Joe Anderson

Joe Anderson is Liverpool's first elected mayor. The former Merchant Seaman, who has been a Liverpool councillor for 14 years, became Liverpool’s first elected Mayor in May 2012. Born in 1958, in the south end of the city centre near Dingle, Councillor Anderson attended St Vincent Primary School – where he has been a governor for the last 12 years- and St Martins Secondary School. Councillor Anderson was elected to the council in 1998 to represent Abercromby ward (now called Riverside) – the area in which he grew up. He was elected as leader of the Labour group just five years later. Joe’s life is very much intertwined with the sea. His career with the Merchant Navy and later P&O Ferries (where he first became politically active), took him all over the world. But home remained very much where the heart is for Councillor Anderson. His subsequent career on Merseyside took him into education welfare, before he was appointed to lead a social inclusion unit for young people with behavioural and emotional difficulties where he worked until making the decision to be the city's first full time Leader, tackling the difficult task of seeing the council through cuts imposed by the coalition government. He has been married to Marg for 31 years and has four children – Joanne, (who was also elected to the council in the May 2010 elections), Tony, David, Michael and a grandson.