End game

Year of living dangerously

If people dare to wish you a Happy New Year refer them to the VAT increase or Darling’s pre-budget report; that should shake the Hogmanay spirit out of them. While there are some more optimistic indicators in the region’s economy, much uncertainty remains.

This winterval politicians are looking back to the annus horribilis that was 2009 and forward to the annus of reckoning that will be 2010 for many of them.

Abroad even Barack Obama has begun to get some scars on his back. The year began with his inauguration with a mandate for change. But his health reforms at home and Afghanistan abroad have proved tough nuts to crack even for a President at the height of his authority and power.

There was no indication of the tsunami of sleaze about to overtake British politics when, early in the year, a quartet of peers were caught up in a “cash for laws” scandal. Lord Taylor of Blackburn was one of those found out for offering to influence legislation for a fee.

Even this did not prepare us for what was about to hit the chamber at the other end of the Palace of Westminster. In May the Telegraph started rolling out its daily revelations about moats, duck houses and “flipping” MPs with huge headlines that some thought should be reserved for the outbreak of World War Three.

Anyway it wasn’t long before the Communities Secretary Hazel Blears was waving a cheque, and then her career as a cabinet minister, goodbye. The strain was telling on the political system.

The Speaker of the Commons “Gorbals Mick” Martin paid the ultimate penalty for being the first holder of the position since 1695 to be driven from office: he took a seat in the House of Lords!

It is shameful that Gordon Brown didn’t deny his Scottish chum the ermine. It helped fuel the perception that parliamentarians still didn’t appreciate the level of public anger.

But they got the message in the June elections when a record low vote for Labour led to the BNP leader Nick Griffin being elected as a North West MEP. Labour was also swept from office on Lancashire County Council after nearly 30 years in power. Weeks earlier Cheshire County Council had ceased to exist, replaced by two all-purpose councils, one glorying in the abbreviation CWAC (Cheshire West and Chester).

Cabinet Minister and Stalybridge MP James Purnell tried to mount A Very British Coup on the beleaguered Brown by resigning. But his mate David Miliband found Peter Mandelson blocking the exit door in case the Foreign Secretary thought of joining Purnell. The Prime Minister staggered on.

The dismal year ended with the floods in Cockermouth and Rumpy (Herman von Rompuy) and Frumpy (Baroness Ashton of Upholland) getting two top posts in Europe after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. We should have got a Brit into the new finance job now occupied by a Frenchman who’s attacking the Anglo Saxon way of doing business in the City of London.

So Happy New Year. It can’t be worse, can it?

Political football

I wrote some months ago about the problems Preston was facing following the collapse of the Tithebarn shopping development.

Now it is to lose the National Football Museum to Manchester.

On its own the move won’t rock Preston’s economy but it is another example of the region’s assets being concentrated in Manchester. The museum needed better marketing, for sure, but the whole episode left Lancashire County Council and Preston City Council claiming the trustees were hell bent on moving the attraction to Manchester without even considering a rescue package from them.

A trustees’ letter from September 2008 is crucial evidence. It spelt out the museum’s difficulties but suggested the government would sort things out.

The local authorities therefore didn’t act. They claim the next thing they heard, a year later, was that a move to Manchester was almost a done deal.

A financial package from LCC and Preston involving £3 million for refurbishment and £400,000 per year for running costs was shunned in favour of a move to Urbis in Manchester. This will cost £8 million but may turn round the fortunes of the arts building which has struggled since it opened in 2002.

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