Iron Angle: Bore comes off the ropes

Nov 5 2010 By Paul Dale

Delusions of grandeur at Birmingham City Council have reached giddy new heights. Not only does the Tory leadership now routinely refer to Birmingham, apparently in all seriousness, as a “significant global player”, it has been decided that full council meetings shall begin with prayers – just as happens in the House of Commons.

Lord Mayor Len Gregory has his own chaplain, rather in the manner of medieval monarchs who never travelled far without a vicar, treasurer and lord high executioner. Len hasn’t quite got to that stage, but give it time.

The vicar, Father Peter Kaye, (look, I’m not making this up, that’s his name), was quite clearly of the Christian faith, which is interesting since a good half of councillors are either Muslim, atheist or agnostic. He asked us to pray for council leader Mike Whitby, who embarrassingly was not in the chamber and only managed to rush in late after the rest of us had finished our devotions. Probably he has his own private chapel.

Father Kaye went on to rail against a world riven by mistrust, fear and rivalry, which was pretty spot on for the surroundings he found himself in.

After the God-slot, came a new initiative – a round up of all the awards the council has won in the past month. This is quite a clever wheeze. Someone has clearly realised that there are scores, possibly hundreds, of competitions run by various local public service organisations and some of these are so obscure that most councils do not bother to enter. The chances of winning are, therefore, that much higher.

Dear old Len almost quivered with pride in announcing Birmingham City Council’s success in winning a “prestigious award” in the Be Active scheme with a programme of creative solutions for leisure opportunities. He followed that by declaring that Birmingham has been named one of the “Smart 21 Communities of the Year” for making the best use of ICT. And finally, the icing on the cake, the council’s human resources team won an award for talent management – cue HR cabinet member Alan Rudge to accept a plaque and shake hands with the Lord Mayor.

The first item of real business was a corker and will be remembered as the first occasion for several years that opposition Labour leader Sir Albert Bore managed to seriously rattle Tory council leader Mike Whitby.

Something has happened to Sir Albert, or someone has prodded him into action. As reported elsewhere today, he is beginning to talk about Labour regaining control of the council in 2012. My thinking is that he will struggle to meet this deadline, unless the Liberal Democrat vote implodes, and that 2014 is more likely, but still there is no doubt the tide is turning.