This should be the leader column, not hidden away on a blog.

The council does not have any powers to control who does or who does not march.

That power rests with the police.

There are two ways of closing off roads for a march. Sealing them with metal grills or rolling road closures (done by the police).

I was involved in discussions about the demonstration from around Wednesday onwards. There was an expectation that there would be rolling road closures and there was a discussion about the route.

I thought in the end the route was quite a good route although it suffered a bit off Colmore Row around the cathedral.

It was a far better route than down Corporation Street.

I suppose if the council had wanted to prevent the march Victoria Square could have been sealed off in some way, but noone even suggested that in any way.

The Council has allowed a meeting in The Council Chamber on the issue as well (which it could have prevented had it wanted to).

Hence there were no "emergency" powers. The police have the power to ban demonstrations, they rightly decided not to use this power. The council did not ask them to.

Ross, I looked at your link of the article you claim Salma Yaqoob wrote about an 'Islamic Britain' in your post at he top of this thread. It doesn't sound like her and it is signed by someone whose name is signed differently!

Surely, if Salma Yaqoob wrote an article, she'd know who to spell her own name! Pull the other one...

Jenny

I think that while you so-called 'journalists' and politicians try to point fingers and quash a couple of fair claims made by councillor Salma Yaqoob, it mihgt be worth remembering that the massive demo was organised largely by Salma Yaqoob and her Respect team.

Also, she is the one who convinced all of the other councillors to take part, long before the likes of Hemming and others decided to milk what they could out of her efforts!

And she's also the one who is still campaigning for Gaza despite the news channels shyoing away from much further reporting on the atrocity at the hands of Israel!

I'm Jewish and from the midlands and I am agaiznst the Zionist state. For people like me to comeout on the dmeo in Birmingham, it takes the passion and committment we see in Salma Yaqoob. The rest of you are just opportunists, jumping on the bandwagon only after you realise how important it might be in saving your political necks!

Shame on your cowards!

I've been doing my own investigation into this march. What I can reveal is that the Council asked Councillor Yaqoob if she would move the march to Sunday 18th January. This was requested at the Safety Advisory Group meeting on 9th January. The Council have a long standing custom and practice of not allowing marches in the city centre on Saturdays - this is so as to prevent traffic chaos and not to impact on the traders. Councillor Yaqoob refused to move the march to the Sunday.

Councillor Yaqoob also requested that cost of running the march should be paid for by the Council - namely the crowd control barriers, the PA system for the Victora Square stage and the power to the PA - the Council Officers said they couldn't but provided her with the details of suppliers.

The Police have access to powers, which the Council doesn't have, when it comes to marches.

The Council have to use powers under the Highways Act when it comes to marches.....this means the entire route has to be closed for the duration of the march, plus two hours before the march begins. Doing this on a Saturday, especially the original route that Councillor Yaqoob wanted (High Street, Bull Street, crossing Corporation Street, so on) - would have brought the entire city to a stand still on Saturday 17th January.

The police have access to the Road Traffic Regulation Act which means they can do rolling closures as a march proceeds. This is what happened on Saturday 17th January.

The question has to be asked: why wouldn't Councillor Yaqoob agree to move the march to Sunday 18th Sunday, where she would have had the logistical support of the City Council?

Well the truth comes tumbling out now.

Ger Francis admits that the Council offered the marchers Sunday 18th January.

Now let’s look at what Cllr Salma Yaqoob on the Guardian website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/22/london-birmingham/print

“If our city leaders had got their way, the demonstration would never have taken place. “

I am told by friends who attended the march on Saturday 17th March, that she made this claim from the stage as well.

As Ger Francis has shown, that statement is a complete LIE. The Council did offer them a day – Sunday 18th January – to march on, not the ‘NEVER’ that Cllr Yaqoob claims.

The Council also offered them several good reasons why they don’t allow marches on Saturdays in Birmingham – even the ‘Save Rover’ march in the year 2000 was done on a Sunday.

The reasons are as follows:
1) Birmingham city centre does not have wide avenues as in other cities like London. Instead it has narrow streets. This means it would be very difficult to separate shoppers, people passing through and marchers, which in turn could lead to a ‘crowd crushing’ situation.

2) Birmingham city centre is the centre point of almost all its bus services. The original march route would have meant the diversion of lots of these bus services. For example the march wanted to cross Corporation Street, which has up to 320 bus per hour running along it. All these buses would had to be diverted, which in turn would have create utter chaos.

3) Birmingham city centre is a large shopping centre, with both large scale retailers and small independent shops. Saturday is their busiest time of the week. With the credit crunch apon us, do we really want to kill off their trade.

In short, both Councillor Yaqoob and Ger Francis didn’t want to work with the City Council and understand their concerns. They didn’t give a damn about the safety of the marchers or of shoppers.

Councillor Yaqoob has since lied about the conduct of the Council with regards to this march. This is not her first time she has publicly lied, she repeatedly lied about her voting record on the closure of the Friends Institute – she actually voted for its closure of this community resource in her Ward, but claimed she vote against its closure.

The message is this: Don’t believe a word Councillor Yaqoob says – she will lie just for her own political ambitions.

After the vote in the Council meeting recommending a boycott of Israeli goods, the Council stopped all co-operation over a demo, on either a Saturday or a Sunday. They could easily have proposed a route for the Saturday march away from the main shopping areas. If they had done this the Police would certainly have backed them as their primary concern, public safety, would have been addressed, and with the Police and Council standing together it would have been impossible politically for us to refuse their offer of a legal route.

The fact is, they never came back with any such offer. All co-operation from them on a route stopped. The Council washed their hands of the whole affair leaving the Police to have to deal with the prospects of thousands of people turning up in Victoria Square with no legal route to take. Thankfully, the Police put public safety and community cohesion before petty party political politics.

Ger Francis’s claim that the Council stopped all co-operation for either a Saturday or Sunday march is not true.

The Council never withdrew the offer of the Sunday for the march.

The Council allowed the demonstration to start and finish in Victoria Square – if the Council was against this march EVER happening they could have refused Victoria Square.

The Council normally require a few weeks notice for any march of between 2000 and 5000 people – as Ger Francis and Salma Yaqoob claimed this march would have at the Safety Advisory Group on 9th Jnauary. Both the Council and police accomadated this march in a week and 1 day.

Senior Council Officers had to clear their diaries to fit in this march. One of their concerns was that if a malicous person threw a fire cracker into the middle of the march, there would be mayhem with casulties due to the narrowness of the streets. This is one reason they moved the march to run part of its route by St.Phillips Cathedral grounds. If something happened there, at least the marchers had the backdrop of the cathedral grounds to run into.

Ger Francis and Councillor Salma Yaqoob put at risk the lives of both the marchers, shoppers and passers-by by insisting the march took place on a Saturday.

Councillor Salma Yaqoob could have created a riot by making inflammatary and false remarks that the Council had tried to stop the march ever happening.

Tom Scotney is easily confused. How could the council ‘call off’ a demonstration they never organised in the first place? They could not. Nobody has ever claimed otherwise. What we have claimed is that after the Tuesday meeting at which the recommendation for a boycott of Israeli apartheid was made, the council withdrew co-operation in facilitating a demonstration by refusing to agree a route, any route, on a Saturday or a Sunday. If the council’s concern was simply just about the impact on shopping on a Saturday, why not propose an alternative route, to a less busy area? They could have done this at any stage, even up to Saturday morning. They would have had Police backing if it satisfied their public safety criteria. And we would have had to accept it. They choose not to. They left the march organisers with a demo gathering in Victoria Square and without a legal route to take, forcing the Police to step in to facilitate a legal demonstration. The council acted in a manner so as to hinder or block our plans to march. What is so complicated about this basic fact that you fail to understand?

Mullaney and Hemming’s interventions are designed to blow smoke and smear. For Mullaney, no depth is too low for him to sink. He claims that Salma tried to incite a riot. This is a very serious charge. I would expect a serious journalist to investigate whether there is any truth in it, to examine what Salma said to the crowd at either the 800 strong public meeting that spilled over on to the steps of the council house, or what she said at the lobby of the full council meeting, or what she said to the demonstrators on the 17th. I would expect a serious journalist to ask the police what they thought of Mullaney’s charge. Unfortunately, whether due to professional incompetence, or political prejudice, this appears beyond Tom Scotney.

As for Birmingham being ‘worse’ than London on diversity. More sloppiness. The actual analogy was a specific one between Ken Livingstone’s administration, a genuinely progressive one, and the Tory/Lib Dem ‘Progressive Partnership’, who really should be done under the Trade Descriptions Act. Again, the facts speak for themselves. Look them up. Compare Livingstone’s policy in relation to multiculturalism and diversity with Birmingham City Council. On this issue, as on climate change, transport, anti-poverty and a host of others, Livingstone was more egalitarian, social democratic and progressive. It is simply a matter of record.

Martin Mullaney is getting increasingly incoherent and desperate. He claims the much smaller march on Jan 5th, which also went up New Street, ‘was only an incident away from a 'Hillsborough' style crowd crush’.

Is this confirmed by the Police? No. Were there any injuries? No. You are talking rubbish, as usual. You were not even on the march or at the meeting that followed. Run your claims by the Police and see what they say. The route for the issue under debate, Jan 17th, was agreed with the Police. It was their proposal. And they said the stewarding of the march was one of the best they have ever seen.

As regards your claim that Salma was trying to incite a riot. Surly, if this is what you really think, the responsibility in on YOU to report her to the police. You won't. Because it is just a cheap smear. You are without a single piece of evidence to substantiate.

It is indicative of your own desperation that you invoke on your side the rantings of an anarchist, somebody who genuinely wanted trouble with the Police and Council House staff, someone who criticised Salma and myself for ‘containing’ the demonstration i.e. for seeking to minimising any such trouble, and someone Salma quite rightly abruptly dismissed when his intentions became clear. You were not at the events on Jan 5th either, but it does not stopping you spreading misinformation about them. The Birmingham Post had a reporter there, and his report accurately reflects its positive nature. Indeed Cabinet Members Cllrs Rudge and Ayoob Khan spoke on its platform and I have heard no complaints from them about the evening.

You embarrass yourself with this tangled web of misinformation, lies and smears as you pursue one of your obsessive vendettas.

'The 17th January march was an incident away from a 'Hillsborough' style crowd crush.'

What do the Police say? Do they agree? No. Quite the reverse, in fact. They told us it was a smoothly run, very well organised demonstration. Once again you write utter nonsense.

All quite on the ‘Salma wanted to incite a riot’ front, I notice. If that is what you believe why not report her to the Police? Surly, you are obligated to do so as a responsible politician? Of course, you won’t, because you don’t have a single shred of evidence to substantiate your lies.

You are a joke.

Response to Ger Francis message linking to Cllr Yaqoob's stirrer article.
Typical Cllr Yaqoob waffle.

Fact 1: the Council offered the march Sunday 18th January - they never withdrew this offer

Fact 2: Councillor Yaqoob claimed the Council didn't want the march to EVER take place. Wrong, they didn't want it to take place on a Saturday and offered them the Sunday.

Fact 3: the Council allowed the march to start, end and demonstrate in Victoria Square. If the Council was so determined for the demonstration NEVER to happen, then they could have stopped them using Victoria Square.

Fact 4: the Council gave Cllr Yaqoob and Ger Francis good reasons for not having the march on a Saturday - this included safety reasons. They ignored them.

Fact 5: despite the Council telling Cllr Yaqoob that they would NOT give permission for a march on a Saturday, she printed and distributed leaflets announcing a march and demonstration on Saturday.

Fact 6: at the demonstration on the Saturday in front of an angry crowd, she announced that the Council did not want the march to EVER take place. That could have potentially have started a riot, with the Council House in the background having its windows smashed.

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