It has often been noted that T S Eliot got it hopelessly wrong when he described April as the cruellest month.

Politicians know that August, in the midst of what passes for summer in this country, has the potential to be far more dangerous.

As the leaders of Birmingham City Council’s Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition reconvene after the holiday season, they will not look back on the past month with much joy.

Neither will they look forward to the next nine months with any great enthusiasm, for the coalition’s appointment with the great Birmingham public in the shape of the May city council elections is looming on the horizon.

This August was marked by an event that was beyond the control of anyone in authority to prevent – the Birmingham riots.

The reaction to widespread public disorder by city officials, particularly deputy council leader Paul Tilsley who worked tirelessly for days on end, was exemplary and set an example for other cities to follow.

Sadly, having worked well with the police and moving swiftly to clean up the city centre, Coun Tilsley and his colleagues rather let themselves down by becoming obsessed with the need to hold a special riots council meeting in private.

The subsequent U-turn has been well documented, but the entire episode could and should have been avoided by staging the first part of the meeting in public and the second part in private allowing the chief constable to impart sensitive information.

August was also notable for two episodes where poor presentational skills resulted in an avalanche of bad publicity for the coalition, despite the best efforts of the cabinet’s increasingly excitable self-appointed spin doctor, Martin Mullaney, to overcome.

A decision to abolish the Gun Quarter in its existing form because a few people living in the area did not wish to be associated with the weapons of war exposed the coalition to damaging accusations of political correctness.

The subsequent scrabbling to recover face, by inventing a newly-defined far smaller gun making zone, merely underlined the scale of the original gaffe.

There was no mention of retaining the Gun Quarter in any shape or form when the matter went to a cabinet meeting. It was only following media enquiries about the foolishness of denying Birmingham’s heritage that a new map appeared belatedly from the Council House showing a tiny gun making area within the new St George and St Chad’s Quarter.

You might say that Big Bertha had been replaced by a pop gun.

The second presentational difficulty erupting for the coalition during August, the future of the wholesale markets, is potentially far more serious than the gun quarter debacle and represents a classic example of what can happen if councils are less than forthcoming with all of the relevant facts.