Liverpool Council To Cut Culture By £21 Million For Capital Of Culture Year!

After frittering away a small fortune paying off first the greedy Henshaw (£340,000) and then Robbing Archer (£180,000), the Culture Company have squandered millions on Archer's creative team, an army of private consultants from outside the city and a string of public relations companies, lobbyists and designers, mostly from outside Liverpool. Their contribution to culture in Liverpool has been distinctly underwhelming - but it has cost council taxpayers a fortune.

Then there has been:

* The millions disgracefully wasted on the rottweiller McElhinney's ruinous contracts with LDL
* The £18,000 spent on a roof to keep the pigeon shit off Colin Cover Up's posh car
* The private shower built for the evil rottweiller at MisadVenture Place
* £377,000 spent on toy wheely bins, rubbers and 't' shirts
* Council leader Bradley's all expenses paid trip with Cover Up to the south of France next week
* The £3million which treasurer Phil Hasitall gave to his mate Chas Cole for the Summer Pops
* The £25,000 spent to get Jayne Casey into bed (outrageous waste of money, ed)
* Two all expenses paid trips by The Harbarrowboy to Los Angeles (that's a new one! ed)
* Sending The Harbarrowboy back to school at Harvard (what's wrong with Anfield Comp? ed)
* Posh champagne receptions for the great and the good in Liverpool and London
* A huge hospitality budget for posh lunches, dinners and entertaining, courtesy of council tax payers
* At least £1million paid out in Performance Related Pay to senior managers like Cover Up, the smiling assassin Hasitall and the rottweiller who have performed so badly the council now faces a huge financial crisis!
* Cover Up's £210,000 a year salary. Hasitall's £200,000 a year salary. The Harbarrowboy's £185,000 a year salary, etc, etc, etc, etc.

All of this - and does anyone deny any of it? - adds up to a monumental waste of public money which has left the fat cats fatter and the city of Liverpool a whole lot poorer.

The city council is only now being forced to admit it is strapped for cash after trying to hush up the full scale of the mis-management. See The Echo story (amazingly, ed)

The Lib Dems had even intended to set an illegal budget which didn't balance the books, but their cover has been blown.

Now it has been revealed that within the next three months they are planning to renege on their promise to give £5.8 million to Capital of Culture for 2007/8.

Another £12million is being lopped off spending for Culture in 2008 itself.

And there is a shortage of almost £4million in sponsorship (I thought the Harbarrowboy was responsible for bringing in sponsors? No wonder they are sending him back to school, ed)

The only conclusion to be drawn is that 2008 will now be a huge wasted opportunity and a massive disappointment to all those who hoped it would help change Liverpool for good.

The council and the Culture Company are directly responsible. They have bankrupted Liverpool's future.

But no-one from the council or the Culture Company has yet explained how they have spent the millions from the government and European Union which has already been handed over.

Can anyone now trust any of these wasters with any more public money?