The dramatic collapse of Boris Johnson's government has left the country in limbo - but Liverpool is facing a particularly uncertain future after the events of last week.
The city council is bracing itself for the latest report from a team of commissioners currently installed at the troubled local authority. Those commissioners were, until last Wednesday, due to report to Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove about what steps would be taken next in Liverpool.
But Mr Gove was sacked in one of Boris Johnson's final, desperate acts before he announced his own resignation on the steps of Downing Street. Mr Gove's removal, along with the departure of a host of ministerial resignations from the same department will have caused more uncertainty for councils across the land, especially ones awaiting momentous decisions.
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He was quickly replaced by former cabinet member Greg Clark, who will now be given the job of signing off whatever recommendations the Liverpool commissioners make next - and they could be pivotal ones.
The feeling within the council is that further government interventions are almost inevitable. Most believe another commissioner will be appointed to focus on either finance or operational matters - or both. This would be hugely significant and would mean government having control of potentially vast areas of decision making in Liverpool.
The council and its leaders have been under huge pressure of late after a catalogue of disasters surrounding the procurement of a new city electricity deal led to predicted additional costs of £16m. The revelations about the contract errors were followed by the resignation of the council's director of finance and deputy chief executive Mel Creighton.
Ms Creighton was a key ally of chief executive Tony Reeves, who has been seen as the person trying to turn the council's fortunes in the wake of scandals that have seen a host of council-linked arrests and the devastating government inspection that led to the arrival of the commissioners last summer.
But the current crises at the council and an increasingly difficult and fractious relationship between the commissioners and Mr Reeves are putting huge pressure on the chief executive himself. A further intervention and the arrival of another commissioner at the city council could be seen as an attempt to force him out altogether.
All eyes remain trained on the department, which must surely publish its long-delayed report before the Parliamentary recess next Friday. A spokesperson told the ECHO: "The second report by commissioners for Liverpool City Council will be considered by ministers and published alongside a ministerial response in due course.”
Responding to the current chaos in Whitehall, Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson, who has written to the new secretary of state, asking for a meeting, said: “This Tory Government has shown it is unfit to govern. We have Boris Johnson hanging on in Downing Street and ministers playing musical chairs. Our residents are facing a cost of living crisis and the government are not doing anywhere near enough to support people through this tough time.
"For the past year our council has worked hard to deal with the problems highlighted in the Caller Report and by the Commissioners. A key part of this is a working relationship with government but the failure to provide clarity over the next report and the instability in the Department of Levelling up, Housing and Communities is making things very difficult."
She added: "This is a government mired in sleaze and chaos. Liverpool Labour won’t let Tory infighting cause delays to the council’s improvement journey. We will continue to drive through improvements at the city council."
For Liverpool opposition leader Richard Kemp, the government and those it has charged to improve the city council have now lost any moral authority. He said: "We are now on our third Secretary of State since the Commissioners arrived. So, we have a dysfunctional council being intervened in by a dysfunctional team of Commissioners introduced by a dysfunctional government.
"The people of Liverpool and those of us who want to make big changes are bystanders in all this and it’s the people of Liverpool who will continue to pay the price for this manifest incompetence at all levels."
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