Recently by Paul Dale

You can almost hear the thumbscrews being tightened and the shriek of pain from members of Birmingham City Council's planning committee who dared to speak out against a proposed 35-storey tower in Colmore Row.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that British Land will get approval for the £160 million scheme on the corner of Newhall Street, but it will be interesting to spot the councillors who undergo a Damascus-like conversion and decide to support the new tower by the time the matter returns to the committee later this year.

Let the people decide is the clarion call coming from Liberal Democrat city councillor Martin Mullaney, who has launched a campaign to save Birmingham's Central Library from demolition.
He wants the reference section to be turned into a Tate Modern art gallery and a new library to be built on land occupied by the Conservatoire.
His vision, if it were ever realised, would kill stone dead the council's grand plan for a new £193 million library in Centenary Square - a project which Mullaney dismisses as poorly costed and "shoehorned" into an unsuitable site. It would also put paid to proposals to flatten most of the buildings in Paradise Circus and replace them with what Mullaney calls "soulless office blocks".

Poor English Heritage.
You almost feel sorry for an organisation that does its best to be fair, but usually ends up with few friends.
On the subject of Birmingham Central Library, the conservation watchdog took almost 10 months to decide to recommend to the Government that the 1973 structure should be placed on the list of architecturally important buildings. This mirrored a decision taken by English Heritage in 2003, and on that occasion the then Local Government Minister Baroness Andrews decided against listing the library.
But as an English Heritage spokeswoman pointed out, nothing has changed since 2003. It was always a safe bet that the organisation would reiterate its view that the building should be listed.

Supporters of the fledgeling campaign to build an £11 billion high-speed rail link between Birmingham and London would do well to remember the Brumderground fiasco.
At the heart of the Conservative manifesto for the 2004 city council elections was a headline-grabbing promise to investigate the possibility of replacing the Midland Metro tram extension with an underground railway network for Birmingham.
The party, spurred on by group leader Mike Whitby, even produced a London underground-style map depicting Brum's own version of the Circle, District and Metropolitan lines, while also making the highly unlikely claim that the whole thing could be built for £200 million.

It has been clear for a number of months that the procedure to select a candidate to replace Clare Short as Labour's official candidate for Ladywood at the next General Election was becoming mired in controversy, not just over the matter of an all-woman shortlist but also as a result of the constituency's complex ethnic make-up.
The decision on Saturday to choose Asian Muslim candidate Shabana Mahmood rather than black Christian city councillor Yvonne Mosquito has already triggered allegations of dirty tricks and it would take a supreme optimist to imagine that claims and accusations will die down anytime soon.

I'm going to take a bit of a punt here by predicting that Labour will lose today's Crewe & Nantwich by-election.
Well, OK, perhaps not that much of a punt given that the bookmakers, always the most astute judges of political contests, stopped taking bets on the outcome a couple of days ago when the odds on a Conservative victory reached 16/1 on. In other words, enjoy a £1,000 return from a £16,000 investment and get your original stake back - a return that presumably appealed to City types rather more than low-interest building society accounts.

To borrow John Prescott's memorable phrase, the tectonic plates are shifting under Birmingham City Council's Labour group.
Poor election results and the certainty of at least another five or six years in opposition are focusing minds, not for the first time, on the future of Sir Albert Bore. Whether the murmurings of discontent turn out to be a full-blown earthquake or nothing more than a tiny tremor remains to be seen.
Bore has been here many times before during his 10-years as group leader, and will I am certain be viewing the latest plotting against him with nothing more than minor irritation.

Confession time. I sent both of my children to Eton and I don't regret doing so for a moment.
It's a very fine school with first class facilities, highly dedicated teachers and, for the most part, well-adjusted pupils.
Whoops. Typographical error there. I meant to say that I sent both of my children to Etone, a comprehensive school in gritty working-class Nuneaton, a former Warwickshire coal mining town.
And, yes, they both did receive an excellent education and my wife and I don't regret for a moment not sending our children to a private school.
As it happened, we selfishly wanted to spend our money on something else - chiefly, expensive family holidays over the years.

Thirteen proved to be an extremely unlucky number for Catharine Grundy, whose bid to become deputy leader of Birmingham City Council's Labour group has ended in crushing failure.
Kingstanding councillor Grundy went into the party's annual meeting last Saturday confident of picking up support from 23 of the 36 Labour councillors, a level of backing that would have seen her easily beat the incumbent Ian Ward. She was confident because people said privately they would vote for her. And she believed them.
But, as has happened so often in the past, Labour's brotherhood closed ranks. Grundy managed to get only 10 votes, against 24 for Ward. Thirteen of her promised backers simply switched sides.

Birmingham Liberal Democrats are meeting tonight for the first time since last Thursday's city council elections to begin discussions about any changes that may have to be made to the composition of the party's coalition with the Conservatives.
Group leader Paul Tilsley will report on discussions with Tory council leader Mike Whitby, which have been held in the past few days after the Conservatives triumphed by gaining six extra seats at the polls.
There are now 49 Conservative councillors, compared to 43 before May 1, while the strength of the Lib Dem group remains unaltered at 32.
This has prompted some of the more excitable Tories to demand an extra cabinet place - the party has six at the moment - and an additional scrutiny or regulatory committee chairmanship.