WE JOURNALISTS can plead: “Don’t shoot the messenger!” but some people are accusing us of excessive gloom as we peer at the prospects for 2009.

So let’s hope that global pressure on the car industry will be minimised on our plants at Halewood and Ellesmere Port. Let’s believe the changes made to the local economy in recent years will mean that it will no longer be true that when Britain gets flu, Merseyside gets pneumonia. Let’s try and look optimistically to the other side of the recession.

Two public inquiries will help point the way. Hopefully, we will get a decision on the Everton/Tesco scheme this year. As that public inquiry closes, another will be getting under way into the second crossing of the Mersey. Although a verdict is unlikely in 2009, it is a potentially important development for the economy, as would be a start on the tramline from Kirkby.

Let’s also hope this year will see some tangible benefits from the creation of the Liverpool City Region, as local politicians bury their differences to work together.

They may be helped by the fact that there are no elections this year for the six councils in the sub-region.

We will be voting for the European Parliament and county councils. But the two new authorities in Cheshire have already been elected. That only leaves people living in places like Skelmersdale, Ormskirk and Burscough with a local vote for Lancashire County Council. That will be an important election as Labour rule looks to be in peril after many years in control.

Regarding a possible General Election, rumours persist that a snap vote will be called.

The reasoning is that, as unemployment is going to rise towards 3m later this year, it would be better for the Prime Minister to go to the polls quickly. He would then hope to persuade us that “this is no time for a novice” and get a new mandate.

I don’t buy that scenario. Whenever asked about early elections, Ministers say they are entirely focused on dealing with the recession. Well, economic problems aren’t going to lessen this year, so when could they take their eye off the ball to go to the country?

We also need to remember that this decision is a very personal one. Gordon Brown will take advice and study the polls, but, at the end of the day, he will decide.

Two Labour Prime Ministers got this badly wrong. I have in mind Harold Wilson’s decision to call an election in June, 1970, and Jim Callaghan’s failure to do so in September, 1978.

We could throw in Gordon Brown’s hesitancy in September, 2007, as well.

Brown craved this job for years under Tony Blair, so why risk shortening a Prime Ministership that might only last three years?

It would be a terrific gamble to ask the people for more time when jobs will be haemorrhaging and businesses closing.

My final predictions are Liverpool for the Premiership and Everton for the Cup!