Phil tunes out in favour of an early bath
SO, the question on very few people's lips has been answered, that being of whether Phil Redmond would be standing as elected mayor of Liverpool.
The answer being no.
The other question of whether he ever really had any intention of running at all is still up for debate as far as Mr Brocklebank is concerned, but the squire suspects Phil may be playing a longer-term strategy.
For he has announced he intends to bid for the licence to run the proposed regional TV network.
The squire suggests that maybe Mr Brookside is taking a leaf out of the books of both former Italian president Silvio Berlusconi and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. Both, after all, built up media empires which were of significant propaganda use before moving over into politics.
Phil for mayor in 2020, maybe? It would certainly be interesting to see how little airtime Joe Anderson's campaign to remain mayor would be given on 'Phil-evision' or whatever the network will be called.
CITY leader and would-be mayor Cllr Joe Anderson is always talking about innovative ways of helping the city deal with the impact of the cuts or boost its future potential.
In a recent 'walk the floor' exercise at the Municipal Buildings, in which Uncle Joe met with staff to answer their questions, he spoke of using 'asset-backed vehicles', which for those who are understandably not fluent in local government speak, are schemes bringing together public sector assets and private sector know-how.
Clearly some town hall types themselves are not au fait with the lingo, as in the case of one officer who nervously rang round to enquire 'What's this about an acid bath?'
Unfortunate Chinese whisper, or innovative new cost-saving redundancy policy from Mack The Knife?
Who knows . . .
ON the issue of early baths (acidic or otherwise), next month will see the highly anticipated Titanic 'Sea Odyssey' stunt paraded through the city of Liverpool.
The formula is simple: find tragic historical event, find tenuous link, enlist customary foreign puppeteers and have a big knees up that pumps money into the pockets of landlords, takeaway owners and taxi drivers - a sort of 'Mathew Street On Ice', if one will.
Not everyone is impressed: least of all the descendants of James Ismay, who was accused of cowardice for sneaking onto a life boat that should have been for women and children.
The family have complained that to have such a "carnival" type event based on the mass death of 1,500 people is in poor taste.
Whatever next: huge paintball competition in the city streets in 2014 to "commemorate" the centenary of the First Word War?
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David Bartlett
City editor of the Post and Echo covering politics, regeneration, and urban affairs.
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Hurrah for this sharper style in 'Brocklebank'. I've been finding this column far too self-consciously twee over recent months. It needs to be written with plenty of bite and a bit of acid. Keep it up!