21. Albert Bore, Birmingham City Council

Former Birmingham City Council leader Sir Albert Bore continues to be a major figure in the city's political life. As head of the Labour group, he is effectively leader of the opposition in the city.

He has survived a series of challenges to his position from within the local Labour party, but although he saw these off fairly comfortably, there is little sign that he is about to lead the Labour group back to power in Birmingham - not when the party's national fortunes continue to be so dismal.

A former nuclear physics lecturer at Aston University, Sir Albert began his political life as a left-winger but moved with the times and is now generally regarded as a moderniser. He was knighted for services to local government.

A driving force behind the economic regeneration of Birmingham from the mid-1990s to 2004, Sir Albert championed city centre pedestrianisation, the new Bullring shopping centre and the redevelopment of Eastside - one of the largest regeneration projects in Britain.

Less successfully, he failed to convince Birmingham that it needed a directly-elected mayor, nor did he succeed in transferring the city's housing stock and old people's homes to the independent sector, moves which, had they been successful, would have injected millions of pounds of investment into failing services.

As chairman of the economic development committee in the 1990s, he played a leading role in bringing the International Convention Centre, the National Indoor Arena and the Hyatt Hotel to Birmingham.He last year became chairman of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust and holds a number of non-executive directorships.