Wringing them dry in revenge might come across quite deserving in a private Company but it's the tax payers who will pay for this in the end, mind you, just add it to the 20M shortfall why not
Ps. I also watch footballers do it to their teams as well and guess who also pays for that in the end.
Mathew Street Festival ‘scapegoat’ gets £12k out-of-court settlement
Mar 19 2008
by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post
THE man blamed for last year’s cancellation of the Mathew Street Festival has reached an out-of-court settlement with Liverpool City Council.
Lee Forde, former events manager at the Liverpool Culture Company, has reached a settlement worth around £12,000 with the council.
More...
£20m ‘still available’ for Culture year
Apr 17 2008
by Nick Coligan, Liverpool Echo
A MINISTER has insisted the door is still open for a rescue plan to pay for Liverpool’s Capital of Culture celebrations.
But he said the council must submit a fresh bid to borrow £20m via a process called capitalisation – and show it can put the town hall’s finances on a “sound footing”.
Local government minister John Healey claimed there was no current application from Liverpool on the table for him to consider, a year after a previous one was rejected.
But council leader Warren Bradley insisted the government had “clearly stated” it would not allow capitalisation for Capital of Culture and said it had let Liverpool down.
Mr Healey said: “I will consider an application for capitalisation, but there is no bid in front of us to consider and there has not been one since last March.
“Generally, this sort of provision is for unavoidable or unanticipated expenditure, or it is for circumstances where there are very particular financial pressures.
“There are certainly grounds for Liverpool to make a case for capitalisation. But the ball is in the council’s court now.”
Cllr Bradley said: “We received a letter clearly stating they would not capitalise for Capital of Culture.
“I do not want to keep raking over old ground – we moved on after they said no. We delivered a budget and covered the gap which we were asking for capitalisation for.”
Opposition leader Joe Anderson said he would make a formal capitalisation bid if Labour won power at next month’s council elections.
Source: Liverpool Echo
LOL, i don't know who's more incompetent; Central Government who say no then say yes or the council who are cutting off the nose to spite the face.
I'd cry but its too farsical
My understanding is that this could always have been an option if the council could get its financial act together.
My understanding is that all politicians talks bollocks and cover their shortcomings by saying we're still trying to get out of the mess created by the previous party. If I ran my operation like that i'd be out of business within months through either bankrupcy, jail for deception or by being shot by someone. Because it's a council thieving off us it's all somehow acceptable and that goes for the whole effing lot of them.
Whilst shooting Bradley and Co. is tempting I think holding them accountable at the ballot box would probably be considered more acceptable.
It's going to be an exciting election thats for sure I really cant see them holding on given the number of cock ups.Originally Posted by Howie
Whilst shooting Bradley and Co. is tempting I think holding them accountable at the ballot box would probably be considered more acceptable.
With only a third of the seats up for grabs and the apathy of the Liverpool electorate this is unfortunately a possibility.
Apathy, you're right there I have worked on the polling stations and also done the canvass for the electoral register. Turnout is never more than 20% for the locals, and trying to persuade people to register is like getting blood out of a stone. Its not because they are scared of the social, or debts catching up with them, but because they just dont want to vote - one guy like this though was also very vociferous about the state of paving in his street, but failed to see he had a chance to do something about it.With only a third of the seats up for grabs and the apathy of the Liverpool electorate this is unfortunately a possibility.
The farcical thing is that with as many as 6 candidates in a poll, if 20% turnout, the winner probably only needs 40% of the vote, and as little as 20% could do. So those running the city are doing so on a mandate of less than 1 in 10 voting them in and 1 in 20 in extreme circumstances.
I have voted for as long as I can remember.
There are times when you can feel a tad apathetic - but I always get out and vote in the end.
Football passions may clash with politics in Liverpool
Michael White
The Guardian, Monday April 21 2008
Half a mile from Liverpool's rival stadiums, an Everton supporter speaks for much of the city: "Politics, what's politics? What we're interested in is football." But if the Liberal Democrats lose control of the council on May 1, and opponents of Everton's proposed new stadium win a lot of votes in nearby Kirby, politics and football may clash.
By general consent Liverpool is a much better place than it was 10 or 15 years ago, when the clash between Thatcherism and the Militant-led Labour council was fresh in scousers' memories. Politics then was as lively as an Everton-Liverpool derby. It's on the up again.
Ugly pockets of poverty and unemployment persist amid the new housing association homes which punctuate the Victorian red-brick terraces in Toxteth and Walton. But it is easier to spot the big money. Brash posters and flags proclaim "Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008" throughout the city. Downtown there are cranes and scaffolding everywhere, high-rise luxury flats, offices and swish hotels rising to 40 storeys above the old docks.
Behind the Liver building, penthouse suites are going for £1m or more. Round the corner, the Duke of Westminster is poised to open phase one of the Grosvenor Estate's £1bn Liverpool One shopping centre. Coutts Bank has opened a branch.
Are voters grateful to the Lib Dems, who restored some normality to civic politics after ousting Labour in 1998? Of course not, this is Britain 2008. Even the long-running programme to replace ancient sewers and drains - "the big dig" - annoys voters fed up with holes in so many roads. People talk of the "two Liverpools", rich and poor.
And besides, the Lib Dems have had their share of trouble with the standards board and policy failure too. The popular Mathew Street music festival had to be abandoned last year.
As community projects close to fill gaps in the Euro-cultural budget, voters on estates also ask why it is costing so much when their neighbourhood regeneration remains on hold. Council tax this year is going up 4.9%.
The Audit Commission recently declared Liverpool a one-star financial basket case, and there are familiar worries about immigration and crime in a city where uneasy memories persist of Rhys Jones, shot dead at age 11 in a Croxteth pub car park. Rhys's sports coach, Steve Geoghegan, is standing there as a Lib Dem on May 1. It is unlikely to be enough to save council leader Warren Bradley's town hall regime from slipping into no overall control.
Labour, which has been winning byelections against the Brownite national trend, even hopes to become the largest party again - back in power. Party HQ in London has high hopes here.
But the Tories too are fighting to recover a slender toehold, now the 2004 Ukip bubble has burst. The BNP is contesting 11 wards. Uncertainty and voter apathy could suddenly make a tough-talking local councillor called Steve Radford important as the man who can deliver a majority to either of the big parties courting him: Labour or Lib Dem. "I've been approached by both sides," admits Radford, one of those Liberals who rejected the Lib Dem merger of 1987. A well-respected councillor for 28 years, his four-strong group outpolls local Tories and Greens.
For his support, Radford will demand sound financial control, an end to building on Liverpool's plentiful Victorian parks and a tougher stand by the council against big building firms.
That is where football fans may have to pay attention.
If the First for Kirby candidates, who oppose cash-strapped Everton's plans to move from Goodison Park to a new 50,000-seat stadium in Kirby, do well against Labour on May 1, those plans may have to be called in. Liverpool FC's plans to rebuild Anfield next door in one of those threatened Victorian parks are more advanced, but hobbled by the noisy feud between the club's American owners. In a city where religious sectarianism has long since given way to football sectarianism between its Premiership rivals, some citizens think the discarded ground-sharing option would be best for the city and its football fans, if not for club boards. Knocking heads together could be just the right sort of challenge for strong civic leadership in a city bouncing back from near-terminal decline just a generation ago.
Source: guardian.co.uk
"the big dig" - annoys voters fed up with holes in so many roads. People talk of the "two Liverpools", rich and poor.
As community projects close to fill gaps in the Euro-cultural budget, voters on estates also ask why it is costing so much when their neighbourhood regeneration remains on hold. Council tax this year is going up 4.9%. ''
This has always been the case though only the gap is a lot narrower these days. Whilst the grand civic buildings of William Brown street were being constructed and even as late as the 1930s as the Queensway Mersey Tunnel was being dug, people were living a stones throw away in abject poverty.
As for council tax - those claiming benefits do not pay it.
Whoever runs the city - the gap has always been there and always will be until a party does something about giving the city centre a miss for a year and concentrating on the run down estates for a change.
Lets be honest whoever thought a 1 year event ( that really made glasgow a europen hub ,) was gonna bring riches to an 800 year old city is incompetant, if you want get rich quick scheme , spend the COC milllions on lottery tickets, you'd have a better chance, if i was putting my hand in my pocket now to support this scheme, i'd seriously be wondering what benefit i'm gonna get.
I think there are plenty of benefits to the city,it has raised the profile and created private sector jobs and more inward tourism. The problem is none of the money raised privately makes its way into the council coffers, hence the £20 million black hole.Lets be honest whoever thought a 1 year event ( that really made glasgow a europen hub ,
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