ANOTHER CULTURE COMPANY COCK-UP - TO COIN A PHRASE...

LIVERPOOL is hard-up for creative ideas and bankrupt of any influence in Westminster.
Those, we are afraid, are the only conclusions to be drawn from the Royal Mint's refusal to give Liverpool its own special coin to celebrate 2008.
The outright rejection has met with the usual plethora of puns from the Echo (the habit is catching, ed) along the lines of the city being short-changed, etc, etc.
The Daily Post has launched a Culture coin campaign, while the Echo's Joe Riley has weighed in (and that's a considerable amount, ed) with his own beef about the knock-back.
Before long the great and the good will be co-erced into lending (no pun intended, ed) their public support.
This is all part of the rich but predictable tapestry of so-called sophisticated media 'debate' in Liverpool.
But it shouldn't obscure anyone to the real facts about this Culture Company bid for a celebration coin.
First and foremost, it is a pretty shitty idea.
Are we really saying that this is what we want from government for 2008?
A few baubles and trinkets, such as a specially minted coin and a postage stamp?
And then we will all be happy if Gordon Brown gives in?
How pathetic and provincial we must appear in Whitehall.
And how easily diverted we are from the real purpose of 2008 which was, and should be, to use the year to ensure the genuine and inclusive regeneration of the city.
Let's not worry about the jobs which are not being created, the communities which continue to be ignored, the people who are denied hope and the generations which deserve a better future.
No, lets have a campaign about a coin instead.
Utterly ridiculous.
The Harbarrowboy is bleating in the pages of the Echo for the people of Liverpool to get behind his campaign for a coin. (Perhaps he could give a lead by giving the people of Liverpool some of the coins back from his £175,000 a year salary? ed)
At the same time, he is now claiming the credit for Manchester's Commonwealth Games coin, (so it's not even an original idea? ed)
His pathetic demand for Liverpool to have a coin as well, serves two useful purposes -
Firstly, it demonstrates the utter immaturity of the city's cultural leadership and its total bankruptcy of creative ideas.
Secondly, it focusses even more attention on the Harbarrowboy's distinct lack of credibility anywhere near where it matters.
What has he been up to these last three years? Counting his own money?
Twice he wrote to the Treasury, appealing for a culture coin, the first time as far back as June 2004.
Twice he has been routinely ignored by the mandarins at the Mint.
So much for Liverpool's campaign to win hearts and minds in government!
We won't make any comment on what his repeated failures say about the expensive Westminster lobbying services being provided by Jase's mates in the PR company, LLM (see previous posts).
Unbelievably, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown is now being asked to personally intervene to reverse this so-called 'snub'.
And before long there will be the entirely predictable whinging that Manchester got one for the Commonwealth Games, and Newcastle for its bridge, why can't we have one for Culture?
This is a fair question to the simpletons deciding the fish and chip paper editorial policy of our fair city's esteemed organs.
It makes for an easy story and a headline.
But it is utterly besides the point.
A two-bit coin from the Treasury is not what we need for the great city of Liverpool, Europe's Capital of Culture and celebrating its historic 800th birthday this year.