- The Observer,
- Sunday November 16 2003
It was at Liverpool that ships docked in World War Two to disgorge gum-chewing US troops bearing popular music and nylons to entice local lasses.
For decades, Liverpool's so-called 'Cunard Yanks' brought American music ashore from cruise liners to 'the Nashville of the North'; the latest American jazz and pop, long before the rest of Britain. The Beatles and 'Mersey Sound' were no coincidence.
However, Liverpool's kinship with the United States does not extend to this week's visit by President George Bush. Opinion in the city dovetails with the rest of Britain whereby only a minority of people back Prime Minister Blair's support for Washington and occupation of Iraq.
'If one thing really needles me,' says Steve Williams, a hospital porter, 'it's not what those corksuckers do; it's that Britain has become America's tart. We just lie down and get screwed.'
No one in the Masonic Arms on Lark Lane in southern Liverpool can explain why 'corksucker' is scouse for American. And Steve's father Edwin objects to the analogy anyway: 'The difference between Britain and a business girl is that Anytime Annie gets paid for it, but we're paying to get screwed.' However, argues Jalpa Patel, a chemistry student: 'Saddam's gone, and we helped. Bush owes us a visit to say thanks, even if it looks like a disaster for Tony Blair.'
At the other end of town - in the so-called 'northern corridor' - The Thrustle's Nest pub is one of the few buildings to have survived sweeping 'slum clearance' along Scotland Road, which replaced miles of little terraces with miles of new slums. Inside, opinion is divided. 'It's being lied to that pisses people off', says Ray Harris, an unemployed former docker. 'People stuck in the Liverpool poverty trap are not binheads. We can tell when someone like Tony Blair is telling us salties about Iraq or whatever it is; he's blaggering, and we take that as an insult.' Lynne Palmer, a secretary, doesn't agree: 'My Nan remembers the Americans coming here in the war to rescue us, and I think we owe them.'
After staging its own protests on Wednesday, Liverpool will be sending more demonstrators to London; some six coachloads, according to Mark Hendel, a solicitor and co-ordinator of the city's Stop the War Coalition. 'People are fed up with being lied to and want to take action,' says Hendel.
On the other hand, Labour's communications director for the region, Jim Carter, insists that for party members, Iraq becomes less of an issue. 'In the run-up to the whole Iraq thing, we had a lot of calls from people to say they felt let down. But we now have an equal number of people who feel for Tony Blair as leader of the party making difficult decisions, and it levelled out.' Dissent comes more over foundations hospitals than foreign policy, he says.
Teachers across the country have been ordered by the Government to ensure that pupils do not play hookey to demonstrate on Thursday. It's a London problem, really; only a tiny handful will do so (let alone get away with it) from so far as Liverpool. But that doesn't prevent debate among the city's schoolchildren.
In the shadow of Liverpool's football ground, pupils emerge from Anfield Community School into the drizzling leaden-grey afternoon. Like all scouse scallies, with little waterproofing or protection, they wait in their royal blue sweatshirts (an irony not lost on football fans) for the 17B bus home or to town, right opposite the gates of the famous Spion Kop.
While the school authorities are coy about speaking, its pupils are anything but. 'Is Britney Spears American?' asks Sean, 15. 'Yes.' 'Then I'm not anti-American.'
'I don't think there's great anti-American feeling,' says Marie, 16 (an Everton 'blue nose'), 'but that doesn't mean that people like George Bush.' The bus arrives. 'I think it's crap of Tony Blair and Bush to be best fellas,' offers Paul (a Liverpool 'red nose'), boarding it, 'but I'd love to go to America'.
Liverpool city centre, like any other, is where you locate one American brand outlet by reference to another. So the Whitechapel branch of Gap is just across Church Street from the Paradise Street branch of MacDonald's, and vice-versa.
Through the golden arches, schoolchildren in smart school blazers and ties take advantage of a 'price crash'. They come from Notre Dame (a Catholic girls' school, or 'bird-cage') or the Bluecoat, a Liverpool hallmark, whose deputy head Debbie Silcock says that Iraq and America 'are certainly issues in [her pupils'] lives. They are extremely aware of world affairs and voice their concerns; they would tend to champion those who were being put down, I suppose.'
Aware they certainly are: 'I don't think this is just about Iraq,' says Lee, 17, 'it's the whole business of American superpower, companies and all; you know, globalisation.'
A new, snazzy Starbucks has just opened on Bold Street, with purple sofa chairs on which Lindsay Sullivan and boyfriend Jeff (wearing a Philadelphia Phillies cap) share a gingerbread latte. Lindsay strongly opposes Bush's visit, but Jeff 'went to Florida - great. I'm not at all anti-American.' It is Keith (not his real name), behind the counter and serving yet another Starbucks caramel macchiato, who has booked Thursday off to march in London.
