We are putting forward this amendment because we agree with this statement: “the idea of a home for life handed on in common ownership to future generations is an idea worth fighting for.”

The speaker was Labour’s Lisa Nandy, not somebody I always agree with. But I agree with those words.

Thatcher’s Right to Buy was popular, but it contained a time bomb. By not building new council houses, quality homes at an affordable rent, the social housing stock dwindled, contributing to the housing crisis we face now. Nationally 1 million houses were sold within 10 years. Spending restrictions were also introduced at the same time which that it was no longer possible to build new houses in large numbers.

Many homes sold under Right to Buy ended up in the private rented sector at exorbitant cost to tenants. This also raises the Housing Benefit burden.

Another Labour Shadow Minister Lucy Powell said at the 2021 Labour conference that ending Right to Buy was the right thing to do. I sincerely hope this has not been the subject of one of Starmer’s notorious U-turns.

Ending Right to Buy is an indispensable first step in increasing the number of social homes available to rent and enable waiting lists to fall.

Both Labour and Tory governments from 1945 through the 1950s had mass council house building programmes. Some of the houses that were built at that time remain some of the best homes ever built in this country and this was in economic conditions far worse than those we face now.

This amendment is about removing one of the causes of the escalating homelessness crisis. It is not just another plea to an unresponsive Tory government; it is a call on the incoming Labour government to remember the best days of its history when it built houses and do the right thing, building in large numbers the kind of homes that provided better lives for generations of working people.

Speech on health inequalities

A life lived well. An excellent quality of life for as long as possible and the shortest period of ill health and pain towards the end of life. This is the gold standard.

When we read in this report “Progress has stalled over the last decade” we should be worried.
When we read “Those living in our poorest areas live 15 years less than those in more affluent areas, and they live 18 more years with poor health” we should be driven to action.

One major impact on health we all recognise is poor housing. A fifth of housing is non-decent. I have seen it in my ward, visiting and raising with council services properties with mould and damp for which residents can be paying £900 a month.

No fault evictions are a Damocles sword over many tenants’ heads, causing immense stress and worry. Without a major change of housing policy, it is hard to see any light at the end of this tunnel. We are not surprised that the Tories are a pro-landlord party. When Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves say they can’t turn on the spending taps we should be worried about an uninspiring continuity of policy. They should read their Keir Hardie on landlordism.

Every human being should have the right to a warm, comfortable and affordable home and that means mass council housing. To achieve that, we need a dramatic change in policy. In the aftermath of WWII both Labour and Tory governments began programmes of mass social housing. If we could do it amid the wreckage of war, we can do it as we emerge from 14 years of Tory misrule.

Poor air quality blights lives.
5.8% of deaths nationally are due to poor air quality, but 44% of people in this city go to work by car. In Garston ward, the application for Veolia to expand has highlighted the desperate health statistics in the ward.

All too often poor mental health is the unfashionable, difficult and disregarded illness.
It is heart-breaking to read that 1 in 5 children has a probable mental health disorder. One of the most shocking pieces of evidence in the report is this:
“The biggest increase in major illness is projected in the number of people diagnosed with depression, which is expected to more than double to 164,200 people.”
Depression in turn is related to poor housing, poor educational opportunities and poverty.
According to Public Health England, children from households in the bottom fifth of income distribution are over four times more likely to experience severe mental health problems that those in the highest fifth.

This entire multi-faceted reduction in people’s quality of life is not an accident.
It is the direct consequence of a conscious political choice by Cameron’s Tory government, supported by Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems, to worsen the lives of the poorest to protect the wealth and well-being of the rich. It was called austerity and it is the biggest con in recent political history. I would love to say an incoming Labour government will represent change, but abiding by Tory-established fiscal rules means continuity austerity.

According to Public Health England, access to good-quality green space is linked to improvements in physical and mental health, and lower levels of obesity. Levels of access to green space are lower on average for people from ethnic minority communities and people living in areas with lower average incomes. I am old enough to remember when our parks were places with manicured lawns, glowing flower beds, animal corners, boating lakes and cafes. Some of our parks have been reduced by generations of cuts to shadows of their former selves.

My twin daughters are regular gym goers because they attended Everton Park Gymnastics Club from early childhood. That same club looks with concern at the possibility they may no longer have a home because of the council’s decision to remove two leisure centres from its portfolio.

The moment you say resources are needed to address health inequalities, the refrain comes back: “You can’t just throw money at it.”

Well, the UK government was quick enough to rip money from our communities.

Why should we dance to the government’s tune?

According to the Commons Public Accounts Committee, Government is unable to demonstrate value for money across a staggering £259bn of public procurement

There are measures we can take locally, but to make any significant impact it requires something radical to happen. It demands a different kind of politics that rejects the notion that you have to defend the interests of the rich and powerful who have the best health outcomes by worsening the public services of those who have the worst ones.

Endless cuts were a political choice. A new Oxfam report reveals the worlds 5 richest men… have more than doubled their fortunes to £682bn in 3 years while the world’s poorest 60%. almost 5 billion people, have lost money.

The world and this country are awash with money, just in the wrong hands. An end to cuts to is the precondition for resourcing the improved life chances of the many.

Because in Gaza now 10,000 civilians have already died,
Half of them children,
Because the mechanised destruction of a people
Is not the answer
To the horrific slaughter of 1,400 Israeli civilians on October 7th,
Because, in the din of war,
It is still right to talk peace,
To talk about talk,
To talk about the issue of occupation,
Because Palestinian and Israeli alike
Deserve a future without war,
We are all Palestinians.

Because in the Gaza bombing of 2014
2,300 Palestinians and seventy-one Israelis died,
Women, children, men,
The elderly, the helpless, the infirm,
The innocents, the fighters, the brave, the fearful,
The dreamers, traders, makers,
Because of them,
We are all Palestinians.

Because over ten thousand people in that previous horror were wounded,
Flesh torn, bones broken, limbs rendered useless,
Because lives changed forever,
Hopes, dreams, aspirations were shattered
Like flesh and bone,
Trickled like fresh blood into the gutter,
We are all Palestinians.

Because one in four houses were
Rendered uninhabitable,
Because walls cracked and shattered,
Because schools, hospitals, mosques, homes
And the only power plant,
Were slit open like ripe figs,
Because shell holes gaped
Like vacant eye sockets,
Because the remnants of lives lay under rubble,
Those photographs, mementoes, books and toys,
We are all Palestinians.

Because fighter aircraft screamed
Over miles of stunted olive trees,
barbed wire, beaches and graffitied walls,
Because tanks chewed tracks
And growled dust through pitiless dawns and dusks,
Because drones filled cloudless skies,
Because the oppressed in infamous words
Chose self-genocide,
We are all Palestinians.

Because in 2018, more Palestinians died
And hundreds were injured
In the Great March of Return,
Because the Israeli Defence Force
Says it knows where every bullet landed,
Because enduring conflict is written
In blood in the bleak hinterland
Behind coils of wire,
Because Shireen Abu Akleh
Died in search of the truth,
We are all Palestinians.

Because a people has endured day after day,
year after year, generation after generation,
The grinding, crushing, asymmetric horror
And a decades-old consensus maintaining
The heinous lie that those who resist
A mighty military state
Are somehow the sole, causal agent of conflict,
Because those people endure
And suffer and resist once more in the wake
Of Sheikh Jarrah, Jabalia, Gaza City,
And because we are human and capable
Of empathy, because for God’s sake
We have hearts and souls
And believe that one day Israeli and Palestinian
Can at long last live in peace and security,
We are all Palestinians.

Well, Labour hung on in the by-election so what are we to make of it?

Firstly, the party has little to celebrate. It lost 26% of its support and its share of the vote is reduced to just 40%. Our group of ex-Labour socialists, the Liverpool Community Independents, managed a credible 30%, coming second. The Lib Dems came third with 17%.

The background to the by-election lies in Frazer Lake’s resignation. Right-winger Lake was Cabinet member for Children’s Services which had just experienced a damning Ofsted report. Whether it was the desire to take up a better-paid job with Unite the Union or apprehension at the fallout from the Ofsted report, Lake’s departure put Labour on the back foot.

It was not enough to unseat Labour in the party’s heartland. There is a strong vestigial Labour vote and, while there were only two candidates contesting it Fazakerley East in May, there were five this time out and probably blunted LCI’s forward march. The Lib Dems got out their traditional vote and probably peeled off some disillusioned Labour voters who may have turned to us in a two-candidate face-off. As a result we were unable to replicate the recent victories in Garston and Orrell Park. Many campaigners reported a relatively flat political atmosphere. Hard as we campaigned, we were unable to find the final 93 votes to overhaul Labour.

That said, a year-old group is consistently winning seats or coming second, proving there is a political space to the left of Labour. We are polling way above the usual left of Labour vote.

If we learn some lessons about strengthening our postal vote operation and varying our political messaging, we can build on this result and strengthen the Left across the city.

A lot of people talked left to advance their political careers at the height of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. Now departed councillor Frazer Lake was one of them.

Lake was a member of Warbreck branch when I was chair and secretary of Walton CLP, Liverpool Walton being the constituency with the highest Labour vote in the country. It was evident to many of us that his left credentials were questionable to say the least.

Lake’s political career began when he was shortlisted for the Fazakerley seat in 2019. I was the CLP observer when Lake’s manipulative left rhetoric got him preferred to genuine Corbyn supporter Rona Heron. Cue a rapid rise ultimately leading to inclusion in Mayor Joanne Anderson’s Cabinet in the aftermath of the Caller Report into Liverpool City Council that saw government commissioners sent into the city.

In a meteoric rise unjustified by any genuine sense of principle or obvious ability, Lake would become deputy Mayor and hold the Cabinet brief for Children’s Services.

The tenure of Mayor Joanne Anderson was meant to signify recovery from Mayor Joe Anderson’s time, heavily criticised in the Caller Report, but it was marked by a series of disasters, some arguably rooted in Joe Anderson’s conduct of Liverpool City Council and some Joanne Anderson’s own.

The catalogue of failure is staggering:

• Three departments judged failing in the Caller Report
• Numerous dubious property deals
• The controversial Beautiful Ideas saga
• The revelation that 14 Labour councillors had 51 parking fines rescinded outside the official PCN system
• £230m of bad debt written off
• 30 months of rent not collected on the Beetham Plaza car park
• Over £1 million of council tax not collected from landlords
• The £16 million energy bill fiasco

But the issue for which Lake will be remembered is his time as Cabinet member for Children’s Social Care.

A damning Ofsted report has judged the department inadequate and that children were at risk of ‘being harmed or at risk of harm.’ At an emergency full council Cllr Liz Makinson proposed and I seconded a motion about the crisis.

Lake’s speech in the debate raised eyebrows. In a reprise of rapper Shaggy he effectively declared that: “it wasn’t me.” It was a “huge surprise as the scale of problems was never made clear to me.” He claimed that he was blocked from receiving information and pointed the finger at the now-departed Children’s Services Director Steve Reddy and CEO Tony Reeves, which surprised many of us on the opposition benches who had witnessed Lake’s warm words about both.

The circumstances of Lake’s departure are as opaque as the circumstances of his relationships with Reddy and Reeves.

According to his account, he applied for a union job a year ago and only got confirmation recently. If this is account is accurate then we must conclude Lake’s commitment to the people of Fazakerley was as shallow as his support for Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.

We in the Liverpool Community Independents will now try to build on the 32% vote we won in the May elections against Lake and win the seat.

Few beyond his close colleagues in Liverpool Labour will mourn his departure.

Liverpool Labour collectively reminds anyone in the know of Sally Bowles in Cabaret, walking off counselling us not to look back, because they never do.

Looking back means scrutinising your actions, asking how things went wrong and more importantly, how we can put them right.

There are plenty of examples of this, starting with the Operation Aloft investigation and the now notorious Caller Report into three failing Liverpool City Council divisions. We are yet to see prosecutions from Aloft and, for all the heat and noise, the introduction of five generously paid Commissioners and the outpouring of glossy plans, precious little transparency about the goings-on at the Cunard Building and the Town Hall.

Take the running sore of the Beautiful Ideas (BICo) saga. Here was a City Council-linked CIC dedicated to using the money generated at two north Liverpool match day car parks to fund ‘good causes.’ OK, large sums of money didn’t get to the good causes, there were no tickets for the ten quid a throw spaces, no reconciliation of funds, no Vat, no business rates, no guarantee. Oh sorry, that’s Only Fools and Horses. There were companies collapsing like dominoes and much more, but hey ho, nobody was ever called to account despite three long-undisclosed Audit reports.

After their publication, was anyone held to account? No. Indeed, one of the councillors most involved in BICo, Nick Small, now holds the business brief in the new allegedly squeaky clean, Starmerite council.

Even when it was revealed that there was a third, unaudited BICo car park, no alarms went off. It couldn’t now be audited retrospectively we were told. So how would we know where the money went? We couldn’t, the answer, came. So, if the answer wasn’t going to come from the council, who should we go to? Why, BICo of course. Only BICo was dissolving itself so the company’s affairs would remain inscrutable, like Mona Lisa’s smile. The whole thing was very Catch 22.

What about the writing off of £230 million? That had to cause one hell of a ruckus. Well, no. It was mentioned at the Finance Select Committee, resulting, despite the efforts of some opposition councillors, in the mildest of political shrugs. Property dealer Elliot Lawless going 30 months without paying rent on the lease of the Beetham Plaza car park? Another shrug. Over a million pounds of council tax left uncollected from landlords? You guessed it a shrug. Go through the city council’s property portfolio and you’d be shrugging on into the night.

Well, the multi-million pound energy bill fiasco, the result of failing to get a fixed rate fuel bill sorted, that had to cause a stink surely? It resulted in a demotion for Councillor Jane Corbett as she lost the finance brief, but there was the publication of the Mazars report and little else to disturb the limpid surface of the Cunard’s still waters.

OK, well what about the revelation that fourteen Labour councillors had had fifty-one parking fines rescinded outside the official PCN appeal system? I mean, you can’t have one law for councillors and another for the public, can you? Well, it seems you can. After six months’ pestering, I received a letter from City Solicitor and Monitoring Officer Dan Fenwick admitting that the ‘custom and practice’ enshrining the quashing of fines was outside the law and had only come to light because of the Operation Aloft investigation. Did this give the green light for a searchlight to shine into the Cunard’s dark corners? Well no, it was business as usual and the Commissioners don’t undertake investigations so that’s all right then. Nothing to see here. Move on.

With me, so far? Yes, at Liverpool City Council transparency, like sorry, seems to be the hardest word. Ask for somebody to account for failures and wounded looks abound on the Labour benches. What, us? No, not me, gov. We’ve only been in power for thirteen years. It must be somebody else, yes, an older boy telling us to do it, one of those officers who has conveniently left the organisation’s employ.

Children’s Services though, surely a failure to protect our children had to shake the foundations of the Cunard? A damning Ofsted report had highlighted shocking inadequacies. The Labour-led administration surely couldn’t just say look forward, not back. Somebody had to take responsibility. You would think so, wouldn’t you, but when opposition parties put a motion to an Emergency Council meeting, it was the same old story.

Councillor Liz Parsons, the Cabinet member responsible since the local elections in May, urged us to all work together to put things right while Councillor Lake, in charge from 2021 to 2023, went into full-on defence mode.

He had, he said, raised concerns with former CEO Tony Reeves and ex-Mayor Joanne Anderson. Were these meetings minuted? He had called for the removal of the previous Children’s Director Steve Reddy? When? Was this minuted? Was it mentioned at the appropriate scrutiny committee? And why did Mr Reddy’s valedictory appearance at the Select Committee ring with expressions of gratitude and regret at his going if Councillor Lake and Mayor Anderson were so eager to get rid of him.

Councillor Lake even said that the Ofsted Report: “was also a huge surprise as the scale of the problems was never made clear to me” and that he was blocked from information by Mr Reddy.

At a time when many people are desperate to conclude that the City Council has ‘turned the corner’ the corridors of the Cunard still seem peopled by people who, like Sally Bowles, never look back.

As a primary teacher for many years whose core responsibility was the care and education of children, this report made difficult reading.

The points can’t be made often enough.

What did the report say:

• Impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families. Inadequate
• Experience and progress of children who need help and protection. Inadequate
• Experiences and progress of care leavers. Inadequate
• Overall effectiveness. Inadequate

Here are four excerpts:

“This inspection identified serious weaknesses for children who need help and protection, which leave children being harmed or at risk of harm.

Some children have had their child protection plan removed too soon and risks have not been mitigated. This is leaving some children at risk of, or suffering, ongoing significant harm.

In particular, the response from agencies, including the police, to children who experience sexual harm is sometimes poor. As a result, these children are not getting the help and support they need and these serious crimes are not always investigated.

Subsequent child in need planning is not always robust, and some services are closed to children too soon. This has resulted in some children experiencing further incidents of harm and repeated children’s social care interventions.”

The Ofsted report could hardly be more damning, could it?

Now we are used to the Labour benches responding to highly critical reports, the energy bill fiasco, the parking fines scandal, the Caller report, Beautiful Ideas and more with a kind of wounded expression while in practice shying away from scrutiny and transparency.

Just weeks before the publication of the report, the Liverpool Labour Manifesto could write this:



From that, would you imagine what would emerge just weeks later? This is not an accident. It is part of a persistent and enduring opaque culture in the City Council.

Why is it important to say this? Quite simply, if the organisation does not turn the corner on scrutiny, transparency and accountability, recovery from this report will be too slow and children will continue to be failed.

This is not about point-scoring. Honest accounting for failure is an indispensable component of improvement. Why, despite previous warnings, were the problems highlighted in this report so little discussed, so little anticipated?

It is blindingly obvious that nothing, absolutely nothing, matters more than the protection and security of children’s wellbeing and happiness. Every elected member in this chamber should be demanding a proper accounting of past failures in order to ensure future improvement.

Councillor Parsons has a very big job and every one of us wants to see her succeed in turning things round because not doing so would be the greatest abdication of our responsibilities.

I am sure I speak for all opposition members when I say we want to be part of the council’s recovery from a very unpalatable report.

The children of this city deserve the best. This organisation has failed to deliver it and one councillor who presided over the period of failure remains in the Cabinet. We don’t need another set of glossy brochures, platitudinous vision statements and wishful thinking. We need practical improvement and we need it as a matter of urgency.

Liverpool City Council would not be forgiven for letting children down again.

Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) voted 22 to 12 on Tuesday, 28th March to approve a motion from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to prevent his predecessor being selected for Islington North. Corbyn has been MP for this rock solid seat for 40 years.

In a statement, Corbyn said:

“The NEC’s decision to block my candidacy for Islington North is a shameful attack on party democracy, party members and natural justice.
“When I was leader of the Labour Party, I was determined to build a member-led movement that gave hope to a new generation.
“Today’s disgraceful move shows contempt for the millions of people who voted for our party in 2017 and 2019, and will demotivate those who still believe in the importance of a transformative Labour government.
“Now, more than ever, we should be offering a bold alternative to the government’s programme of poverty, division and repression.”

Corbyn concluded: “I will not be intimidated into silence. I have spent my life fighting for a fairer society on behalf of the people of Islington North, and I have no intention of stopping now.”

Many have interpreted this as a hint that Corbyn may contest the seat as an independent.

Starmer’s move is also the clearest indication yet that he is determined to complete the rightward shift of the Labour Party to convince big business that, under his leadership, it will be the pliant second eleven of British capitalism.

Will we see a rejuvenated Corbyn defeat ‘New New Labour’ and open up a space to the left of Labour? Could some kind of Left Party emerge, built on the foundations of the movement around Corbyn? What will happen to Momentum, founded to support Corbyn? Already Jon Lansman has indicated support for Starmer against his former leader. Similarly, will there be much resistance from the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs and the left on the NEC? 12 members of the NEC voted against Starmer’s move.

As yet, it is not clear what the fallout from Starmer’s manoeuvring will be. What is certain is the politics on the Left is about to get very interesting.

I see that Liverpool Labour candidates are reading my blog with enthusiasm.

Welcome to the platform, sisters and brothers.

One such candidate, somebody I have never met, thinks he knows why Labour kicked me out. Unfortunately, he is unaware of the facts so he makes up his own.

Last March I found myself unable in good conscience to vote for £11.7 million of Adult Social Care cuts and the unfair Green Bin charge.

I and a few other left wing Labour Party members were then suspended from membership. The issue was our breaking of the whip.

Of course, if the party could make out the issue was something else, that would help deflect attention from the cuts budget.

A year earlier I had done an interview with a socialist newspaper, the Socialist Appeal. Shock horror, a socialist speaking to a socialist newspaper, something that is rather easier to defend than Keir Starmer writing for the S*n then attending its functions, especially after grandstanding at the leadership hustings in Liverpool that he wouldn’t, but hey ho and on we go.

The Socialist Appeal was not proscribed at the time but, democrats that the Labour leadership are, they banned it retrospectively. Having known about the interview for a year, they were suddenly shocked, shocked they said to know a socialist had spoken to other socialists and expelled me.

I regard it as a feather in the cap, to be honest.

One of the mysteries of the political universe is that in Twitterland, party canvassers always have a good response. There is never any criticism. There are never any tough arguments. It does make you wonder why these parties don’t get 100% of the vote.

Which brings me to the point of this article. Can a left-wing alternative to Labour begin to emerge during the May local elections?

Let’s start with a bit of honesty. It is an uphill task. Labour has a big majority on the City Council. There is a history of voting Labour, though the Lib Dems have controlled the council in living memory so it is not strictly ‘a Labour city.’ I am told by friends that it is fifty years since an out-and-out Independent has beaten Labour in the city, though, before it was disallowed, various Independents with ‘Labour’ in the title did win seats.

Labour has a tried and tested electoral machine, ready access to data through sitting councillors and a body of councillors and candidates who will turn out to leaflet and knock on doors. So far so daunting.

The Liverpool Community Independents group is a year old, stemming from councillors disillusioned with the rightward direction of Labour and councillors thrown out of the party for voting against a cuts budget in March 2022. The group is short on money and some of those who broke with Labour were never going to stand again. On the bright side, Independents have won seats in neighbouring Sefton and Knowsley.

Most importantly, the Liverpool Labour brand is tainted. The party has presided over huge waste and alleged corruption. Most obviously there was the Caller Report highlighting unacceptable practices in three council departments, resulting in the removal of Mayor Joe Anderson. There followed a process to elect a new Mayor that saw three potential candidates blocked by Labour and another J Anderson selected.

Cue the writing off of £230 million of debt, the multi-million pound energy bill scandal, the only one of its kind in the country, the revelation that the ACC arena owes the council £7 million, land given away to property deals, landlords getting away without paying council tax, a property developer failing to pay rent on a city centre car park for thirty months and the latest scandal, fourteen Labour councillors using a back-door route to have parking fines rescinded.

Labour will hope its recognisable brand, low voter turnout and the fact that many people don’t follow these scandals closely in the news will see it through, but there are warnings. In a by-election in the rock-solid Labour seat of Warbreck the Lib Dems almost won last year. In another north Liverpool stronghold Fazakerley, the Liverpool Community Independents polled a remarkable 632 votes from a standing start.

The main opposition, with the resources of a national organisation is the Lib Dems, but the party is distrusted because of its support for the Tories in the coalition years.

The Greens and Steve Radford’s Liberals have cooperated with the Community Independents in the council chamber a number of times.

The Liverpool Labour brand is beginning to fail, discredited by waste and allegations of corruption. Will it fade fast enough to allow socialist Independents to win and others to take substantial numbers of seats? We will know in May.