Lasting Legacy of The Beatles

We were out in Liverpool last Friday and were reminded once again of the absolute enduring power of the Beatles.

We walked past two different bars where live musicians were performing. And yes, one of them was knocking out a passable version of Yesterday.

When I was younger I used to roll my eyes a bit at what I thought was a mawkish and nostalgic attitude towards the Beatles from our scouse cousins. If anything that attitude was just so typically English.

It’s 20 years last Monday since George Harrison died. And next Wednesday the 8th of December it will be 41 years since John Lennon was killed in New York.

I think the time, the distances between their passing and the ever-growing appreciation of Paul McCartney’s more recent output has given us a reminder that we need to cherish their memories a little more.

So much of their appeal in America was their humour. And the picture above of them in masks on a visit to Manchester is a bit of gentle ribbing about air quality down this end of the East Lancs Road.

Quite rightly, Beatlemania has taken root again.

Paul McCartney has a book out about his songs, the Lyrics, 1956 to the present. It sounds like a Beatles’ geek’s dream, including accounts of all of the songs he’s ever written, what he was thinking at the time, who he was with, what they were about, and what he thinks of them now.

I’ve also recently discovered a podcast series where different people basically talk about their own personal experiences and how the Beatles have shaped their own thoughts, lives and experiences. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does. The last one I listened to was with the comedian Adam Buxton and it is just sublime.

A writer I follow called Ian Leslie has been commissioned to write a book about John and Paul. He mentioned them in a very good book he released earlier this year called Conflicted - Why Arguments Are Tearing Us Apart And How They Can Bring Us Together. You can see why he’d want to look closer at the dynamic behind the greatest songwriting partnership of all time.

He made the point in another long article about The Beatles recently that no single individual in the history of humankind has brought as much pleasure to so many people as Paul McCartney. 

On our show last week we opened with All My Loving, the first song played by The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in America in 1964. It started the lasting love affair that the rest of the world had with them.

But the project that has got everyone excited has been the work of the film director Peter Jackson who has delved into the archives and released a three-part epic documentary film Get Back. It's presented in a proper fly-on-the-wall style, the encounters in the studio and the everyday mundane business of making a record are captured in beautiful celluloid glory.

Everyone I’ve spoken to who’s seen it describes it as time travel. More remarkable than this was a far less media-savvy group of people than they would be today, so are in a much more natural and relaxed mood. 

How a band so creatively prolific, commercially successful and capable of bringing so much to so many people could be overindulged was frankly ridiculous.

So, if anything, Liverpool hasn’t done enough to celebrate them.

(This is from my weekly Music Therapy column in the Tameside Reporter/Glossop Chronicle)

Hosting at Invest North 21: Selling the north to the world

Had a wonderful time hosting this final session at the Invest North 21 conference last week, Selling the North to the World organised by The Business Desk. The discussion was great, but I'm probably more excited by the way the new podcast rig looks and sounds.

I was joined by Collette Roche, chief operating officer at Manchester United Football Club, James Mason, chief executive for Welcome to Yorkshire, Sheona Southern, managing director at Marketing Manchester and Kerry Thomas – head of marketing – Blackpool Cluster – Merlin Entertainments Group.

We covered so many great things our tourist sector is gearing up to market as the economy reopens. But the spirit of the people was a constant. “Friendly”, “Down-to-earth” and “Hospitable” were just some of the attributes which will be used to help maximise the North’s attraction to international visitors, according to our panel of experts. I was pleased to slide in references to Freshwalks, my DJ work and Tame Impala, which hopefully added something.

Hope you enjoy it. It reminded me of a couple of things, I really enjoy doing this kind of thing. It's not for me to judge whether I'm any good at it, but the feedback was good. There's a link to coverage of the session here.

The Three Kings - another outstanding and ambitious sporting documentary from Jonny Owen

I'm really looking forward to seeing The Three Kings documentary about the lives of Jock Stein, Bill Shankly and Matt Busby, all former miners from the Scottish coalfields who shaped the destiny and identities of Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. There's been a bit of a buzz around at work about it because it features footage from the North West Film Archive, but I'm particularly pleased for the director Jonny Owen, who has form in this emerging genre of storytelling.

The first of his films I saw was the high energy celebration of Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest winning the European Cup, I Believe in Miracles. It's a wonderfully warm and inclusive tale, and you can tell that the players enjoyed their interviews and encounters with Jonny. The funky soundtrack added something really special too, evoking the rhythms of that team and the refreshing way they broke the mould.

Next up was Don't Take Me Home, which blended behind the scenes footage with the fan experience of Wales at the European Championships in 2016. It wasn't just about the football, it can never just be about the football, and sometimes it takes someone with drive to tell that story, someone who gets it. Me and my eldest lad Joe met Jonny in London just after he'd got back from France and was putting the film together. I know I go on about people I've met and bore the arse off you all with my namedropping but he really struck me then as a very special talent. We only recorded a podcast together, with our mutual friend Mark Webster, but I've not heard anything since that contradicted that view I formed in the space of that afternoon together.  He's not only compellingly passionate about the things that really matter to him, but also hyper aware of how sport forms cultural and emotional bonds between people, way beyond the field of play. His background in the South Wales valleys also forms his frame of reference, rather than the baggage of the place he's escaped from, as many other film makers and artists often define themselves. 

As well as the historical footage that he's pulled together with the help of Will McTaggart at the archive, the film also includes musical contributions from, amongst others, Richard Hawley, the musician and songwriter from Sheffield who feels like an incredibly good fit for this project. 

Sporting documentaries can be a bit hit and miss, like musical ones, as I found with the unexpected delights of the Style Council Long Hot Summers film on Sky Arts. It takes effort, access and a burning passion for the subject. I don't normally do enthusiastic previews, but this will be a banger, I guarantee it. 

POST SCRIPT: I’ve seen it now and it’s absolutely magnificent in every way, I particularly enjoyed a cameo by Granada TV cub reporter Tony Wilson in 1974. It's available on Apple TV, Prime and Showtime, and DVD. I would happily go and see it again in a cinema when they reopen.

Hands off Wales - Wyn Thomas, a quick review

I spotted this hefty tome at the Hay Festival, a couple of years after I had a brief flurry of interest in the militant Welsh nationalist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Like a lot of purchases from festivals and readings I never got round to reading it. I was however inspired to do so by a recent binge of Welsh language TV series and films.

Though my Dad is Welsh born, and he spoke Welsh as a child, before moving to Lancashire, I'm not as in touch with that side of my heritage. As anyone who has ever visited this blog before will note, I'm a very proud Professional Northerner. But in so being I do recognise the cultural and economic injustices that have blighted Wales and what it has as a special nation.

I dropped the author a note of appreciation this week and rather than compose a long blog review, I just thought I'd share some of the same observations here.

So Hands off Wales, an ambitious and impressive work by Dr Wyn Thomas takes a wise and particular view on a time and place, and pauses to consider how history views political movements over time.

It is a far richer and more thorough analysis than that of two earlier books I stumbled upon, Ray Clews To Dream of Freedom and John Humphries' Freedom Fighters. I developed some real anger and frustration about the militant movements for Wales from reading those. As I said at the time: “But it also served to deepen my anger at John Jenkins from MAC and his high minded lack of accountability for the bombs that maimed an RAF officer - he claims it wasn't "our boys". Neither was the one left in a locker at Cardiff station. But that's the problem with autonomous cells and leaderless resistance, people do their own thing. Nutters who don't and can't make moral judgements.”

I also said on the Free Wales Army: “It also really annoyed me that the FWA were cited as "anti-communist" and "nationalist" but were probably to all intents and purposes neo-fascists. The uniforms, the oaths, the rhetoric. Clews makes no comment about them receiving correspondence from the National Front leader John Tyndall, or their links to the IRA.”

Thomas's conclusions are better nuanced and more considered, as I’d expect, but the showboating and virtue signalling of politics today and the ability to create pop-up movements does lead me to think the last chapter on Welsh nationalism and political identity is far from written.

Indeed, Thomas has also written a biography of John Jenkins, the leader of one of the terror cells, and who now lives in the same village my Dad grew up in. His next work is a real analysis of the scandal of Liverpool Corporation's flooding of Tryweryn. On this evidence, they should be very worthwhile texts to study. But there is more to come, I feel.

I enjoyed the detail and the interplay of personalities in Hands Off Wales. I found myself wondering whether the injustice of Tryweryn and the hollowing out of communities are two sides of the same bad penny Wales has inherited, but also left wondering what political history will make of Welsh attitudes today, the support for Brexit and the uptick in support for Plaid. I guess we’re in unchartered territory now, we all have fears of what kind of dystopian world could emerge, but we’re still holding on to hopes that something better should.

Finally, it's also been inspiring as a piece of historical scholarship. As I plough on with my own magnum opus on a subject particular to my own sphere of interest, this proves that good clear and lively writing is essential to bring a subject and personalities to life.

On the Brink - Simon Hughes' North West football journey reviewed

Over the course of the last five turbulent football seasons it's been at times a humbling and humiliating experience as a Blackburn Rovers supporter. True, in any sporting situation there are always winners and losers, that fortunes of clubs ebb and flow.  But for some fans the pain and disappointment is made worse by their clubs falling into the hands of criminals and greedy charlatans.

I like to think I've always been able to spare a thought for the plight of other fans and how the distribution of money is a huge missed opportunity to create something amazing and of a real common good. In the 1980s I was active in the Football Supporter's Association which was moderately successful in giving fans a voice they didn't have back then.

Simon Hughes takes us on a journey around the North West from Carlisle to Manchester and many points in between. He speaks to owners, players, managers, of clubs from the heights of the Premier League to little Droylsden and Barrow and including insights into real grass roots football (which isn't the same as the Academy system, contrary to what Sir Trevor Brooking thinks). I really appreciated the richness of each and every story, wincing at times at what people put themselves through. But I was also slightly jealous that in my own time as a business journalist, covering this exact same patch, I didn't use my access and contacts to do something similar; but grateful nevertheless that Simon has used his position at the Independent to do this.

On balance I'm pleased that the most head-spinning, disgraceful act of larceny in recent North West football history isn't included. I refer of course to the plundering of Blackburn Rovers by Jerome Anderson and Kentaro and the "ownership" of the Venky's. I say I'm pleased because it made me realise there is more to my love of football than the pre-occupations of my own team in the third division. Yes, I have every right to feel hurt and wounded, but so too do supporters of pretty much every club featured in this book. It also raises some fundamental questions of society and how we raise children to play the game. The chapter on Fletcher Moss Juniors in Manchester is particularly poignant.

I genuinely worry too about how one-eyed so much coverage of football has become. I don't have the time or the inclination to pore over the details of the opposition like I used to, I enjoy listening to Jim Bentley and John Coleman on BBC Radio Lancashire Sport, but I only really get emotionally triggered by the interview with the Rovers boss.

It can be an uncomfortable read at times, but it's ultimately optimistic, because it captures a passion so well and I'd heartily recommend this work of real dedication.

Available from DeCoubertin Books.

Review of Liberty Bazaar by David Chadwick

I've had a recent burst of reading spy fiction. Partly inspired by the end of Spooks on TV and an endless fascination with security issues and the end of the Cold War. It's a genre that floats my boat far more than the current public's fascination with historical fiction.

I mention all of that because David Chadwick's Liberty Bazaar shares that light touch intensity of the king of this genre, John Le Carre. Though set in Liverpool at the time of the American Civil War, it matches the claustrophobia of 1960s Berlin. The intrigue, the rules of engagement of espionage and the double dealing.

Liverpool in 1865 was a city on the edge of an empire with conflicting interests in the American Civil War. The importation of cotton through the port was tricky enough, but the 20 miles of shipyards on either side of the Mersey also harboured ill deeds to construct warships.

The Liberty Bazaar of the title refers to an actual event held in St George's Hall to raise money for Confederate prisoners of war. The hidden purpose was to fund warships to beat the Yankee blockades. Placing Liverpool at the heart of the story, 150 years after the end of the war, is a stroke of genius.

That's the background, which is compelling enough, but the style is in itself the real triumph of the book. Bouncing between narrators it tells the tale through intertwined destinies of an escaped slave girl Trinity Giddings and a decent minded Confederate officer Jubal de Brooke who both end up in Liverpool. The other players in the story veer between outright treacherous and terrified self interest; the complexities of war blurring the boundaries between the good guys and the bad guys.

It's corny I know, but I ended up casting the film of the book as I read it. Imagining Kevin Spacey as the villainous southern spy States Rights Rankin, a dashing Matthew McConaughey as Jubal and Naomie Harris as Trinity.

This was a terrific read, funny, witty, clever, compelling and hugely informative about the forgotten role of our major port city in a moment of history.

Paul Morley's The North reviewed, finally

Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy is a complex, tangential and often confusing book. Not only did it subvert a new form of literature before it had even really taken off - the modern novel - it has served to provide a new set a particular challenges for modern interpreters of other literary forms; the modern novel as the basis for a filmic treatment, or for a stage play. Many said it couldn't be done, so that a version of it became Cock and Bull, the Life of Tristram Shandy, adapted by Frank Cottrell Boyce, who then disowned this film within a film, which in turn became the basis for Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's The Trip, featured Tony Wilson playing himself, confronting Coogan as if he were Partridge. The only thing missing was Tristram Shandy, a gentleman, propelling into the immediate present, a narrative that speaks for the past and the future.

This has everything and nothing to do with Paul Morley's The North. Pause for a moment if you will and think about what I did there. I'd like to think I don't usually write in such confusing riddles. I would imagine if I were writing a book about the North I would do just that. I would talk to people all over the North, gather their recollections, piece together a narrative based on conflicting yet coherent streams. I may, in my limited way, project some of my experiences in a narrow sphere of my life. Maybe, say, my obsessions with male street fashions and teen cults. I could call it, at a push The North. I may even dwell with an unnecessary and unreliable memory on stories about bus routes around Lancaster. In order to make up for the fact I couldn't be arsed to get on a train to Newcastle, Harrogate, Carlisle, Barrow and Preston I'd pepper the text with cut and paste jobs from Wikipedia and a few facts you could otherwise pick up from hours scouring the internet. People may even like stories about Wittgenstein and Anthony Burgess in Manchester, or that karaoke was invented in Goyt Mill in Marple, or the time I met Dave Lee Travis on holiday in Italy. Or that my Dad moved around a lot when he was a lad. But I wouldn't do that. I'd get the name of Liverpool's manager right though. It wasn't Bob Shankly, you numpty. It was Bob Paisley.

I'm not a contemporary book reviewer, I got this for my birthday last July and it's been on my reading pile for ages. If you want to read a generous review, go and look up one by everyone's favourite cultural theorist Terry Eagleton.

In the end, even trying to review this mess of a book is making me irritable and tetchy. It has genuine, genuine gems. But it is not really about the North at all. It's a series of tangents, a product of a distracted mind, or someone able to frustrate and manipulate his publishers despite not delivering his much promised biopic on Anthony Wilson.

It also defiantly and arrogantly doffs a flat cap in the direction of Tristram Shandy with the rambling disconnections and the stubborn refusal to be what the author claimed he wanted the book to be in his original submission, which he even includes as a form of showing off. It takes brass balls to do that, or a brass neck. And we all know what's there where there's brass.

Kevin Sampson's Extra Time

All football fans have their own culture, their own stock of stories and their own memories. These drip through Kevin Sampson's Extra Time - A Season in the Life of a Football Fan, which has been lurking in my reading pile and I've just finished. His club is Liverpool.

First up, it's entertaining, honest, funny and really well written. You'd expect that from Kevin Sampson and I'm on record of liking the cut of his jib.

We've been reminded this week how much Hillsborough is etched on the psyche of Liverpool's loyal core of fans.
But reading a book that details the experiences of a group of fans through 1997 and 1998, I was struck by how little Hillsborough seems to feature in their thoughts and pub discussions. It was written 9 years after the tragedy and merits only a few scant paragraphs during the trip to watch the Reds at Sheffield Wednesday, where home supporters are wearing novelty hats produced by The Sun newspaper. On that observation the anger bursts through. The sense of injustice grows, then Jack Straw says there are no further grounds for an enquiry. But then no more. It simmers, one imagines, rather than boils over. I guess grief does that.

That we're only gripping the importance of justice now, 16 years later, is staggering.

Malcolm Gladwell at the Liverpool Phil

To Liverpool for a performance by Malcolm Gladwell. As I've said before, I'm a fan of the pop-sociologist and storyteller. In my profile on Propermag I name him as one of my favourite "five things".

But this was a strange event. Strange, as it was in a magnificent theatre, but the acoustics were dire. I couldn't quite hear what he was saying some of the time and when it's a one-man show that's pretty important.

I was also slightly puzzled that he chose Northern Ireland for his book about underdogs, but also to speak about in Liverpool, London and Dublin. Brave if nothing else, for North Americans can get the perspective badly wrong about who the bad guys were in that conflict. I refer to this piece in the Spectator to pick up that particular point - How Malcolm Gladwell Gets Northern Ireland wrong.

But negatives out of the way - I loved how he told the story of Alva Erskine Vanderbilt, the 19th century social climber par excellence. How different elements of her story told one way portrayed her as a hero of feminism, or from another view as a tyrant and a mother from hell.

All of which was a clever way of tacking the issue of legitimacy. People pay taxes when they feel government and authority is fair and respectful - it then gains legitimacy. Taxes are avoided, in Greece for instance, when the rule of law is widely seen as unfair. And it's a lack of legitimacy which causes much of the turmoil around the world. Other political theories around detterance don't cover this.

“People choose to obey the law not because of a calculation of risks and benefits but because they think of a larger justice,” he said.

"Alva Erskine Vanderbilt was a very unlikely radical,” Gladwell said. She built monstrous houses, divorced her philandering husband and prevented her daughter from marrying someone similar, pairing her off instead to the aristocratic Churchill/Marlborough family. And it is her ferocity in the face of unfairness and a lack of legitimacy that fires her.

“She does not stand back because she does not see society’s judgment as legitimate. She has been denied on every level the basic fundamental rules of legitimacy and she is angry. She puts every ounce of her domineering and ambitious personality into the cause and she is successful.

“Alva wins in the end and the message of that victory applies as much to this day as it did then. The lesson at the end of the day is that the powerful are judged not by their ends but their means. If you deny people legitimacy then they will come back and defeat you."

All told, it was enough to make me and my pal Alex want to buy the book. We missed getting one on the night as we were being social butterflies at the bar, him with this guy, and me with another old favourite.

When a city is a character in a crime novel

Kevin Sampson on writing 'The Killing Pool' from Red Union Films on Vimeo.

To the Manchester Literature Festival to a panel discussion featuring Val McDermid, Cath Staincliffe and Tom Benn. All have featured Manchester in their work - not always by name, but the city works as a location as it is big enough to have a lot going on, but not so big that it swamps the characters.

This was all in my mind over summer when I read Kevin Sampson's first hard boiled crime book - The Killing Pool, which painted a very detailed, well researched picture of Liverpool's murky underworld. It was a good story, but it was Liverpool that seeped out from every page - warts and all. The video, above, sets out how the author set about creating such a story. I've been fascinated by this whole period ever since I read Cocky by Peter Walsh way back when. But he really brings the city to life, which was his aim.

Manchester similarly loomed large in the debut digital download novel of AK Nawaz's The Cotton Harvest. Again, another work produced from someone close to the centre of crime and the underclass in the city.

As Val McDermid said tonight, if the author does it well, then you visit a place and feel you know it. Think Ian Rankin's Edinburgh, Sarah Paretsky's Chicago and Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles.

Apologies to Helen Carter, in the chair tonight, for asking her if the portrayal of journalists in crime stories has changed and whether any of the panel were any good at it. I asked, because I think many get the workload and pressures of the journalist woefully wrong - AK Nawaz didn't, by the way. I didn't mean to put her on the spot regarding how Val McDermid does anything. A greater, more impressive force and a yet massively warm presence on a stage at a book event I have yet to see. Had I been offered an invitation to nit pick her work, I would have passed on it too. Soz.

What Bill Shankly might have said about transfer deadline day

On this day of all days, Bill Shankly's birthday, we see all of football laid bare. Transfer deadline day, where Shankly's famous quip about life and death will be crassly taken out of context. I heard a Sky reporter say yesterday we were "witnessing history" as the team bus pulled up at the Bernebau for the very last night time WITHOUT Gareth Bale.

And having just read the 720 pages of David Peace's new novel Red or Dead, there are plenty more things that Shankly said that apply to a day like today.

There's this about the players at the end of their careers, like many who won't get a deal today: "It comes to us all son. And so you have to be prepared. You have to be ready, son. Because you have to decide how you will deal with it. Will it be grace and with dignity? Or will it be with anger and with bitterness?"

And this: "I have always been ambitious. Not for me, but for the supporters. I mean, right from the start I tried to show the supporters that they are the people who matter. Not the directors. But at Carlisle, it was the same story. The same story as at Huddersfield later. The directors lacked the ambition... They were a selling club. Not a buying club."

So is the book any good? Yes, it's demanding and draws you in to its repetitive style, but the second half, charting his retirement is heartbreaking at times. It shows an incredible generosity of spirit and of selfless good deeds from a great man.

I thought Frank Cottrell Boyce nailed it with his review in the Observer.

And if you want more on David Peace, then Phil Thornton did a brilliant interview with him.

A view of Margaret Thatcher, not from the left or the right, but the North

There will be plenty of people on the left drifting into a fantasy world of what life would have been like with no Margaret Thatcher, now that there is no longer a real living Margaret Thatcher to despise, just a grave to dance on.

If you want to properly assess the legacy and the impact of the so-called Iron Lady then start with the words she chose to use when she’d won the election of 1979. Twisting the beautiful words of St Francis of Assisi she said: “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.”

The reaction to her death – more disharmony, no consensus over what the truth is, plenty of doubt, it rather points to a failure on all fronts. And for many communities, the only hope came from successive governments.

As the brilliant sociologist Stuart Hall said, “Thatcherism” was defined by what it was for and what it was against: “the virtues of the market, competition, elitism, individual initiative, the iniquities of state intervention and bureaucracy… and against trade union militancy, national aspirations, permissiveness, women’s liberation.”

It’s all very Manichean* – if you know what that means fine, if you don’t, then that’s fine too, but you probably need to read more.

But to make things easier, I believe you have to separate what she said and what the government did. In fact, a lot of what she said was errant nonsense, ill thought through and arrogant. Such as that breathtaking baloney about there being no such thing as society, just collections of individuals and families.

But let’s for a moment concentrate on her quest for the truth.

For me the biggest failure of Thatcher and Thatcherism is that it was never really true to its revolutionary rhetoric. There was never any attempt to create new models of co-operative business, genuine shareholder democracy, or to forge a revolution in home ownership beyond selling off council houses. It remains a challenge now.

I don’t come at this from the left or the right, but from the North. I have always suffered from an excess of civic pride.

There are proud intellectual traditions in the north. Like mutuality, the co-operative movement and free trade liberalism. Instead the anti-Thatcher and pro-Thatcher camps have painted us all into a nasty form of rampant capitalism pitted against a dismal protectionist socialism.

There is a myth too that the North stood strong in 1984, but was defeated, that the brave miners led the struggle against her mighty state armoury; that they were the vanguard of the enemy within, who took her on. No they weren’t, they were pretty much on their own. I was active on the left in the 80s. I supported the miners (see above, with Rik Mayall), marched for Derek Hatton and his cronies in Liverpool, peacefully picketed Padiham power station, danced at Red Wedge gigs and bought Billy Bragg records (the revolution is just a t-shirt away, comrade).

It was a debate that was hopelessly lost. The miners were defeated, not just because they weren’t united, but were led by a tyrant to an unpopular strike that divided communities with rhetoric and tribalism. As a supporter, you rattled collection tins in working class areas and were as unpopular as a Tory. People didn’t want to know. The coal industry was a pawn in a politically motivated class struggle – by both sides.

As for her battle with the local authorities, Manchester City Council only began to be in a position to make the city a better place when they accepted the new rules and engaged. Former leader Graham Stringer deserves a lot of credit for this.

Society had changed, Thatcher provided a mood music for a generation of entrepreneurs, 11 per cent of the workforce in 1989 were self employed, made up of people like my dad, who had his own milk round. Yet that was against a backdrop of high interest rates and no real attempt to remove red tape. Instead, just the unchallenged march of the banks and their concentration of power.

I dispute the view that this created a culture of selfishness that made the world a harsher place, but something clearly snapped.

Only by attempting to govern from the centre, by taking the country with you could any politician ever hope to govern again. And a new language of business engagement has taken root.

Neil Kinnock partly saw this, but Tony Blair grasped it fully, and so too we now see the leaders of every political party today occupying familiar territory. Thatcher even said that her greatest success was New Labour. And I have always held that David Cameron is truly Blair’s heir. It all rather drives home the point that no other politician could ever expect to win one election, let alone three, by declaring war on an ‘enemy within’.

And let’s remember that. The left has been properly marginalised and defeated. The supremacy of post-Thatcherite politics for the last 23 years has been the killing of the idea that there will ever be another Thatcher of the right, or the left. For all of the talk of the triumph of neo-liberalism, most western countries have a state that produces over 40 per cent of GDP.

Finally, I can’t let the week pass without a nod in the direction of the grave dancers. I can’t personally celebrate the death of anyone. As a good mate of mine, Simon Sinclair, said this week in response to an invitation to a party to mark her death: “I’d be very sad and think less of you if you actually celebrated the death of another human being. I don’t remember anyone celebrating the death of even Fred West or Osama Bin Laden. And nobody danced for the death of Stalin or Mao Zedong. So why anyone I respect might do a childish jig over the death of someone who took an immense popular mandate to fight a huge national decline in the way she understood the country would want to, and repeatedly elected her to do, makes me feel a little diminished as a member of the human race.”

*Manichean – the belief that everything can be reduced to a fight between good and evil.

Northern Monkeys - a book about growing up

Next month will see the publication of a book I've been working on for the last few years. It's called Northern Monkeys and it's a journey through working class social history in the North of England.

At its centre is the "casual/dresser" scene of the 1980s - lads going to football in gangs, dressed to the nines in designer sportswear and often with violent motives. For me and Bill Routledge, the prime mover and guiding hand of the project, it's the period that defined and changed everything. Fashion, sport, work, pride, politics and it all came together in this uniquely volatile period of recent history. The book covers where it was all rooted, what it was like to be there at the time, who was first, how the looks of the time quickly mutated and how the key figures at the time went on to use that mindset to influence music and fashion to this day.

But to see it as a book about football casuals is an epic understatement. Its central core is a way of interpreting that movement and putting it slap bang in the context of some seismic social and cultural changes.

We start with tales of post-war austerity, moving through the sharp suits, the Teddy Boys and the Cunard Boys - Liverpudlian seamen who would stock up on rare fashion items on their international jaunts - clearly influencing their sons and heirs in the Transalpino era. Male narcissism and looking good was nothing new, of course, and the pack look of football lads of the 1980s clearly cocked a nod in the direction of the Mods and even skinheads of the previous two decades. Different scenes also fed into it - we've got a whole section of memories from Northern Soul devotees and the look and lustre of nights at Wigan Casino and Blackpool Mecca.

Where this look differed for those of us in Northern towns was that it was more DIY than many have previously acknowledged. The early Scouse pioneers tracked down rare Adidas trainers in Germany, the Manc innovators plundered market stalls for flares and leathers as the look evolved. But my early memories of the developing style was rooting out a Fila tennis top at Lancaster University sports shop, finding Pringle in old man's shops and a Peter Storm cagoul in an outdoors shop. For many it was about buying the look off the shelf in Hurleys in Manchester or Wade Smith in Liverpool, for early adopters, it never was.

The compiler of this has been a lad I'm now proud to call a good friend, Bill Routledge. He's cajoled and persuaded a huge range of mates and contacts to contribute various tales, some going back to the post-war period of austerity and community building in Northern towns like Preston, others are boot boys, skinheads, rockabillies and the most dominant cult of them all at the dawn of this movement - the punks. Bill and his crowd in Preston in 1981, like me and my Lancaster mates (pictured, right, in 1984), made a transition from punk to "football lad" - it was a remarkable transformation. This was the closest I ever got to being in a "firm" - Lancaster, Morecambe and Carnforth lads all supported different teams, the picture above covers lads who followed Blackburn Rovers, Morecambe, Manchester United, Blackpool, Rangers and Spurs, from memory. Can you spot me, by the way?

I've always carried this look on. During Fresher's week at University in 1985 I was turned away from the goth and punk night at the Ritz in Manchester for wearing chinos, deck shoes, a Lacoste polo and a red Italian chunky jumper. It didn't have a name then, but this was the emerging Paninaro look. By the time of our third year my mates were well into looking smarter too - we liked Chevignon, Chipie, C17 and Timberland for a night at the Hacienda or the Venue, way before the Madchester druggie rave scene. By the time we moved to London, the treasure trove that was Shop 70 on Lamb's Conduit Street in the 90s was a delight, and a few pieces of Stone Island and CP Company still adorn my wardrobe as a tribute to that era and that look.

For my bit of the book I've interviewed Robert Wade-Smith, Barry Bown from JD Sports and Gary Aspden, the former brand director of Adidas, as well as commissioning a few tales from lads who were there with stories to tell. The stories are long and revealing and I like to think I get what they're about, the journey they've been on and how their interpretation of brands and street fashion influenced the high street today.

One thing Northern Monkeys is certainly not is hoolie-porn, there's been enough of that to be honest, but it doesn't try and sugarcoat a movement that had football violence as one of its core identifiers.

So, here's the Northern Monkeys website, have a nosy at that. There's a Northern Monkeys Book Facebook page which we're using to gather some extra pictures and messages and you can join in this majestic nostalgia fest on Twitter by following @MonkeyNorth.

My mate #18 - Frank McKenna

Me, Derek Hatton and Frank McKenna at Goodison Park

A random shuffle of my address book to find a random friend to profile has suggested Frank McKenna, the man behind Downtown in Business, the business networking club.

I've known Frank for about 12 years, he came through a very tough period where a spurious charge over a leaflet bill led to the early termination of his political career. He was a capable and visionary leader of Lancashire County Council. His practical brand of Labour politics was the first manifestation of New Labour in action and an important part of the development of that project. Tony Wilson put me on to him and suggested we would get on and enjoy each other's company.

He fought off the charges and embarked upon a different career - using his political brain and an urgency for change and improvement, especially in Liverpool. It led to the formation of Downtown Liverpool, a completely different kind of business organisation. I described it as "the Chamber with hair gel", which he took in good part and referred to it in a piece about male grooming here.

In that time the dinners have been glamorous and lively. The private events and the breakfast debates have been very cerebral and have included a high level of political engagement. Though a New Labour northerner, Frank has always kept a dialogue open with other parties, something I've always been impressed by.  He gets a lot of stick, but as well as being well manicured, he's also developed a fairly thick skin too.

Over the years I've always enjoyed collaborating with Frank. We have had many chats that helped one another form views on policy and strategy (and football). And whatever it is we talk about, or whoever we talk about, our chats are always fun. I like his turn of phrase and empathetic style, whether that is over lunch, coffee, over the microphone on his radio programme on CityTalk FM in Liverpool, or at Everton v Blackburn Rovers games, where we were photographed for the picture above with Derek Hatton in there somewhere.

He is a remarkably open and straight forward kind of bloke, who has been generous with his advice and personal support too; just as he has been loyally supported by a close coterie of friends and business contacts. He's also managed to stay friends with Tracey, his former wife, and is a really good and supportive Dad too.

He's moved Downtown into Lancashire and Manchester too, with plans to expand in other cities. It's a good idea - because the need for business advocacy has never been greater.

I am drawn to people who want to do things differently and who command respect through their deeds and actions. Frank is one such person and I'm proud to count him as a pal.

The North West Economy Debate on BBC1

I was chuffed to bits to be invited to a debate on the state of the North West economy which will be broadcast on BBC1 tomorrow night. Ranvir Singh hosted it, there were two MPs there - Hazel Blears for Labour and David Rutley, the Tory member for Macclesfield - and a mixture of business people from a chip shop owner from Woodley to a manufacturer of aircraft  bits. There were unions, the unemployed, an academic and a few good eggs like Max Steinberg and Andy Leach. It was a real whirlwind of a debate, much punchier than the usual polite business events I'm involved in. It was also quite broad. See for yourself tomorrow night at 11. And let me know what you thought. I know which bits I enjoyed the most.

Inside Out - BBC North West programme on Peel

I was delighted to be asked to contribute a few comments to the BBC North West Inside Out programme on Peel Holdings this week. In a nutshell I said the North West is very lucky to have a business like Peel, led by a driven and determined character like John Whittaker, but that their success comes with a ruthless streak. They tend not to lose. I also mentioned he is a devout practising Catholic. Maybe I sound a little like the Indian mother on Goodness Gracious Me, always spotting her own.

My one and only on the record encounter with John Whittaker is recorded for all time here in the May 2010 edition of North West Business Insider. I rather regret not making more of this encounter and putting it up on the web. The theatre of the clash between JW and Sir Howard Bernstein seemed exciting at the time, and we milked it as a news story and demonstrated how we accessed such big hitters. I wish in a way I'd delved into the great man a little more while I had the chance and splashed it some more. Hats off then to Property Week editor Giles Barrie for doing just that with his opportunity here, but I notice that he too has chosen to hide it behind a paywall. Sometimes it's better to save these things for the printed product, I certainly thought so at the time.

I also have to commend David Quinn and Arif Ansari for an excellent short film. It was fair, balanced and gave a number of valuable insights into the business. The only shame for them, like me, like Giles Barrie, is with Peel you just don't know what to leave out - but part of our challenge is always what you omit as much as what you include and how the story is then told.

With Downtown Frank on the radio

I did a radio programme this week with Frank McKenna of Downtown in Business. The link to the podcast of it is here, so it should be up in a day or two. It's on City Talk FM in Liverpool and we cover cruise terminals, pensions, the public sector strikes and a tiny bit of politics.

Pete Wylie - part time rock star, full time legend

There are plenty of song writers and musicians who have written a good crop of good songs. Not many write great songs. Those that do tend to enjoy careers and riches. Where then does that leave Pete Wylie of Wah!? I can place Sinful, Come Back and Story of the Blues in any list above the efforts of latter day pretenders. Ahead of anything by plenty of bands I really like. There's plenty more he's been involved in that's ropey, but I subscribe to the flawed genius theory of Wylie. These three songs have majesty, ambition and that overblown Scouse sense of epic entitlement.

Anyway, there was a long and thoughtful profile on him I remember reading about 20 years ago. It was by James Brown in the Guardian, one of his better efforts since Attack on Bzag (look it up). It's now slightly updated and on the excellent Sabotage Times. 

Wylie's own site has gone.

Down to the sea in ships

I hosted an event on Wednesday at the Port of Liverpool building at Pier Head. It is a remarkable building, quite stunning and quite majestic. I was immediately struck by the inscription in the atrium, a quote from Psalm 107: "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep."

And to give it a full exposition: "For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven."

I was interviewing the owner of the building, George Downing, who is a real character and worthy holder of Insider's Property Personality of the Year Award. If you get the chance, drop in. Downing Developments have done a marvellous job preserving the stained glass windows and restoring the natural light into the atrium from the domed ceiling.

Coverage of the event is here. Everton and Liverpool should share a new stadium, says George. And by George, he's right.

On inspirational leaders

I've been honoured to spend time this week with some towering figures in British life, Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Terry Leahy.

The Tesco boss was speaking at a finance conference in Liverpool this morning, which I chaired. Fergie was the guest at the office opening of Morson's new headquarters in Salford, organised by my good friend Paul Horrocks. There were only business press invited and we kept a respectful distance. I did see the FT man Andy Bounds hovering around him, but that was to get him to sign his son's birthday card. Anyway, the story is here.

I did sit next to Leahy though and introduce his speech. I can't claim that he's my new best mate or anything, in fact I suspect he thought I was a chippy pain in the arse. I asked him, in front of 350 people, about the Everton stadium, which he seemed a bit bored by. He also wasn't that enamoured by one of the other people on the panel talking too much and made a swift exit at the end of the session.

So, one learns from such experiences. One also cannot fail to be impressed by Leahy's observations. Irrespective of his dry delivery, he's inspirational. Despite his position as boss of an all conquering retail brand, he seems empathetic to the issues facing fast growing companies of much smaller size. It might seem obvious, but he says if you want to succeed in business, then you set out to be the best, and if you do, then you get big. That brings its own challenges.

Both men have been successful in their own walk of life. People hang on their every word, what they say matters. What they feel matters too. The good news from Leahy is the recovery seems real. He'd know.

Neither try too hard to play it for laughs either. They don't need to. A mild anecdote brings the house down. Leahy's was that his speech would be like the Everton game v Man United - all the best bits will be at the end.

My biggest laugh of the day came after I introduced the very nice man from the Bank of England, John Young. Insider named him the 100th most powerful man in the North West, which I mentioned. He said he ought to point out that the person at 99 is in fact dead. He is, it's him.