Derek Hatton - the controversial former deputy leader of Liverpool City - has given his full backing to Mayor Joe Anderson as the city leader faces a leadership challenge from within his own party.
Mr Hatton, at one point the council's most influential figure, believes Mayor Anderson is the right person to take the city forward and says he was "appalled" by the tactics of deputy group leader Cllr Ann O'Byrne who launched an election night bid to remove the city leader's position from underneath him.
The 71-year-old recently withdrew his much-publicised bid to return to the Labour Party, which came after he was suspended for comments he made on Twitter.
He was expelled from the party in 1986 for belonging to the Trotskyist group Militant.
This came after his council made national headlines as it refused to implement government spending cuts - and controversially used taxis to deliver more than 30,000 redundancy notices to workers in the city.
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But writing in his ECHO column today, Mr Hatton warned against the council veering in a different direction - and says times have moved on significantly from when he was involved.
While criticising Cllr O'Byrne's tactics, Mr Hatton states how he believes Liverpool is "succeeding" under Mayor Anderson - and urges people to back the leader to continue in the role.
Mayor Anderson has yet to state whether he will run for a third term as Mayor - and will face the motion from Cllr O'Byrne at a much-anticipated Labour group meeting on Monday night.
But Mr Hatton firmly believes he is the man for the job - stating his believe that "This is Anderson's Liverpool" and "To throw the baby out with the bath water at this time would be a monumental error, resulting in even more hardship and suffering for people in the city."
You can read Derek Hatton's full column in today's Liverpool ECHO newspaper and online here
