TODAY I can reveal what might well be the real reason for the sudden axing of the Mathew Street Festival in Liverpool.
According to my spies, it has nothing to do with public safety concerns in the conventional sense.
Rather it is this … the Government cannot risk having the streets of the city centre awash with boozed-up revellers when Condoleezza Rice is in town.
Because, according to the blathering of some loose-lipped public officials (overheard by my unblinking moles in Hell’s Waiting Room, New Brighton), the US Secretary of State is planning to pay a ‘surprise’ visit 'on or around' the opening of Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum, scheduled for August 23.
That’s on the eve of the festival-that-might-never-be, you see.
It is also anticipated that Nelson Mandela might be in town around then for a tour of the museum.

And Britain’s nasty, bullying Liberal-Left establishment is not going to let anything spoil their celebrations for the opening of the monument to their only substantial creation – namely, chronic post-colonial guilt.
And it is why, according to what my moles heard, the big outside bits of the Mathew Street Festival had to be consigned to the dustbin – when the Culture Company fat cats were leaned on. Heavily.
It also explains why city council leader Warren Bradley has been left scurrying around like a headless chicken trying to salvage something for the city from this unmitigated PR disaster.
Now, it’s true that the opening of the slavery museum was scheduled for a day or so earlier than the Mathew Street Festival was due to get going.
But, you see, political superstars Condi and Nelson are likely to want to come a few days after the official opening – so that they won’t have to make small talk with dull, tongue-tied provincial worthies.
Given their respective international constituencies (Mandela is universally loved and Condi is a potential first black and first female US President), a highly publicised trip around the International Slavery Museum would be a desirable gig for both of them.
Condi is not likely to be put off by the nasty jeering she encountered from Liverpool’s infantile Left the last time she visited our city. She’s made of tougher stuff than that.
And, like I say, we can’t expect busy Condi, to come on the official opening day. She might be busy that day, you see, possibly preparing a military strike on ‘US ally’ Pakistan, if the security situation in that Asian state gets any worse.
And so here we are. Dearie me, the public authorities in the great rock‘n’roll city of Liverpool (in the year of its 800th birthday and only months away from European Capital of Culture year), cannot organise a p*ss up in a brewery, let alone a major international festival.
I’d be shocked by the cost of all the cancelled contracts if it wasn’t for the fact that I expect the Culture Company wallies to be hosing taxpayers’ money down the drain anyway.
Heads should definitely be rolling over this – and I know just the man to take over planning for a re-jigged Mathew Street Festival and culture capital year, once we’ve got rid of the current shower, that is.
Me, of course!
I would definitely get things back on track quicker than you can say 'Liberal Democrat councillors are idiots'.
So come on, Liverpool, give me a chance to show what I can do. I’m a poet and a blogger and a former TV critic and music columnist, so I know a thing or two about popular culture.
Can I write? Can I communicate? Do I know a thing or two about PR, Yes, ticked boxes to all of those.
And I’ve been a professional journalist for the past 26 years, so I know how to work to tight deadlines, handle pressure, be very organised and do my forward planning properly.
Anyway, to all the cultural commissars and city councillors now blanching with embarrassment and panic under their fake tans, sweating in their nasty suits from the Met Quarter, and choking over their cappuccinos, I say this.
Give us a call, lads, if you want me to sort the mess out.
I won’t come cheap, but then neither do you lot.
The difference is, I’ll deliver, and you’re clearly USELESS!
Plus, I’ve thought of one quick fix already…
We move the Mathew Street knees-up to the New Brighton Dips. Bangin'!.

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