It’s another metro mayor special: this time, we’re off to Liverpool.
Officially, of course, it’s the Liverpool City Region. Unofficially, it’ll probably end up being called Merseyside. It was nearly called the Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton & Wirral Combined Authority; there but by the grace of god.
Anyway. Whatever it is, on 4 May, it’s getting a metro mayor. Specifically, it’s almost certain going to be Labour’s Steve Rotheram.
To talk about this not-particularly-close election, I’ve dragged in two of my colleagues from the New Statesman‘s politics desk: Patrick Maguire, who himself hails from the Sefton; and Stephen Bush, who’s just returned from a trip to the Wirral.
We talk about how Rotheram is campaigning more like it’s a marginal than a sure thing; how the other parties are responding; and how, in British local government, one-party states inevitably throw up other forms of opposition.
We discuss the May government’s attitude towards these new metro mayor posts created by its predecessors; and chat about what kind of relationship the new mayor of the Liverpool City Region is likely to have with Joe Anderson, who is the, er, the existing elected mayor of Liverpool.
Also, for some reason, Power Rangers.
The episode itself is below. You can subscribe to the podcast on Acast, iTunes, or RSS. Enjoy.
Jonn Elledge is the editor of CityMetric. He is on Twitter as @jonnelledge and also has a Facebook page now for some reason.
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