The government's widely-criticised financial package for Liverpool ahead of expected new tighter coronavirus restrictions "will take us back to the position this city was in in the 80s with large levels of unemployment," Liverpool's Mayor has warned.
Joe Anderson today told Westminster bosses to "wake up and smell the coffee" as he urged them to reconsider the "unacceptable" level of money being proposed for the North West ahead of Boris Johnson's announcement tomorrow on anticipated Tier 3 rules for Liverpool.
It comes as local leaders including Mayor Anderson and Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram condemned the government for their suggested 67% furlough scheme for businesses hit by Covid-19 closures, instead of the 80% offered nationally in the spring.
This morning, Mr Anderson said it was a "financially illiterate" stance if those in power in Whitehall didn't realise that massively increasing payments of benefits, and other lost contributions of income tax and National Insurance, would effectively mean they would have to pay out at the same level as the extra 13% being now demanded, to keep families and people afloat during the pandemic.
Speaking with Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham on Times Radio, he said: "We've got very little powers or influence over this and we are being done to rather than being collaborated with or talked to.
"The rhetoric of this Prime Minister is about levelling up and what we are going to be witnessing in Liverpool, and I know, I'm quite happy to say I've been told, that Liverpool will be likely to be placed in Tier 3.
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"That is going to have huge economic damage and damage that will take us back to the position this city was in in the 80s with large levels of unemployment, of people unemployed and it will set us back a long time.
"Let's make it absolutely clear here, if this was down in the south east in London, it wouldn't be happening, it simply wouldn't be tolerated."
Mr Anderson agreed that new measures were needed to control the worsening levels of Covid-19, quoting figures of 3,000 people in Liverpool currently with the virus, and 700 people catching it within a week, a statistic which is likely to grow.
And he agreed the "clearly failing" national test and trace system was not working, with a need to put under greater local control, with "people on the ground and doing the work door to door."
Currently, the system fails to reach 25% of people who test positive and of their friends and family only half of those are reached, Mayor Burnham said.
Mr Anderson added: "...the bottom line is if you make people redundant, they will be claiming Universal Credit, we'll have to pay them that, local authorities will have to support them with housing benefit and many other things, we'll lose the income tax, the National Insurance contributions, so it's a no-brainer to make sure we actually support people....
"And what's the difference between the initial national lockdown and the national furlough scheme and a local lockdown and a local furlough scheme?
"In my view no difference at all.
"And that's my point.
"If this was in London we wouldn't be talking about this.
"It's because it's the northwest they want to do it on the cheap and we are not going to allow them to do that.
"And let me make this absolutely clear, the people in the northwest won't stay on their knees and tolerate a government that is actually dictating in a way that's going to damage our economy for many, many years to come."
Yesterday, the ECHO reported how Liverpool's University Hospitals Trust has the highest number of patients with coronavirus in the whole of England.
There are currently 251 inpatients being cared for at either The Royal Liverpool Hospital, Aintree Hospital or Broadgreen Hospital.
Of those, 27 people are in critical care.
Steve Warburton, the chief executive of the Trust, told colleagues the figures were approaching the capacity of patients admitted in spring, at the time of the Covid-19 peak.
Mr Anderson agreed with questions that new steps were needed to bring the virus under control, and added: "But it's what we do and how.
"It's clear that localism, with the local leaders can make that difference that central government can't and they are conceding that.
"But without a financial package [that's not possible].
"The only reason we are having conversations with government is that the political pressure representing everybody whether you are Green, Tory, or Liberal Democrat, that's the only reason we are talking."
"We all agree measures are needed to bring this virus down, but it has to be with economic package that protects health and well-being, and the economic well-being of cities in the northwest.
Mr Burnham asked: "Isn't it time for a major change her, a reversal of what we've seen so far, localising the response to this crisis.
"Are we levelling up or levelling down? Which is it?
"If you go ahead with this financial package that would be to break what the government said it would do when it was elected.
"If they continue with this, jobs will be lost, businesses will collapse, the fragile economy of the north will be shattered.
"The government has a real choice here."
"If they continue with this, the central mission of this government to level up will be over."
