Depart I say, in the name of God, Joe!'
MAYOR Joe Anderson livened up an otherwise rather depressing mayoral scrutiny panel last week by pledging that if 60,000 people in Liverpool called for him to resign, he would go.
In response to a public question about whether he would halt the imposition of spending cuts if a significant share of the population asked him to, he went a step further and offered up his own head if his opponents could drum up the numbers.
The suggestion certainly raised some eyebrows around the town hall, and several Labour members have privately questioned the wisdom of it to Mr Brocklebank.
Generally a mandate is taken to be the number of votes you achieved in an election, but Uncle Joe's novel take seems to have opted for an interesting inversion of the principle.
Needless to say, Tony Mulhearn and other anti-cuts demonstrators will no doubt be quick off the mark looking to drum up the signatures. There are at least 60,000 people who won't be signing it (or, perhaps, 60,000 people who wouldn't have signed it in the immediate days after his May election, but may have thought again about it since then), but it's worth bearing in mind that while that number gave him their endorsement at the election, 69% of the 320,000 electors in the city didn't vote at all.
Still, as Mr B was thinking to himself this morning, the five-figure sum is rather modest amount. When a senior officer of the council leaves the town hall, there are nearly always seven figures following them out of the door.
GETTING up in darkness of a morning is almost as depressing as reading the long list of the latest cutbacks Liverpool council is planning to make. But, while most people's clocks have been turned back, some clocks have stopped for good.
The ornate looking gold timepiece over the top of the main door in the lobby of the town hall has been frozen for a while now. And, according to Mr B's sources, it is so far past its best that it cannot be repaired and is destined for the scrap heap.
Surely, given the wares of the town hall are insured for something in the region of £7m, if Mr B recalls correctly, there must be a few quid to be had down at Cuts Converters for this.
But, no apparently, not. The 'gold' casing is actually cardboard, Mr B learned.
Which puts Mr B in mind of when, a couple of years ago, he was in the town hall dome to be given a rare peek of the bell tower, and spied from the ramparts that one of the stone statues of unicorns that are dotted around has its horn held on by ... gaffer tape!
NO WONDER UKIP police commissioner candidate Hilary Jones supports bringing back the death penalty.
For, as well as having been a police woman and magistrate, in her current life she runs an undertakers business.
Perhaps a conflict of interest to be declared there.
Dale Street Associates
David Bartlett
City editor of the Post and Echo covering politics, regeneration, and urban affairs.
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