SUMMER POPS BUBBLE BURSTS

More misery for Liverpool City Council as it gears up for its culture year in 2008 - another one of its showpieces is in trouble, as losses at the annual bands-in-tents Summer Pops festival toddle past the million quid mark - GBP350,000 added this year, despite (or perhaps because of) a line-up including Brian Wilson, Will Young, Wet Wet Wet and, erm, Daniel Bedingfield. (It's perhaps an indication of how disorganised and sprawling the event has become that the Last Night of the Pops actually happened three days before the event finished.)

Now, councillors are suggesting that plans for the 2006 festival should be put on hold, at least until someone explains why so much council tax money is being burned through by the event:

Committee member Cllr Dave Hanratty, referring to the losses at the event, said: "At the end of the day, this is council taxpayers' money. If the losses over a number of years are accrued, it has been suggested it may add up to £1m.

In the casting about for someone to blame, Diana Ross finds herself in the firing line:

The deputy chairman, Labour's Cllr Steve Rotheram, has asked for details of losses on individual shows, adding "did Diana Ross break the bank?" - referring to the cost of bringing the diva to two concerts at this year's Summer Pops.

Which is quite a neat bit of politicking there - it wasn't that the event was poorly run, it was the greedy demands of a star which caused the cash to disappear. It's unlikely that Liverpool will be able to axe the event altogether - with the disappearance of so many of the key elements in its City of Culture bid, to lose the pops would place the town in a very awkward place indeed - but equally, the local press isn't going to let this one lie. After all, a million quid is a lot of money. They could have spent that money pulling down houses.

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