ELECTIONS OFFICER COLIN COVER-UP GOES OFF ON HIS JOLLIES, WHILE LIVERPOOL GOES TO THE POLLS

CURRENT city council chief executive Colin Hilton has jetted off on a luxury five-star holiday in the middle of the local election campaign.

Nothing too surprising about that - except that Colin Cover-Up is getting paid £25,000 a year as Chief Returning Officer for those very same council elections.

So if anything goes wrong with the elections this year - lost ballot papers, poor access to polling stations, a fuss over postal votes - we can phone up Cover Up at his luxury hotel and be assured of his immediate attention.

It shows that nothing very much has changed since Henshaw was in charge.

Avid readers will recall that Henshaw got rid of the previous Returning Officer, Charlie Lasham on trumped up charges, so he could then pocket the £25,000 a year Chief Returning Officer fee and puff up his ego by reading out the results on election night.

Soon after knifing Lasham, Henshaw disappeared on a luxury holiday in the middle of the campaign.

Then 200 residents of a tower block in Everton found they had been missed off the electoral register and couldn't vote because of his incompetence.

Imagine Henshaw's fury and embarrassment when he returned from his £6,000 sojourn to find the Mersey Mart had splashed on the story complete with a glossy picture of his sunshine retreat in the Caribbean.

We can only hope the same fate befalls Cover Up who has also pocketed the £25grand Chief Returning Officer's fee and then buggered off to the sunshine. Like father, like son.