Bradley sent two threatening letters to the Post and then had the brass neck to make an official complaint to the Press Complaints Commission.

At issue was the Post's coverage of the Mathew Street debacle and Bradley's secret rendezvous with Mr Forde.

Bradley hoped that his bullying and threats would silence the Post and make it toe the Lib Dem line.

Then he made his big mistake (not another one?! eds).

Under pressure, and desperate to rally support amongst the Lib Dem faithful, he regaled Wednesday's riveting council meeting with tales of how he was taking on the Post.

He revealed the private and confidential correspondence he had sent to the Post - and in the process tried to junk the paper's entirely fair and accurate coverage of events.

Unsurprisingly (to everyone but Bradley, eds) the Post had no alternative but to respond in kind by going public on the correspondence.

Hence the remarkable and lethal editorial in today's paper which you can read again here: 'The Leader of Liverpool is telling porkies to try and save his scrawny little neck and medicocre political career.'

All that was missing was the headline: SHOCK EXCLUSIVE: The Leader of Liverpool is a Liar - it's official!'

So we have supplied that instead.

Let us recap on the story so far:

Bradley has told three lies (at least, eds) about his meeting with Lee Forde.

Lie No 1. " I never had any meeting with Mr Forde".

Lie No 2. "The meeting was at Mr Forde's instigation".

Lie No 3. "I told Colin Hilton all about it."

Bradley has told a fourth lie, by claiming that he never told Daily Post reporter David Bartlett that he had not met Mr Forde.

In other words, he is now denying the denial. (Phew, this is getting complicated, eds)

Mr Bartlett has a full shorthand note of the interview with Bradley, which as the Post triumphantly points out, is admissable as evidence in any court in the land.

That deals with Lie No 1.

Then Mr Forde's phone bill proves that the initative for the meeting came from Bradley himself.

That deals with Lie No 2.

And Colin 'There can be no more cover-ups' Hilton's letter to Joe Anderson flatly contradicts Bradley's claim to have notified the chief executive of the meeting.

That deals with Lie No 3.

Lie.

After lie.
After lie.

But it is worse than that, folks.

The Leader of the great city of Liverpool, in order to try and save his own skin, has questioned the integrity of the Daily Post reporter, Mr Bartlett; its editor, Mark Thomas; and the integrity of the newspaper itself.

Now, while it would be perfectly acceptable to question the integrity of the craven Echo, which has wilfully ignored this story, the Daily Post is a wholly different kettle of fish.

And it is disgusting that the foolish fireman is prepared to try and 'do in' an innocent journalist for telling the truth, in exactly the same way as he tried to 'do in Mr Lee 'totally innocent' Forde.

All to save his pathetic political career.

Frankly my dears, it is just not on.

Bradley will be removed as Leader by the Standards Board.

He will also lose his case against the Daily Post at the Press Complaints Commission.

His political career will therefore be at an end.

Meanwhile the lobby fodder in the Lib Dem ranks - with the honourable exceptions of the principled but barmy Jan Clein, the intelligent and principled Stuart Monkcom, and the fully-detached Beatrice Fraenkel who all abstained - have all voted in their unthinking hordes for Bradley's "I am a victim" 'hearts and flowers speech.

So they are all culpable in this disgraceful and disgusting cover-up of Bradley's dishonesty, ineptitude and stupidity.

And they are complicit in his attempts to blame the innocent for his own guilt.

Unbelievably. the Lib Dems were all apparently overcome and moved to tears by Storeyteller's entirely vacuous but passionate defence of 'nothing very much in particular except us Lib Dems are frightfully good chaps and you Labour people are terribly uncouth plebs'.

They are consistent fools, if nothing else.

This now is the truth (and we are being charitable here, eds):

No one doubts that Warren Bradley is an engaging politician.

No one doubts that he loves his family.

No one doubts that he never asked to become Leader.

But that is not the point.

At first, people gave him credit for his refreshing naivety and his endearing reaction of blurting out the first thing that came into his head.

Then that became a habit - like a schoolboy pinching apples.

Then, as things started to go wrong, it turned into a way of life - he found it easier to tell lies than to tell the truth; to cover up and mislead rather than to come clean.

None of that might have mattered, too much.

Until he started telling lies which destroyed innocent people's careers .

And threatened to damage innocent journalist's reputations.

That was when he started to run out of time.

And excuses.

Bradley has behaved disgracefully and arrogantly.

He can't help himself.

He has lied and cheated and mislead.

He has let down himself.

Let down his family.

Let down his party.

Most of all, he has let down Liverpool. And brought the city into disrepute.

It is now time for the foolish Fireman to go.