Birmingham’s first directly-elected mayor will be chosen by 39 Tory councillors at a private meeting and the votes cast will never be revealed.

It’s hardly a very inspiring start to what is supposed to be a new era of accountability and people power.

Because of the very strange way the Government has gone about persuading England’s largest cities to adopt mayors, Birmingham will get one whether it likes it or not as soon as the Localism Bill is signed into law at the end of the year.

Whoever happens to be leader of the city council at the time will become shadow mayor with all the powers of a mayor and will remain in the post until either the people of Birmingham decide not to have a mayor in a referendum in May 2012 or, if the referendum delivers a yes vote, stays in office until the first mayoral election can be held in May 2013.

So this year’s city council Conservative group AGM moves to a whole new level of importance.

I think it is safe to assume that Tory councillors remaining in office after the debacle of last week’s local elections will vote for Mike Whitby to remain their leader, and therefore he will be re-confirmed as city council leader at the annual council meeting the following day.

It seems unlikely that Coun Whitby will even face a challenge.

Although strong evidence has emerged that two backbench Tory councillors were planning to stand against Whitby, the word is that both have now decided not to do so.

If someone does put their name forward before nominations close, then Whitby has to secure 19 votes plus his own vote in order to continue as council leader and become shadow mayor.

In that case, the decision on who is best suited to take the biggest local government job outside of the Mayor of London could fall to 19 people.

And since the Conservatives in Birmingham cling to the quaint idea that it is bad form to reveal the grubby business of how many votes an individual candidate receives, we shall simply be told who has won and who has lost.

For goodness sakes, they’re still arguing the toss about by how many votes Whitby beat Randal Brew in the last Tory leadership challenge – some say it was a landslide, others put the smart money on a majority of just three.

All of this must be seen against the backdrop of a rapid shift in the balance of power in Birmingham.

Last week’s elections resulted in Labour picking up 14 seats to become the largest group in the council chamber with 55 members, crucially six short of an overall majority.

Had Labour managed to win in three seats where the Tories hung on with majorities of less than 60, and taken three more tight marginals, the job of electing the shadow mayor would have fallen to this weekend’s Labour group meeting where Sir Albert Bore is odds-on favourite to secure votes from at least 27 of his colleagues to see off a challenge from John Clancy and remain leader.

There is actually a delicious irony in the Tory-Lib Dem coalition continuing in office with a combined 42 per cent of the vote at the council elections, against 48.3 per cent for Labour.