An unedifying spectacle

More job losses at Experian, Ericsson shifting jobs to Coventry, Carter & Carter in administration, Computerland being bought out.
If you were a glass half-empty type you might say it all sounds a bit depressing.
Now it may just be that these are all unrelated coincidences. But I doubt it.
Collectively, these are classic signs of what businesses do when an economy heads downwards – especially if they are Stock Exchange companies with big institutional shareholders and banks to keep on side.
Now, there’s a limited amount that a city can do when businesses based there decide to scale back their operations. After all, they don’t make a decision to shed jobs because those jobs are in a particular city – they decide to shed them because jobs in a particular part of a business are deemed surplus to requirements.
Unfortunately, those jobs happen to be here.
That’s not to say you can’t do anything. This partly comes back to just how much of an effort a city makes to look after its major employers and weave them into the city’s fabric.
How well does Nottingham do at that? Not well at all. I haven’t heard any signs of the city’s leadership stepping up to the bar and reassuring major businesses that they will do everything they can to help them through an economic downturn – or, indeed, making clear they will take a dim view of anyone who thinks the city is a soft target for cutbacks.
What I have seen is depressing signs of the city’s political and administrative leadership falling out in a big way and not talking to each other.
City Council chief executive Michael Frater has been at MIPIM, the international property investment show in the South of France, batting for Nottingham.
While he’s there, a story has leaked out here suggesting he is negotiating his departure from the council because of his fall-out with leader Jon Collins.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs, this is wildly unimpressive in the circumstances, risking the impression that Nottingham's public sector egos matter more than the city’s economic future.
Whoever comes out on top in this unedifying spectacle will have a big reputational repair job on their hands. It’s been said too many times in recent months that Nottingham currently lacks a coherent vision for its social and economic future.
Businesses might be less tempted to walk away if they thought there was a vision that they could sign up to.