An elected mayor could be a great thing for Liverpool.

David Bartlett, the headmaster of this school of philosophers, will be sure to keep the world up to date on the runners and riders in the race between now and May.

Whoever it is though has a remarkable opportunity - they will be not only an ambassador for this city, but also wield real power.

This is a place not short on civic pride, but it's also a place not short of detractors.

The mayor must be cheerleader-in-chief for Liverpool, and should be aware they'll be watched like a hawk to ensure they deliver for city.

The speculation is over, today we confirm that Joe Anderson is set to ditch the mayoral referendum and move straight to a mayoral election in May.

It's an audacious move backed up with £130m of extra spending and some extra powers from government for the new mayor.

But it works on a number of levels for Cllr Anderson and the Labour party.

Sure there are a couple of hurdles to get over first - the government has to officially sign off the package, two thirds of the council has to approve the council's constitution so it is run by a mayor, and Cllr Anderson needs to get selected as the Labour candidate.

With Peel's Liverpool Waters scheme back in the news this week, we decided to get this infographic drawn up to show the huge scale of the £5.5bn project.

As you can see it dwarfs Liverpool One in scale, and a football pitch is miniscule in comparison.

Welcome back Jane Kennedy to frontline politics in Merseyside.

Today she confirmed the rumours that she was considering running for the job of police and crime commissioner for Merseyside.

The Labour party will start the process of shortlisting their candidate next month, and Mrs Kennedy is the first out of the block.

I was out for a drink recently when I became intrigued by a conversation just out of my view. The person speaking was loud - and rather full of himself in my opinion - and so caught my attention.

My ears pricked up like a bloodhound at a weekend of hunting near the playing fields of Eton at the words 'All these dolites (sic) driving around in their BMWs while I'm working...' .

I heard a murmur of approval at his indignancy and I wish with all my might I'd made the effort to get off my backside and check out who the orator actually was.

With today's growth figures of just 0.2 per cent, its clear that we are now staring over the cliff into recession.

The Government needs to pull back immediately.

Liverpool 2011 RMM Mission Report FINAL (1)

This heat map of the cuts does a pretty good job of showing the north south divide in the way government cuts are hitting people.

Unsurprisingly, Liverpool having taken one of the worst cuts in the country is shown as having lost more than £40 per person out of next year's budget. St Helens and Knowsley are in the same category.

On Wirral £20 to £30 per resident has been lost. Sefton fares better losing 'just' £10 to £20.

If you exclude London boroughs, the south of the country clearly fares much better than the north.

AFTER very little deliberation, Mr Brocklebank has decided to throw his hat into the ring to become Liverpool's first elected mayor.

At the moment, the list of runners and riders is somewhat limited, although to no-one's surprise, inveterate campaigner for the new system of municipal government, Liam Fogarty has announced he will stand.

Certainly Mr Fogarty will hope that his pet project will arouse more interest in Liverpool than it did in neighbouring Sefton, where only 0.001% of the electorate responded to a consultation.

Ex-BBC hack Mr Fogarty can at least be succoured by a 2001 canvass of the Liverpool public, where the idea fared slightly better ... with 0.28% of people favouring an elected mayor.

Earlier this week I met key officials in Downing Street to stress that the second phase of the £32.7 billion fast-track rail project has to go beyond Birmingham and provide a "Y" connection to both Liverpool and Manchester.

I believe it's essential that we ALL come together and lobby for Liverpool, especially if we want our city to grow as a tourist centre, a port centre and a business centre. The first HS2 phase will slash journey times between the West Midlands and London.