Recently by Paul Dale

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.

Former West Midlands Minister Liam Byrne is not a man to say something for no reason at all.
So when Mr Byrne made a point of mentioning planned housing growth in Birmingham, his audience ought to have taken note.
Addressing the Be Birmingham strategic partnership - a gathering of executives from the city council, other public bodies and business leaders - Mr Byrne characteristically laid into the Conservative-run city council for delivering below-average schools and for lacking in ambition.
And then, in a section of the speech almost thrown away he began to talk about the number of new homes Birmingham must plan to build up to 2026.

Deputy city council leader Paul Tilsley must have found it difficult to control his famously short temper when forced to listen to Hodge Hill Labour MP Liam Byrne's analysis of the state Birmingham finds itself in.
Byrne, who is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and a former West Midlands Minister, was giving a keynote speech at the annual summit of Be Birmingham - the city strategic partnership chaired by Coun Tilsley.
If anyone thought this would be the usual back-slapping gathering of the great and good, they were quickly disabused by Mr Byrne.

The mind-numbing futility of life on the backbenches at Birmingham City Council has been exposed yet again, this time by the hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth over £15,000 salaries to the local authority's non-executive NEC directors.
When the matter came before the full council last week - with a recommendation to make the payments to city leader Mike Whitby, his deputy Paul Tilsley, cabinet member Neville Summerfield and opposition Labour leader Sir Albert Bore - most of the cannon-fodder councillors far removed from the very small Whitby-loop didn't have a clue what they were being asked to vote for.

No show at the leisure scrutiny committee from Birmingham city councillor Martin Mullaney.
The new cabinet member for leisure, sport and culture declined an invitation to come along and give his views on the sprawling portfoilo.
It was possibly the first time that the normally outspoken Moseley Liberal Democrat has refused to share his thoughts with anyone who is prepared to listen.
He was also unusually quiet at Monday's cabinet meeting, his second since being appointed, where he made no verbal contribution.

Birmingham Conservatives have managed to achieve something that even the world's most ruthless dictators could only have dreamt of.
Mike Whitby was re-elected leader of Birmingham City Council on Monday night in a secret ballot, but nobody knows how many votes he received.
It's all top secret, you see.
The 49-strong Tory group takes the view that it's not the done thing to reveal figures.
All a bit grubby, old boy. Like talking about how much you earn in front of the ladies. Bad form.

Supporters of Mike Whitby are increasingly confident about the result of tonight's election for the leadership of Birmingham City Council's Conservative group.
The audacious challenge to Whitby by Randal Brew is said to have come badly unstuck following publication last Friday of a 1,000-word manifesto containing a thinly veiled attack both on policies pursued by Whitby and his alleged personality failings.
Were Brew to win tonight, he would be named city leader at the annual council meeting tomorrow.

Randal Brew's manifesto for the leadership of Birmingham City Council is a stiletto-sharp masterpiece designed to knife Mike Whitby without ever once mentioning him.
The document is called Time for Change - a theme traditonally favoured by those who wish to overthrow established governments.
And true to form, the first few sentences praise Coun Whitby's five-year-old administration for having "much to be proud of".
Failing departments have been turned around, council tax rises kept low and investment has been brought to the city, Brew notes approvingly.
Not much need for change there, then, you might think.
He even takes care to claim, perhaps slightly disingenuously, that "my challenge is not based on a fundamental change of policy".
The rest of the document makes it quite clear that this is exactly what Coun Brew is intent on delivering - plenty of policy changes, fundamental or not.

The fight between Mike Whitby and Randal Brew for the leadership of Birmingham City Council, which is being conducted entirely behind closed doors, demonstrates brilliantly the democratic argument in favour of directly elected mayors.
Next Monday, 49 Tory councillors, mostly middle-aged men, all white, will gather in a private meeting to decide who should be their group leader and therefore run the second largest city in the United Kingdom for the next year at least.
Ultimate power, therefore, lies in the hands of the 25 councillors required to either re-elect Whitby, or appoint Brew to replace him.

Five days after Randal Brew admitted he wants Birmingham City Council leader Mike Whitby's job, the number-crunchers are beginning to take an interest in what is shaping up to be a fascinating contest.
The general consensus among Tory councillors I have spoken to is that Brew has a reasonable chance of winning.
With just over a week to go until the 49-strong Conservative group meets to decide whether Whitby should continue as leader, the feeling is that Brew is close to succeeding in stage one of his strategy, that is to sign up 20 supporters.
This, if true, will give him the chance to proceed to stage two, eking out the 25 votes he needs to win assuming everyone turns up and no one abstains.