Uncle Joe strikes again

So Liverpool has a new Lord Mayor, many congratulations to Frank Prendergast, and good luck for his year as Liverpool's first citizen.

After his instillation on Tuesday, I was invited to nibble some cheese with a few mates living behind the skirting board in the Town Hall ballroom.

So my little ears pricked up when I heard Joe Anderson get up to speak.

Uncle Joe decided to live up to his namesake's reputation for err, "redrafting history".

So says Uncle Joe, our new Lord Mayor was responsible for the development of Liverpool One. But Frank is a shy and retiring man, so he allowed the Lib Dems to take all the credit.

Even to my untrained ear this didn't sound right. So I did a little digging.

It's true that Frank Prendergast had a major influence on Liverpool One. He almost caused the whole thing to collapse!

In his last days as leader of the council Frank did a deal with a certain property developer who has a reputation for not developing the sites he acquired. He sold an option on Chavasse Park

to Bill Davies for a meagre £50,000.

Years later, just as the ink was drying on the Council's agreement with Grosvenor, up popped Bill Davies demanding the right to build a shopping mall on the park or £hundreds of millions in compensation from the council.

At this point most developers would have walked away, but luckily the Lib Dems managed to persuade them to stick around.

According to the Daily Post, it cost the council £2 Million to fight off Bill Davies option. So thanks Frank. As Uncle Joe said, you can really be proud of your contribution.

Will this endear me to Scousers?

Labour's Mr Ed has been taking advice from Luciana on how best to endear himself to the people of Liverpool.

Anyone from the Lib Dem campaign team is reading this? You might want to stick this picture on a leaflet guys.

"AV? Is that a lip gloss?"

One story you may have missed during the AV referendum was an interesting quiz on how Merseyside MPs would vote.

Most presented rational reasons for and against, apart from two Labour MPs.

Rosie Cooper refused to answer! Well it is a secret ballot after all, so you can't expect to be able to find out what your MP thinks on an important matter of state!

Meanwhile, Luciana Airhead MP had been too busy worrying about what to wear at the count, and trying to identify the next rising star in the Labour party to attach herself to. So it was unfair to expect her to have a position on a major constitutional issue.

She was reported to be abstaining, "What is AV anyway, is it a type of lip gloss? I think I recall people talking about it in the commons, but I was reading an interesting article in Heat magazine."

Telling the Tories where to go...

... To their natural home in Labour, obviously.

Joe Anderson continues to swell his ranks with Tories, after welcoming arch Thatcherite Steve Fitzsimmons to his increasingly discontented band.

The ink had hardly dried on Steve's membership form when £1000-a-week Joe announced that the former Tory Leader and parliamentary candidate would be standing for Labour next May.

Well if you can't find any talent on your own benches, poach it from somewhere else!

On being welcomed by Anderson he told reporters that he had, "Nothing but respect and admiration for his friends in the Conservative Party!" So that sweeps away any doubt we might have that this is nothing more than naked opportunism.

If elected, he will join the growing ranks of Labour Tories, including Young Conservative Jobling, former aide to Thatcher's ministers, Windy Millar, and tory landlord and quangocrat Frankle.

Bessie Bradock is spinning in her grave!