WHO GOES FIRST? - NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES ON THE CULTURE COMPANY BOARD

NINE members of the Capital of Culture Board are to be sacked in a new shake-up.

The move is official confirmation that Henshaw's original placemen and women have failed.
At the moment the Culture Board is made up of 23 Directors, all hand-picked by Sir Diddy.
They have done bugger all to make Capital of Culture a success except sit around once a month at the Town Hall after tucking into a sumptuous lunch, then bore everyone rigid with their talking shop, try to outdo each other in proclaiming their cultural expertise (sic, ed) , pat themselves on the back, congratulate everyone and anyone who gave them a fancy presentation on all the fantastic things that are going to happen (shurely some mistake? ed) and hope that, as night follows day, they would be getting a mention in the 2008 New Year's Honours List of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

In other words, this is exactly the 'do nothing' role that Henshaw prescribed for them.

But now after the departure of Robbing Archer and the complete failure of the Culture Company to deliver anything it has promised, someone has obviously had enough of these stuffed shirts competing for self-aggrandisement. (My money is on Warren Bradley threatening to withdraw council support, ed).
Now the Board are being whittled down to just 14.
The 14 will include three council representatives (Bradley, Storey and Anderson).
The rest of them will have to fight it out for their places in the next month, with final decisions made on November 29th.
But there is even worse - the Board will now meet every THREE months! Again, official confirmation that their presence is useless. (If this isn't an admission of abject failure, I don't know what is, ed)
And there will also be a small Operational Board, replacing the current Executive Group, which will meet approximately every six weeks (This will be where the real power is carved up - just wait to see who is on this, ed)
An Advisory Group (another do-nothing body, set up just for appearances sake, ed) is also:

"being established to create a wider stakeholder group of key representatives, funding partners and other organisations who are not members of the Board. This group will meet twice a year to allow the Board to draw on the extensive field of expertise available." (Utterly fanciful bollocks. Do they think we were born yesterday? ed)

Which of the nine will be sacked, resign or find 'new opportunities' elsewhere will only be decided at the end of November, but no doubt a few will jump first.

Here is our forecast: Those who we think will go, are in red.

Prof Drummond Bone (Chairman) - Vice Chancellor, University of Liverpool (Bone-Head should go, but won't, ed)

Cllr Warren Bradley (Vice Chair) - Leader, Liverpool City Council

Loyd Grossman OBE (Vice Chair) - Chair, Culture NorthWest / Chairman, National Museums Liverpool

Susan Woodward OBE (Vice Chair) - Managing Director, ITV-Granada

Jason Harborow (Chief Executive) - Liverpool Culture Company (Harbarrowboy will have to stay unfortunately, though it is through Bradley's gritted teeth, ed)

Tony Wilson (Company Secretary) - Senior Partner, Hill Dickinson, Liverpool

Cllr Joe Anderson - Leader of the Opposition, Liverpool City Council

Tom Bloxham MBE - Chair, Arts Council England North West

Cllr Mike Storey CBE - Liverpool City Council

Prof Michael Brown DL - Vice Chancellor, Liverpool John Moores University (mate of Sir Diddy's)

Wally Brown CBE - Principal, Liverpool Community College

Sir Neil Cossons OBE - Chairman, English Heritage (he thinks its a complete disaster)

Louise Ellman - MP for Riverside

Cllr Ronnie Round - Leader, Knowsley Council

Ruth Gould - Creative Director, North West Disability Arts Forum

Bryan Gray - Chairman, Northwest Regional Development Agency

Roger Lewis - Chairman, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Pat Loughrey - Director, BBC Nations & Regions

David McDonnell CBE DL - Chief Executive Worldwide, Grant Thornton International (who he?)

Roy Morris DL - Chairman, The Mersey Partnership (universally loathed by the politicians as a Henshaw acolyte)

Sir Bob Scott - International Director, Liverpool Culture Company (marginalised and irrelevant, but might be kept on because they feel sorry for him, ed)

Brenda Smith -Group UK Managing Director, Ascent Media

Andrew Worthington MBE - Chair, Sport England's Northwest Regional Sports Board

IF YOU THINK SOMEONE SPECIFIC SHOULD WALK THE PLANK, PLEASE SEND US HIS/HER NAME IN A COMMENT AND WE WILL KEEP A RUNNING TOTAL. WE WILL PASS ON THE MOST POPULAR CHOICE FOR THE ORDER OF THE BOOT TO COLIN 'COVER UP' HILTON.

OUR MISSION STATEMENT : SUBVERSIVE, INDEPENDENT, CAMPAIGNING AND CONTROVERSIAL (SICC ! )

Welcome to Liverpool subCulture - the independent web site for Capital of Culture, 2008.
We aim to subvert.
To cause trouble, to challenge established orthodoxies and to give cause for concern to the city council and the Culture Company.
Remember the celebrations above when Liverpool was chosen to be Capital of Culture in June 2003?
A lot has changed since then.
And yet nothing has changed.
Culture is still not being used to change the lives of Liverpool people for the better.
Too many Liverpool people are being left out.
Too many good staff are not fully involved.
Too many outside consultants are being hired at huge cost.
And too little has been done to deliver what was promised - the best ever European Capital of Culture.
More than three years after the title was awarded and all we get is platitudes.
Lots of empty words and little action from the bureaucrats at the council and the Culture Company.
We will hold them to account for their (in) action.
They have forgotten that it was the people of Liverpool who won Capital of Culture for the city.
Not the bureaucrats. Nor the politicians. Nor the highly paid directors who are 'here today, gone tomorrow'.
The Liverpool subCulture website, which has been inspired by the crusading example of the legendary Tony Parrish blog liverpoolevilcabal, will give the people of Liverpool a voice to have their say about their city.
About the run-up to 2008.
About the year itself.
And about the long-term future of Liverpool.
The legacy that will be left behind when all the fuss has died down.
We will provoke, challenge and poke fun.
We will cause a fuss.
We will give credit only where it is due.
And we will ferociously slag off those who let Liverpool down.
Most of all, we aim to give a voice to the people no-one hears.
To those who are ignored and left out.
To those who have a huge contribution to make to Capital of Culture.
To the people of Liverpool...

ROBBING BOUNCES BACK WITH AN ATTACK ON THE CITY COUNCIL

Robbing bounces back from Down Under!

Robbing Archer has bounced back with an attack on the city council for sacking her from the Culture Company.

This predictable onslaught is only interesting for the sideswipes she takes at various people and things-

• Warren Bradley was apparently mainly to blame for getting rid of her (well done then Warren, ed)
  
• The Harbarrowboy has a nothing job in charge of a nothing organisation.

She said: "The CEO (chief executive officer, Harbarrowboy) of the Culture Company is the CEO of nothing."

(This is an astonishing verdict and gives us a tantalising insight into the way relations had fallen apart inside the Culture Company. It also shows she was not such a bad judge after all. Interestingly, the Chief Executive of Nothing, is getting paid £150,000, plus expenses a year for doing nothing, ed).

• The city council is a disfunctional bureacracy which can get nothing done (we seem to have been here before, ed)
• Staff couldn't even answer emails when she wasn't there (they were probably frightened of them being published by Henshaw, ed)
  
• Robbing was on the verge of producing a fantastic Capital of Culture when the rug was pulled out from under here (shurely some mistake, ed)
• Her mum was really ill (a blatant, offensively cynical deception and entirely transparent excuse for her running off back to Oz with her tail between her legs, ed)
  

The rest of her exercise in self-justification is, as we say, utter bollocks.
NB This woman was getting paid £150 grand a year and got a huge pay-off from taxpayers money to leave our shores and hop back to Skippy-land.

CAPTION COMPETITION: THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOYS

You can win one of three fantastic prizes in Liverpool subCulture's first caption competition!

Simply supply the best caption to this historic photograph taken at Liverpool Town Hall in June 2003 when Liverpool became Capital of Culture, 2008.

And you could win:

• 3rd prize - a £100,000-a-year sinecure in the Culture Company, where you will be so badly marginalised that people will pay no attention to you whatsoever and turn a blind eye as you spend your days playing patience on your computer to your hearts content

• 2nd prize - weakly give in to your own officials when they bully and threaten you, completely lose your nerve, abandon loyal staff, try to avoid responsibility for anything that goes wrong and then become a tame back seat driver, searching for a role
  

• 1st prize - abuse your power and position, stitch up your media chief, lie like it was council policy, blackmail the city, bully and threaten your own leader and then pocket a cool £360,000 pension pay-out!
  

Any one of these fantastic prizes could be yours!

NB - witty, vituperative and fearless captions stand the best chance of success.