‘Dirty tricks’ drive reveals split in Liverpool’s ruling Lib-Dem party

May 15 2008 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

THE division among Liverpool’s ruling Liberal Demo-crat party is today laid bare by the revelation of a “dirty tricks” campaign against one of the challengers in this week’s leadership election.

An attempt was made to undermine the challenge of former “deputy leader” Richard Kemp by posting an anonymous package to the city’s Lib-Dem councillors ahead of the crunch vote.

It contained council reports into the failure to regenerate Liverpool’s Norris Green Boot estate over which Cllr Kemp eventually resigned more than six years ago.

The postmark on the packages shows they were mailed on Saturday morning, and arrived on Monday.

Last night, Cllr Kemp branded the incident “pathetic” and said he was in no doubt the mailshot had come from within the Lib-Dems to undermine his challenge, as the labels used were virtually identical to those usually used by the party. He said it was part of the malaise currently gripping the council.

Cllr Bradley, who was re-elected as the group’s leader with 57% of the vote, said he thought the move was “crass to say the least”, while the other challenger Paul Clein also said it was “pathetic”.

Labour leader Joe Ander-son said the Lib-Dems were “imploding in front of our very eyes” a day after Cllr Bradley said the group need-ed to get “back to basics”.

The council leader secured 26 votes in the ballot, while Cllr Kemp had 13, and Cllr Clein seven.

Last night, Cllr Kemp said: “I found it rather sad that people should try to refer to an event 6½ years old. They clearly did not understand the context of it.”

He said the review into the Boot estate had found that many of the failings were not his, but he took political responsibility for the “failings of officers”.

“I told the group on Mon-day that in my view people who send things like this are not liberals or democrats. It’s another example of the malaise that shows Liverpool councillors are not perform-ing their best for the people of Liverpool.”

Cllr Bradley said he receiv-ed a copy on Monday morn-ing and “thought it was crass to say the least”.

“I personally don’t believe it needs any more of a com-ment, other than it was in 2001 and the city council have delivered phase 1, which is fully occupied, with the other phases moving forward.”

Cllr Clein said: “I thought it was pathetic. This was a matter that was fully investi-gated at the time and things have moved on since.”

Labour leader Joe Ander-son said: “Clearly this proves the dirty tricks that are go-ing on among the Lib-Dems and it shows, as I predicted, that there is total civil war going on among them.

“They are imploding in front of our very eyes.”

davidbartlett