What is a Scouser? England’s other regional identities seem to have been more or less clearly defined. The Tyne, Wear and Tees rivers sort Geordies from Mackems and Smoggies. The M60 forms a neat enough perimeter around Mancunian identity (allowing for the exception of Salford). The historic dividing line between Brummie and Black Country was the coal seam north-west of Birmingham. True cockneys, everyone knows, are born within earshot of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow. Trying to define Scouseness, however, isn’t as simple as it might appear.

Liverpool is notorious for its exceptionalism, of course, whether self-ascribed or media-spun. The banners at Anfield proclaim ‘We’re not English, we are Scouse’, the city’s Riverside constituency is the most republican in Britain and a distinctly Liverpudlian identity is deeply and proudly felt.

But dispersed across the area’s five metropolitan boroughs – the City of Liverpool, the Wirral, Knowsley, Sefton and St. Helens – are not one but four hotly contested identities (or slurs, depending on how you see yourself): Scousers, Plastic Scousers (known colloquially as Plastics, Plazzies or Placcies), Woollybacks (or simply ‘wools’) and the Posh.

In Merseyside’s tangle of tribes, birthplace is only one factor among many, dialect deceives and geography is an unreliable guide. The city and its boroughs are riven by a complex and baffling series of intra-regional cultures, rivalries, stereotypes and criteria of belonging to one (or sometimes several) of these groups. Despite the intense urban patriotism associated with the city, there is no agreement – and very often impassioned debate – about who exactly is who on Merseyside.

MECCA BINGO

For some, bins hold the key to determining Scouseness. Liverpool City Council’s purple wheelie bins – intended as a mix of Liverpool red and Everton blue – have become an eccentric badge of civic pride for residents, as cherished as the Pier Head, the Albert Dock or Penny Lane.

Yet the more you try to locate true Scouse identity in a particular area, accent, attitude or economic status, it becomes clear how these supposed cultural dividing lines and their accompanying criteria become complicated and muddied to the point of opacity.

Some areas that have purple bins are also unquestionably posh (Childwall, Woolton, Mossley Hill, Aigburth, Allerton, Grassendale, Cressington). Some areas that definitely feel Scouse (Huyton, Bootle, Kirkby, Seaforth, Waterloo) don’t have the borough to back it up. By the same token, some posher areas (Blundellsands, Crosby, Maghull, Thornton) seem to have secured ring-fenced Scouse status despite lacking the requisite bin or proximity to the city centre.

Locals conveniently forget that when they were introduced in 2000, many residents hated them. Some bin collectors even went on strike due to threats from members of the public. Now, though, rows about Merseyside’s identity politics will often boil down to someone drunkenly shouting ‘What colour’s your bin la!?’ in smug triumph.