Too many secrets

Sep 17 2007 by Larry Neild, Liverpool Daily Post

THE probe into the mess made of the Mathew Street festival continues – in secret. But we know one thing for certain: the board of the Liverpool Culture Company is in no way to blame.

We can be confident of that, because the board says so, and it should know.

Last week, the board met – in secret – and decided to . . . well, how can be put this kindly? . . . re-invent itself. An anorexic version of the board emerged, the number slimmed down from 14 members to five or six. The mini-board insists that the tummy-tuck-cum-liposuction surgery on its previous larger-than-life self was nothing to do with the mess caused by the Mathew Street disaster, fiasco, tragedy – choose your own expression. Of course, the board was not to blame. We, er, believe you, don’t we?

At the same meeting, the board agreed, in secret, the programme for 08, our cultural year. Behind closed doors, without any public consultation, they decided – in secret – how they are going to spend tens of millions of pounds of your money. And you had jolly well better enjoy yourself next year, or else.

Nothing to do with the pressure of the Mathew Street thingy, but the board decided, in secret, that instead of keeping us waiting until November, it is going to burst open the goody bag at the end of this month.

We are all supposed to run into the streets, applauding till our hands ache at what they are going to offer us next year, at our own expense.

The turmoil surrounding Capital of Culture is the talk of the city, from the dizzy heights of the business fraternity to the back streets of Kirkdale. So how do we respond? We keep the same Culture Company and a handful of the board members who have been perched on high looking down on the unfolding mess since time began.

But now it is going to be different. The King of Soap is going to bathe us all with a new dawn. Brookie creator Phil Redmond has arrived on his white stallion to save the day, even though he joined the board last year.

Redmond, Warren Bradley and NWDA chairman Bryan Gray, one- time Preston North End chairman, are our saviours. Time will tell whether they turn out to be the Three Musketeers, the Three Stooges or the Three Blind Mice. I already foresee combats with the professionals of the Culture Company, sabre rattling with the musketeers.

The problem is cultural; the council, the Culture Company and the board of the Culture Company, in all matters relating to our cultural year, act like a cross between the KGB and MI5. Meetings are closed to the public, there are no meaningful minutes of what goes on, media minders shield the secretive decision-makers, and we – the great unwashed, who happen to be their paymasters are kept totally in the dark.

And they actually wonder why the population is seething.