Iron Angle: What was the point of the council's Papal feast?
It’s been difficult to find anyone who will actually admit to having attended Birmingham City Council’s Papal banquet last Saturday.
Perhaps those that wined and dined at taxpayers’ expense, including we are told several very important Catholic dignitaries, have their own reasons for pursuing a silent vigil.
Unsurprisingly, the person in whose name the shindig was held, could not be there.
The Holy Father sent his regrets, explaining no doubt that he likes an early night on Saturdays, as Sundays tend to be a bit hectic especially when you have to contend with an open air mass for thousands at Cofton Park.
Still, looking on the bright side, there would have been no shortage of eminently qualified candidates to say grace before dinner as the great panjandrums of Birmingham’s civic and spiritual life sat down for a feast of mutual back-slapping in the Victorian splendour of the Council House banqueting hall.
Faced with entirely justifiable criticism that this was a bit of a waste of money at a time of unprecedented public spending cutbacks, council leaders slipped straight into default mode, put their fingers in their ears and refused to discuss the matter.
Apart from, grudgingly, admitting that about 250 guests had been invited they wouldn’t release any names, wouldn’t publish the menu and wouldn’t give any financial breakdown other than insisting that the cost would be covered by the £80,000 council budget for the Papal visit to Birmingham.
The fine details will have to wait for the inevitable Freedom of Information Act questions, which I assume the council will with its usual bad grace string out for as long as possible before making a response.
Perhaps they will raise the catch-all get out clause by claiming that it would not be in the public interest to reveal what the guests ate and drank.
Alan Rudge, the cabinet member responsible for faith issues, who organised the event, attempted to play the well-worn global city card. Birmingham gets big events because it knows how to treat distinguished guests properly, was the gist of his defence. Goodness me, they probably even had fish knives and linen serviettes.
