Capital of Culture Update: Liverpudlian complains about being left out

Strange times indeed: Yesterday's Guardian letters page included a complaint from Liverpool that the paper's guide to festivals omitted one:

What a comprehensive list of festivals were featured in your supplement on May 31. Yet you managed to omit Liverpool's Mathew Street music festival, on August bank holiday weekend, reputedly Europe's largest free music festival.

You'd have thought the writer, Lib Dem councillor Paul Clein, would have been well aware that last year's event was canceled at the last minute and so doesn't make much sense to be included in a long-term listings guide. Indeed, wasn't it the fall-out from last year's massive bungle that contributed to him quitting as council education tsar?

Capital of Culture Update: Liverpool pays up

A couple of days ago, an anguished Paul Clein, Lib Dem city councilor from Liverpool, wrote the Guardian to defend his team's record:

John Healey's claim that Liverpool city council tops the league of inefficient councils is blatantly partisan and contradicted by the evidence.

Here's some blatantly partisan evidence for you to consider. The doughty council tax payers of the city are having their pockets picked to find a quarter of a million to pay off Jason 'Beg, Steal or' Harborow, former head of the Liverpool Culture Company. Harborow fell out with council leader - we're using leader in an ironic sense here - Warren Bradley after the mismanagement of the Mathew Street Festival came to light earlier in the year.

It's not entirely clear if the quarter of a million quid will come from the £20m hole in the Capital of Culture finanaces, or if it will be added to the size of that hole.