REDMOND: THE RAKE'S PROGRESS, OR HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE (NOT). EPISODE ONE - "I WANT 'SCOUSE' CULTURE"

SELF-styled 'man of the people' Phil Redmond is already making a tremendous impact on Capital of Culture.

The multi-millionaire's exhortation to every headbanger in the city to ring the Culture Company with their madcap schemes has already got staff in open revolt.

The procession of nerds, nonentities and ne'er do wells out to try and make a fast buck out of public money, has resembled a lengthy queue of X Factor rejects.

Long-suffering Culture staff, already victims of the Harbarrowboy's regime of chaos, have taken to posing as passers-by to avoid the procession of Culture Company callers who have obviously just escaped from the nearest loony bin.

Staff have also begun to find all sorts of meetings and other wondrous excuses to be out of the office when the phones start ringing off their hooks with nutters at 9am every morning.

Porters have now been positioned to repel any suspicious boarders from the decks of the Titanic.

So, when it might have been wiser to try and win the loyalty of Culture staff, Redmond appears to have quickly alienated them.

And that's not all.

Should any of these idiotic ideas be pursued beyond the back of a fag packet, the creators will quickly find that there is no money left in the cupboard to pay for them.

Unless our multi-millionaire Cultural saviour wants to dip into the £30million he trousered from the sale of Mersey TV to pay for something himself?

If not, the disappointed might end up a bit disgruntled with Redmond too.

And that's not all.

Redmond appears to have alienated Colin 'Cover Up' too by blabbing to the meeja about 'his' plans for 2008, without first agreeing the line with the city council.

Hilton wandered un-noticed into Culture the other day and after about an hour, when he finally managed to attract the attention of a handful of staff, was forced to apologise for Redmond's shock and unaccountable outburst.

In fact, the first that the Culture Company's £75,000-a-year Communications chief, The Invisible Man, Paul 'We'veforgottenhisnameagain', New about it all, was when someone mentioned in passing that TV cameras were filming the unelected Redmond outside the Town Hall.

Hilton promised those staff who were still listening to his mumbling that he would be having a strong word with our new Cultural guru and would be marking his card in future. (Gee, Redmond must have shat himself at that, eds)

And that's not all. (Thought not, eds)

Our hero also appears to have alienated the Labour Party, of which, unaccountably, he is still a member. (Is he trying to buy himself a peerage then soon? eds)
Redmond had the brass neck to appeal to the Labour Party to cease its entirely legitimate questioning and critiscism of the activities of the Harbarrowboys inside The Fun Palace at Millennium House.

He wanted them to stop. To cease. Forthwith.

And thus leave the way entirely clear for him to bravely step into the breach and parade himself as the saviour of our city.

Joe Anderson's response to this remarkable request was suitably short, eloquent and to the point.

And that's not all.

The Lib Dems are similarly up in arms at Redmond's suspicious arrival on the scene of the Culture car crash, thus diverting any chance of favourable publicity next year away from their current leader, Bradley the Fireman (tell me the same old Storey, eds)

And that's not all. (oh get on with it, will ya? eds)

Those in the city who can best be described as 'the chattering classes', 'the great and the good' or ' the usual suspects' are also getting hot under the collar about Redmond.

They are already asking questions about Redmond's connection with Liam Fogarty's campaign for an elected mayor.

Word in the boardrooms is that Redmond has been secretly bankrolling the Mayoral campaign, although we have seen no evidence of this. Yet.

So, after stepping reluctantly into the limelight to introduce Macca at Anfield, Redmond will then presumably wait for a delighted and grateful populace to carry him shoulder high to the Town Hall.

In fact, at the moment, the only people who appear to approve of Redmond is our local meeja.

The Echo in particular has been wedged so far up his arse that it has almost disappeared from view (no such luck, eds)

One journalist has been heard to speculate that the Echo's abandonment of any pretence at neutrality, impartiality or investigation may lead to an official complaint by the NUJ to the Press Complaints Commission.

The Echo's tame and uncritical subservience to the drawling Deputy Dawg, who appears to think he has just wondered on to the set of a third-rate soap opera, is apparently justified as being "in the city's best interests".

Which, interestingly, is also how they justified their silence over the criminal activities of Henshaw and the evil cabal.

In 2002 Phil and Alexis Redmond sold part of their Mersey TV stake for £30m to private equity group LDC in a management buyout. In 2005 LDC and the Redmonds sold out to London-based rival All3Media in a deal reported to total between £35m and £45m.