Birmingham Post - News Blog

Just because BIA runway extension is in a plan doesn't mean it will happen

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:49:30 +0000

My exclusive story a week ago revealing that Birmingham International Airport's £120 million runway extension plan is in deep trouble represents something of an inconvenient truth for West Midlands' political elite.
It is always embarrassing for politicians when people begin to realise that local government's grand plans and strategies are nothing more than meaningless words if the money and the will to deliver major infrastructure projects like the BIA runway simply does not exist.
And let's be absolutely clear about this. Birmingham Airport does not, at the moment, have the money to build a longer runway and even if it did have the funding in place the BIA board remains to be convinced of the business case for doing so.

The BBC, expenses, and the golden age of journalism

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:02:14 +0000

The BBC chief I feel sorriest for is Tom Sleigh, Chief Adviser Operations, slaving away for an annual pittance of £76,300.
Poor old Tom. How must he be feeling after a national newspaper exposed the 100 best-paid Beeb executives, with Mr Sleigh anchored in bottom place?
It's unclear to me what a Chief Adviser Operations does, although giving advice is clearly a large part of the job, but no doubt he is worth every penny.
Even James Heath, Controller Strategy Journalism, is on £85,000, while Richard Addy, Chief Adviser Journalism, is paid £104,000.
I'm particularly taken by Sue Inglish, Head of Political Programmes. At £125,000, this is a job I venture modestly to suggest one might be interested in should a vacancy occur in the not too distant future. Wouldn't mind a crack at Head of Newsgathering either, at £165,000, if present incumbent Francesca Unsworth decides to call it a day.

Time for Be Birmingham to step out of the shadows and answer some questions

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:11:08 +0000

The ongoing row over Be Birmingham's use of the city's £115 million Working Neighbourhoods Fund puts the spotlight on a very shadowy organisation.
It is doubtful whether many people outside of the rarefied world of local government have ever heard of the City Strategic Partnership, as Be Birmingham used to be known before undergoing a trendy name change.
But this unelected body, which meets behind closed doors in private, is entrusted by the city council and the government to play an increasingly important role in deciding how large sums of public money should be spent - or not spent in this case.

Did Mike Whitby really mean 8,000 when he said 800 jobs to go at city council?

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:26:25 +0000

It is no great surprise that Birmingham City Council leader Mike Whitby is not encouraged by his advisers to grant live media interviews.
But, oddly enough, the man who finds it difficult not to embellish the simplest of claims appeared to be erring very much on the side of caution when he told BBC TV that some 800 council jobs were likely to go as part of a major cost-cutting drive.
Had Whitby stuck an additional nought on the end, he might have been nearer the mark.
The question at the city council has always been not so much how many jobs are likely to disappear, but how quickly can we get rid of them?

Is this the beginning of the end of local government as we know it?

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:52:50 +0000

Is local government in terminal decline?
I only ask since it seems certain that forecast savage public spending cuts will force more Midland councils to hand over the dwindling number of services they continue to run to the private and voluntary sectors
The talk is of local authorities "commissioning" service delivery rather than providing it directly and the shift over the past decade has been amazing.
Even Birmingham City Council, which unusually for a large English authority continues to run most services in-house, is beginning to dismantle some of the last vestiges of a century of municipalisation.

Nick Clegg's laughable claims damage Liberal Democrats

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:16:14 +0000

Liberal Democrats are sometimes accused of cynically manipulating politics in order to gain power.
It's said that the party's representatives at Westminster and on local councils will promise people in one street or neighbourhood one thing, while setting out exactly the opposite policy a few yards down the road. Anything to get elected, seems to be the watchword.

Unions powerless to stop the end of buggins' turn at Birmingham City Council

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:36:54 +0000

It is probably not a coincidence that five years of Conservative-Liberal Democrat control of Birmingham City Council has coincided with the emasculation of the once all-powerful local authority trade unions.
When the coalition took over in 2004, and was immediately faced with implementing the single status agreement, based on ending decades of unfair pay scales and in-built bias against women, the smart money was on months if not years of industrial chaos.
The general assumption was that the likes of binmen, street sweepers, clerks, school caretakers, leisure centre workers, benefits staff and the rest would walk out on strike the moment their terms and conditions were threatened.
But this did not happen, apart from a couple of thinly-attended one and two-day strikes last year.

Why high speed trains won't be calling at Birmingham city centre

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:39:20 +0000

It is difficult to know what more Sir David Rowlands can do to get his message over that a high speed rail link between London and Scotland is highly unlikely - if it is ever built - to be calling at a station in Birmingham city centre.
Sir David, chairman of High Speed Two, appointed by the Government to recommend the best route for Britain's second 200mph service, has already been refreshingly honest about the absence of suitable capacity in central Birmingham.
Here is his latest view: "The greatest likelihood is that the city centre would be served by a spur line which will in turn be served by the high speed route.
"It seems less likely, to be very honest, that any high speed line would run through the centre of Birmingham - rather it would be served by a spur off the high speed line.
"That is primarily to do with the engineering challenge. I think people in Birmingham would understand how difficult it would be to run a line right the way through the city and out the other side."

Stubbornness will cost Mike Whitby any chance of becoming Mayor of Birmingham

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:41:02 +0000

A decision by the city council's Tory-Lib Dem leadership to reaffirm its opposition to Birmingham being governed by an elected mayor was depressing, but hardly unexpected.
All of the usual nonsensical half-truths were present in a report to the Business Management Committee - referendum on the issue unnecessary and too expensive, current system works well, no need for change, blah, blah - and a three councillors at thinly-attended meeting staged at the fag-end of the summer holiday season made it certain that Birmingham will resist all attempts to force it to switch to a London-style mayor.
There was even a pronouncement by the council's chief legal officer Mirza Ahmad, now labouring under the splendidly pompous title of Corporate Director of Governance, that there is no public appetite for a mayor since the existing leader-cabinet system is apparently delivering excellent public services.

Could Peter Mandelson become first PM since Salisbury to rule from the House of Lords?

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:44:35 +0000

I have never been convinced by the newspaper adage that nothing much happens in August.
This year, certainly, we have been treated to a pitiful spectacle of grandstanding at the top of the Labour Party.
With Gordon Brown away doing community work in Scotland, probably digging some poor pensioner's garden as we speak, two people who would quite like his job have been making absolute asses of themselves.
Harriet Harman, who amazingly is deputy Labour leader, moved into Downing Street in Mr Brown's absence to "run the country" and amused everyone by making a series of increasingly bizarre equalities pronouncements, concluding with the statement that men could not be trusted to run anything on their own.
Not that this was a brazen pitch for Mr Brown's job, you understand. Oh, no. Of course not.

In defence of the Secretary of State for Defence

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:15:45 +0000

It didn't come as a complete surprise when a reporter from the Daily Mail phoned to ask if I had any idea where Bob Ainsworth might be on holiday.
I knew instinctively the sort of thing that was wanted.
Britain's defence chief lying on a sun-kissed foreign beach, snapped through a long-lens, naturally, while our brave boys die in Afghanistan.
In fact, I'd been anticipating a call from the moment the Coventry North-east MP was appointed Defence Secretary.

Phone mast decision likely to prove costly for Birmingham City Council

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:55:24 +0000

The good people of Stockland Green should not waste too much time celebrating Birmingham planning committee's decision to throw out an application for a 30ft-high mobile phone mast next to a nursery school on Streetly Road.
For while there is no doubt that local opinion is firmly against the mast - more than 300 people signed petitions objecting - the committee's refusal will almost certainly be overturned on appeal, landing the city council with a sizeable bill for legal costs.

How Clive Dutton became the great persuader

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:54:27 +0000

Now that Clive Dutton is leaving Birmingham, who will put the fear of God into the city's planning committee?
Dutton, the council's director of regeneration, is off to Newham in London, where he will be responsible for delivering the "Olympic Games legacy".
A sigh of relief, no doubt, from some councillors who didn't quite see eye to eye with Mr Dutton's penchant for urban renewal.

High speed rail dilemma exposes council's Birmingham Grand Central station blunder

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:26:54 +0000

Pardon me for returning again to the elephant in the corner of the room, but the latest row over the likely route for a high speed rail link between London and North-west England underlines Birmingham's short-sightedness in failing to pursue plans for a Grand Central station at Eastside.
Whichever political party forms the next government, it seems pretty clear that High Speed2 will happen - and the favoured route for the 200mph service links London, Heathrow, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.
But as Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, has been pointing out for a number of months, it's unlikely the trains will ever use New Street.

Now Birmingham loses £s as well as apostrophes

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:00:47 +0000

Birmingham City Council, the local authority that decided to ban the use of apostrophes in road signs, is spending a lot of money on developing a new website and when officials tested the super-duper IT they discovered.......yes, you've guessed it, there were no apostrophes.
That might not have been so bad, but there were no pound signs either - which was a bit embarrassing given that the new system is supposed to enable citizens to pay council tax bills on line and make inquiries about other services.