Icicle defends Beatle

It's been a few weeks since Ringo Starr upset Liverpool by hastening from launching the City of Culture year to laugh when Jonathan Ross asked him what he missed about Liverpool. Ian McNabb - yes, Ian McNabb - thinks his fellow townspeople are being unfair:

THERE’S been a lot made of Ringo Starr’s comments on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.

Jason Starkey called me the other day and he was saying how upset his dad was by all the negative reaction in Liverpool.

I’m very proud to come from Liverpool, but the main reason this city is on the map is The Beatles.

As far as whatever he said that night goes, where was the famous Scouse sense of humour?

This year promises so much, but we need voices of dissent to question what goes on and the opinions that are presented as fact. One of those will be mine.

Yes, your questioning voice, Ian, has been heard. Although it seems to be desperately trying to spin Ringo's interview into some sort of party line.

Suggesting "the famous Scouse of humour" is somehow lacking when a bloke pockets a big cheque for praising the city, then - as soon as he's off the city's soil - laughs like a drain at the suggestion that there might be something about Liverpool he misses is curious. McNabb seems to think the fault lays with the Scousers who don't enjoy being patronised rather than with the man who takes their money and laughs in their face.

Starr wasn't shounding a note of dissent - he was being a hypocrite. If he wanted to show some individual thinking, he could have done it by not being part of the Capital Of Culture year, and explaining then why he doesn't want to live in a city he supposedly loves so much.