17 november 2015, hot on the heels of cornwall...

There was a crucial moment in negotiating manchester's devolution status with the government, when news broke to lighten the mood in the form of liverpool, after some years trying to get their act together, again miserably failing to. The number one item facing that city region's six (all labour-run) local authorities, was the combined authority's new name. In a monty pythonesque twist to the concept of local empowerment, their utter disagreement led to them asking whitehall to decide the name for them, which is how they ended up with the snappily-titled halton, knowsley, liverpool, st helens, sefton and wirral combined authority (or hklsswca for short). A couple of months later they were at it again with four of the authority's members choosing the new leader while the other two were out the room. Finally though, today was a big day for the hklsswca, as they got their handshake with my old mucker, and now the official minister for sorting out liverpool's arguments, jim o'neill (see 14 january 2010, brics and more tar) and agreed to elect a mayor in return for the transport-and-bells-and-whistles powers that regular readers will recall my describing many times. "I'm pleased, not so much that we've managed to negotiate with central government" said joe anderson, liverpool's current mayor, "but that we have finally been able to get an agreement at a local level". No I didn't make that up, and yes, anderson is mayor of the small liverpool city area, not the whole of the hklsswca city region; do keep up. And yes, hklsswca is still its name, which my sources tell me is excellent branding on the streets of shanghai, right up there with manchester united. Seriously though, all power to your elbows. St michael must be proud.