the great cities of Liverpool and Manchester. Better together indeed.

When the time comes we will need to make sure that independent people have a real shot at getting elected. The main political parties will choose their candidates on a list and depending on the votes they get, their peers will be elected in the same way as we choose our members of the European Parliament.

It is a system that locks out the public in favour of party cabals so we will have our work cut out to get independent voices to beat them, but that’s not for now.

What is immediately required is support for the government in getting the Lords reformed. It currently looks as if the Coalition Government is faced with a Coalition of political opportunists and peers with self interested reasons for seeing no reform at all.

All parties are split. The Lib Dems are most in favour but watch some of their representatives in the Lords who may not be too keen to lose their seats. A large number of Tory backbenchers are against for various reasons. There is a group following in the tradition of their predecessors 100 years ago who were prepared to draw the monarchy into politics as they fought against Lords reform. Others are spoiling for a fight with the Lib Dems who are most committed to the measure.

Then there is Labour who are in a mood of dangerous opportunism. They have been in favour of full Lords reform since Kier Hardy (their founder) was a lad. However they can’t resist embarrassing the government by calling for endless debating time on the bill. If they vote with rebel Tories on the motion which decides how long Lords Reform is going to be debated, it could effectively kill the measure.

If that happened the North West would be denied a real chance for a voice in this country’s second chamber.

 

UNITED STATES OF EUROPE? SHOULD WE JOIN?

Only a banking union is going to save the Eurozone. That’s effectively an economic union which needs democratic political control. That means a United States of those countries in the Eurozone which leaves the continental countries outside the Eurozone as an uncomfortable rump plus the UK. London has the biggest banking and financial centre in Europe; therefore we should be part of the United States of Europe.

Whilst Eurosceptics (most of you) gag on this outrageous proposition, let me make my case. It won’t be easy in a country that has been heavily influenced for a long time by the anti-EU Murdoch press. Remember what former Prime Minister John Major told the Leveson Inquiry this week. How this jumped up Aussie press baron had threatened the Prime Minister of this country that if he didn’t change his policy on Europe, all his newspapers would aim to bring him down.

The Greek vote this weekend may accelerate the deepening crisis brought about by the contradiction of having a common currency without central banking control. Whether the Greeks elect a far left government that repudiates their bailout conditions or not, the President of the European Commission is already paving the way for a banking union to start next January.

It would mean common supervision of Eurozone banks giving the German Chancellor what she wants, joint accountability and joint control all in one.

Whilst euroscepticism is rampant in Britain, the response of European politicians to the deepening crisis is to see the solution in closer integration.

David Cameron and George Osborne won’t be taking my advice, although they will support the Eurozone drawing closer together. After all the Chancellor is convinced this Euro chaos rather than the Jubilee Bank Holiday or the wrong kind of rain is hampering our recovery. The UK will demand a strengthening of the single market involving all 27 member states to protect our large financial services sector.

But the Germans aren’t happy with the British government’s approach. They fear the danger of a 2 speed Europe if there is a tight Eurozone with Britain outside. But they aren’t going to get us in because most people in Britain think the Euro is a failure and we are well out of it. I doubt if that is a wise judgement in the longer term.

If we were part of a united Europe we would be able to add our economic and fiscal wisdom to a collection of countries that badly need it. We should be alongside Germany and France in spreading best practice from Eastern Europe to the Atlantic. That way we could ensure stability in our biggest market. As it is we are shouting advice from the sidelines and we could soon be down the tunnel and out of the stadium.

That’s because the pressure for a referendum on our continued membership of the European Union is wearing down all politicians. There are even suggestions that the Labour Party is dallying with this irresponsible nonsense.

Irresponsible nonsense to give the British people a say? I’m afraid so. There would be a big vote to get out and only then would we realise what we’ve lost. We’d be like Norway, obeying all the EU rules so that we could sell our goods but with no influence.