Certain individuals in the council have been acting unlawfully, which absolutely should be punished to the full extent of the law. The city has however been underfunded for years, criminally so. The city has bore some of the biggest cuts in the UK (£463m/63% since 2010) with austerity and requires one of the biggest social outlays. I heard once off one of the councillors that Liverpool's monthly social care responsibility would wipe out all council funds if Govt. and other incoming sources froze for one single month. That kind of loss of income is nothing to do with what's happened at council level, it is purely a Tory govt that has removed that through political choice.
It would not surprise me one tiny bit if the Tories come in to run it and identify areas that need spend, then allow that spend to happen through Govt. funding. Its exactly the same approach they are taking with the Towns Fund - make people desperate for anything with one hand, give it to them with your other and claim to be their saviour. They can only do that in areas they control and Liverpool is not somewhere they could control at this level in normal times.
Is it all engineered? Who knows, but nothing would shock me.
