This is the final part of my interview with Liverpool Lib Dem Council group leader Carl Cashman. In this instalment, we talk about the sort of city he wants to see.

So what is the Carl Cashman vision for Liverpool?

One of the first things I want to do is get the Council in the service of people and when you’ve got Labour Councillors saying ‘shouldn’t we move to four weekly bin collections’ that’s a Council that’s out of touch with people and for me if you go round Liverpool, it’s the most beautiful city in the world, but it’s a very dirty city at the moment, it’s very litter ridden city, because the Council aren’t getting the basics right and for me it’s about giving people a real voice over their community, making sure that we tidy up the city and make it a city to be proud of.

He wants to build Council houses:

I want to give people that security in their tenancy again. I want people to have a house for life. I want people to not have to worry about if they’re going to get evicted from one week to the next and I actually want to create communities in Liverpool again.

At the moment we’ve got really big issues with companies like Serco that we’ve got to deal with and we’re not dealing with and I think that’s because Labour haven’t got the guts to do it. I think it takes someone to come in and say one how do we solve the homelessness problem because it is a bad one and two how do we get the temporary accommodation list down and three how do we build Council houses.

The perception people like Boris Johnson and others have tried to create about Liverpool is as one with a sense of victimhood, but Carl rejects that.

I think it’s a city that has got an inherent sense of social justice, more than any other place that I know and it’s an understanding that if the little person’s being picked on we don’t like that. So maybe we call that out a little bit more than other people do. (The city’s been through a lot) we’ve had Hillsborough and several other things where the city’s had to come together and one thing about Liverpool is we always do come together in those situations.

Tragically Reform are on the rise seemingly everywhere, could that possibly include Liverpool?

I think people would automatically assume that because there’s an overlap with the Tories that they wouldn’t but you’ve got to think that they’re not Conservative by proxy are they, they’re a populist party that have got policies of both the Left and the Right and I think Labour underestimate that at their peril and us to some degree. I think (Reform) will win seats in Liverpool unfortunately, at Labour’s cost, in the North of the city.

Some of the very poor working class wards where people feel, rightly in some ways, that they’ve not been listened to and have been let down in some cases for ten or twenty years and they’ll be looking for something to get out of bed for.

Our job is, in the areas that we’re targeting, to make sure that that’s us because we’ve got the right policies but more importantly we do the right work and it is to combat the likes of Reform because they do not stand for the principles that Liverpool people stand for. They want to throw people under the bus, the likes of Nigel Farage, in order to get where he wants to go and Liverpool people aren’t about that.

Carl tells me that  if the Lib Dems were the largest party following the 2027 City Council elections but without a majority, he wouldn’t work with Reform but also not with Labour who he claims have ‘vandalised’ the city.

Meanwhile could the Lib Dems be lost in the progressive mix of the Greens with their new charismatic leader Zack Polanski and Corbyn’s new as yet nameless political party?

I think so and again it goes back to establishing a position where it’s identifiable what the Liberal Democrats stand for. I think the Greens are bonkers in many ways. People just associate them with this kind of ‘I’m left wing, I don’t want to vote Labour who can I vote for?’ without reading much about what they stand for and what they do. So I’m very sceptical. I do think it’s a bit strange how Zack (Polanski) went from being in the Lib Dems in the Coalition period to now be (advocating an eco-Socialist platform)…a bigger fish in a smaller pond.

(As for Corbyn), you can’t just protest your way to solutions. You’ve got to think of practical solutions that change people’s lives.

I asked Carl how much the Coalition still hangs around the neck of the party, especially in the likes of Liverpool?

It does because there’s still people who’ve been surprised by us now when we’ve turned up campaigning in these places and it’s been more difficult to win those people over than it would maybe for another party and I do think it’s because of that. More so in this city than elsewhere because we’ve got an inherent distrust of the Tories because of what they did to this city (in the Thatcher years). I think it’s had more of an impact here but it doesn’t really get mentioned that much.

I ended with a light hearted question, as Carl has garnered national media attention for his good looks and occasional shirtless gym pics on Insta.
So, does he mind that attention?

It doesn’t bother me. I guess if you were to break down the percentage of people who follow me (on social media) because of the way that I look or because I go to the gym vs my politics it’s probably a strong 80 to 20 ratio, maybe even worse than that.

There’s a lot of people, I’ll give you an example, and this is something that I really love, a lot of people who follow me on Instagram are gay men, I’ll let you guess why that might be, but there’s someone who messaged me on Instagram recently and he said ‘I know Carl that you get all this attention and I do appreciate it but I just wanted to say that I really appreciate what you’re doing (as a straight ally) for the LGBT+ community and standing side by side because it’s not easy to put on one of those (Pride) t-shirts when (some) people are saying all sorts of (negative things) about trans rights and so on; it’s not easy to stand with those people when there’s a barrage of abuse,’ and I say that knowing that they’re in a far more vulnerable position than I would be just by supporting them but the fact that he said that to me and the fact that I get several messages like that every now and again makes anything else worthwhile.

It was a joy to go up to Liverpool and speak to Carl in depth.

He’s Liverpool’s Liberal lion and is certainly providing some muscular Liberalism.

I look forward to seeing his continuing rise in our party in the months and years to come.

* Mathew Hulbert is a former Councillor, is a regular commentator on TV and Radio, and is Co-Host of the Political Frenemies podcast.