City of the Dead*: January 2007

Liverpool city council have finally admitted that Tony Parrish told the truth on his legendary liverpoolevilcabal blog.
The admission comes in a confidential report compiled by the city council's own internal audit department and endorsed by chief executive Colin 'Cover Up' (Colin Hilton, ed)
The 12-page report sets out to try and prove that the city council's former media chief, Matt Finnegan was the real Tony Parrish.

Readers will recall that Finnegan had worked for the council for six years as Director of Communications before Henshaw suspended him on trumped up charges over his pension row with council leader Mike Storey.
The internal report was leaked to the Liverpool Echo before Christmas by the city council's smiling assassin, Executive

Director Phil Halsall (left) in an unsuccessful attempt to try and damage Finnegan.
The Echo however chose not to swallow the bait and pointed out the report was littered with half-truths, speculation and conjecture, the council itself admitting that it was inconclusive.
However, what has surprisingly been ignored is the report's description of events within the council which lead to the sudden appearance last summer of the liverpoolevilcabal blog.

For the first time, we can reveal the circumstances in which the legendary Tony Parrish gave birth to the blog.
And they give a fascinating insight into what was going on inside the Municipal Buildings soon after Sir Diddy (chief executive, Sir David Henshaw, ed) was made to walk the plank and retire early.
One page of the report is headed: Access to Council Material

It describes how five Freedom of Information email requests were made by "Tony Parrish" to the then acting chief executive Colin 'Cover Up' (Colin Hilton, ed) on 20th April last year. (Henshaw had departed on March 31st, ed).
The extremely detailed questions, which were about The 08 Place, The Summer Pops and internal audit's lack of activities, requested official documents about all three. (The council has still failed to respond - a flagrant breach of the law, ed)

But the internal report goes on:

"One of the five emails...asked for documentation relating to the sub tenancy of The 08 Place. Although, at that time there was no evidence as to the identity of Tony Parrish, the belief was that these requests had been provoked by information provided by council sources. " (You betcha bottom dollar, ed) In an email to those involved, the chief executive (Hilton, left) stated: 'I received five requests from the same person under the Freedom of Information Act in relation to this complaint and The 08 Place. In view of the information in the requests it is reasonable for me to believe that only those directly involved could have supplied information to this third party ." (Our hero, Tony Parrish, ed)

So, you will be asking, who were those 'directly involved'?
Well, Colin 'Cover Up' was one. The now discredited and pensioned off Head of Internal Audit, Gerry Callaghan was another.
And there were two councillors - former leader, Mike Storey and current leader, Warren Bradley. (Take your pick folks, ed)
All four had met to consider allegations made about The 08 Place, Henshaw blackmailing the city, The Summer Pops, The Kensington One Stop Shop, etc, etc.
(It is revealing, isn't it folks? that Hilton already appears at this point to have been more interested in trying to trace the source of the leak than properly investigating the specific allegations which had been made at such a senior level.

Warren should have been warned then, ed)
It was thus as a result of Hilton's failure to respond to lawful questions and to properly act against corruption and criminality that the liverpoolevilcabal blog was born.

Clearly Tony Parrish was determined that the evil cabal should be publicly exposed.
So that's when all the fun started.
The report goes on to say:

"A significant amount of the material on the liverpoolevilcabal website related to Council business that was not in the public domain or public knowledge. Examples not necessarily exhaustive, include:

Allegations in relation to 08 Place, which contained detail that was only available to a handful of individuals within the city council (guess who folks? ed) including a reference (27th July 2006), to detailed documents being presented to the Chief Executive and Head of Audit. (ah-ha, as Alan Partridge would say, ed)
The posting of 3rd July (told you they were following every word, ed) which reproduces extracts of Councillor Antrobus's account of events, referred to on the website as "Henshaw's attempted coup - by Coun Antrobus") (This was Henshaw threatening to report Storey to the Standards Board unless he quit, ed)
The postings of 21st and 22nd July which reproduce extracts of Councillor Clark's account of events, referred to on the website as "Henshaw threatened Storey's job - shock new evidence" and "Henshaw's blackmail note". (Aaaaah, this takes us back to exciting times, ed. As the sun beat down, Tony Parrish lazed about with his laptop, sipping Chablis and detonating one grenade after another as the stunned council recoiled. It was almost Dickensian in its scope and cast of sordid characters as the seedy underbelly of Henshaw's evil cabal was revealed in all its full horror, ed. Those were the days, ed.)
The Cream proposals for running the Summer Pops. (This was the attempted stitch-up with CMP and the Harbarrowboy, ed)

It is reasonable to conclude that material such as this could only have emanated from Council sources" the report concludes, (with amazing insight, ed).

Here's the thing though - what was Hilton doing about the allegations which were emanating from such senior council sources? (Bugger all - he banned the blog instead, ed)
'Cover Up' was clearly aware of the allegations being made - particularly about Henshaw blackmailing the city council, but repeatedly failed to call in the police to investigate. Why not? (There could still be more developments on this though, watch this space, ed)
So there you have it.
Tony Parrish was being fed confidential information from inside the council by 'you know who', decided it should be made public and not covered up by Colin.
The blog was born.
And that started the city council's witch hunt against TP (banning the blog to the public, threats of writs, letters to Google, the smiling assassin's pathetic letter to the Information Commissioner, Inspector Clueless wandering around scratching his head, etc, etc)
Oh what fun it all was.
And there's a nice little postscript.
The confidential report can barely disguise its disappointment when it describes how it had intended to raise all this stuff about confidential information with Mattie Finnegan (below) to: "ascertain if he could provide any information or shed any light as to the source(s)."
(We can imagine his direct two-word response to this particular enquiry, ed)

But he thwarted them by upping and resigning in disgust before they could question him. (Apparently Callaghan had been practising his 'hard cop, soft cop' routine in an office mirror for weeks in readiness for this confrontation, ed)
The report concludes:
"In the circumstances, in the absence of any further information, it is not possible to draw any conclusions as to the source of Council material used in e-mails or on the liverpoolevilcabal website."
And we daresay that there are one or two senior people at the city council today who are gratefully breathing a huge sigh of relief.
(We just thought you should know the truth....ed)

GET well soon wishes to Sir Trevor Jones and his
redoubtable missus, Lady Doreen, who have both
been ill over the festive season.
Both have been in the Countess of Chester Hospital,
Sir Trevor with an apparent heart attack and
Lady Do with a hip injury.
Sir Trevor, a fomer leader of the council, has been under 24 hour
observation after a major transfusion, while Lady Doreen, the
council's current Planning Chair, will need an
emergency hip replacement.
Sir Trevor was a respected
leader of the Council who became a national politicalfigure.
Lady Doreen, a former Lord Mayor, has had ahuge impact
on planning and the police authority.
Regardless of political persuasion, both have done much
for Liverpool.