Is Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson right to break weekly bin collection pledge, or is Green John Coyne for sticking to the promise?
Both Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson and the city's most prominent Green politician John Coyne pledged to keep weekly bin collections when they sought election.
Mayor Anderson included the unequivocal pledge on page 10 of his manifesto: "I promise to keep weekly bin collections."
John Coyne made a similar pledge when he sought re-election to the council in 2011.
Next week the council will vote to dump weekly bin collections for 63% of households, on the recommendation of Mayor Anderson.
Terraced streets will be exempted from the changes.
It is clear the mayor's election pledge will be broken with the introduction of alternate weekly collections (where general waste collected one week and recycling the next).
Mayor Anderson's report recommending the change outlines the issue: Officials believe the change would help increase the city's woeful recycling rate of 26% by 10%.
It would save the council between £6.2m and £11.1m in little over two years because of reduced collection costs and savings in landfill tax.
Cllr Coyne says he will not vote to move to alternate weekly collections.
"Personally I don't think I can support going back for the remaining term of my office until 2015.
"For me it's not so much about the bins but how democracy should work."
What is a Green politician doing pledging not to introduce fortnightly bin collections when all the evidence points to the fact it leads to massive improvements in recycling?
And what was Mayor Anderson doing pledging to keep weekly bin collections when he knew very well the council would continue to get hammered by government cuts?
And crucially who of the two of them is right? And does the public even expect election promises to be kept by politicians?
Cllr Steve Munby, cabinet member with responsibility for recycling, sums up the council's position as such: "I think the measures that have been taken in the past clearly have not delivered the step change that was needed.
"The long term financial position is making us ask questions that we might not have wished to have ask.
"I think if you had asked officials or politicians a year ago whether we would be doing this they would have said 'no'.
"But only a fool does not change their mind when the circumstances change."
Have circumstances really changed? Landfill tax has been going up by £8 a year, per tonne, for some time now. And councils have a target of hitting a 50% recycling rate.
Cllr Munby is right that circumstances had changed in one key aspect. The topic of bin collections used to be a toxic topic in Liverpool politics and elections.
But there is now a virtually consensus behind adopting fortnightly bin collections, and given the huge savings it will deliver and the improvements in recycling why not do it now?
But I'll finish with my earlier question who is right: Joe Anderson for breaking his pledge (even if there are very good reasons for doing so), or John Coyne for sticking to a promise he made (despite the fact it flies in the face of what his party stands for)?
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Dale Street Associates
David Bartlett
City editor of the Post and Echo covering politics, regeneration, and urban affairs.
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A pledge is a pledge. Nick Clegg & Lib Dem MP’s were, quite rightly, slammed by Labour, including Joe Anderson, for breaking an election pledge on tuition fees. Now, it seems, Labour say it’s OK to break an election pledge if “circumstances change” – isn’t that what Nick Clegg gave as his excuse?
John Coyne is right by sticking to the pledge he made until he stands again & alters his position for the electorate to make a decision on his next manifesto pledges.
Glad to see the comments function is working on Dale Street again....
Some comments on this at long last though I expect Joe simply won't be losing any sleep about breaking his promises and they'll be many more like this to come. Lest we forget, he made his so-called "unbreakable" promise in his Mayoral manifesto, and we all remember his city-wide personal letter to all residents in the May 2011 local elections saying that the Lib Dems were scare-mongering on the fortnightly bin collections and that they'd be "consigned to the dustbin of history". His usual tactic is to shift the blame or treat dissent with ruthless force. Look what happened to Joe Hanson after he tried to set up the Scrutiny Panel to look at the recycling issue in more depth. So, don't expect any Labour postings on this - they've been instructed to keep the lid on by Alan Dean. Mind you, I'm sure Ronnie has a view.
The choice was: Retain weekly bin collections costing taxpayers millions of pounds more, meaning even more cuts in services elsewhere for the sake of people not changing their household waste habits. Or, admit it's not sustainable and explain why you've changed your mind. It's a sad indictment on the system that we condemn politicians for admitting they were wrong. They are only human. Give it a few years and we'll all be wondering what the fuss was about.
So, that's the line Joe's going to take to justify his broken promises and, sure as hell, all his servile Labour Cllrs will follow without dissent. Make no mistake,
this decision will come back to haunt them, even more so since they threw the £10.5M Gov. grant back to Whitehall. So, what if the so-called public consultation decides that the majority want to keep the weekly purple bin service? Will Joe back a new Munby Council Motion to retain it? Fat chance. Likewise the Council tax going down to compensate. The only winners here are Enterprise-Liverpool who'll keep the existing binding contract even though they'll end up sacking binmen because of the reduced service and the MWDA who'll be able to argue that Liverpool's doing its bit to improve recycling. You'll never see that on a Labour Rose leaflet.