Jim forecasts that Liverpool’s Chief Executive, Tony Reeves, will have a crucial role in pulling Liverpool Council out of the crisis revealed by the Caller Report. However he believes Labour chiefs will have their work cut out to reform the party in the city.
Is there a future for Local Enterprise Partnerships? Some feel they are a vital forum for business to offer priorities for jobs and skills. But Jim asks do ministers share that view.
In his blog this week, Jim invites you to look beyond the troubles of the royal family to the growing problems around our trade with Europe. He also asks if we could have an independent elected mayor in Liverpool.
Jim analyses the Budget of the Coca Cola loving Chancellor to see if it is fizzing or flat. He also suggests Labour have missed a big opportunity to show how they would be different.
Public spending is eye wateringly high, but Jim believes that in next week’s Budget the Chancellor will concentrate on nursing the economy out of the pandemic, with the reckoning to come later.
Do employers have the right to insist their workers have a jab on pain of being sacked? Jim discusses this tricky issue in his blog this week. He also calls for the Labour leader to be given some slack along with the vast majority of parish councillors who don’t live in Handforth!
Big challenges remain for health and social care despite the reforms annouced by the government this week according to Jim. In his blog he also reports on an interesting week in the Downtown Den.
This week Jim claims there are faults on both sides in the crisis over the Northern Ireland border. He also reports on a robust defence of Northern transport investment during a Downtown Den event this week.
The government have made many mistakes, concludes Jim in his latest blog, as the pandemic death toll passes 100,000. But he wonders if things would have been that different under Labour.
How safe is the car industry in the North West? Jim’s blog this week looks at the pressures of Brexit and the ban on petrol cars on this vital source of skilled jobs in the region.
Nearly a year into the pandemic, where are we with the government’s levelling up agenda for the North? Jim’s blog reports on a Downtown event where bosses of Local Enterprise Partnerships cast a critical eye on minister’s approach to the crisis.
In his blog this week Jim pushes back at any suggestion that Remainers should give up the EU cause for ever. He examines the “thin deal” that the Prime Minister has concluded and urges Returners to keep the EU flag flying.
