It is pointless arguing with a conspiracy theorist, because you will never win. The more effectively their grotesque claims are demolished, the more they become convinced that you must be part of the plot because they are right and you are wrong.

Who shot Kennedy? Well it wasn’t Lee Harvey Oswald from the widow of the Dallas schools book depositary. Yes, he had a gun and may even have taken a shot at the President.

But the bullet that killed Kennedy couldn’t have been fired by Oswald because it entered the body from the wrong direction. And then there were those shady figures by the grassy knoll who were never caught. Suspicious, or what?

The Warren Commission which investigated Kennedy’s murder and found no reason to suppose that Oswald did not act alone? Oh, come on. Fixed, clearly, to protect the CIA and FBI who were behind the assassination, or was it the KGB conniving with the secret services and the Mafia?

Who killed Diana, Princess of Wales? MI5, naturally, to prevent her from embarrassing the Royal Family by marrying a Muslim.

But wasn’t she being driven at a dangerously high speed through a Paris underpass by drunken chauffeur Henri Paul? No, he was stone cold sober. The blood tests were swapped by intelligence officers to pin the blame on Paul.

Believe that and you will believe almost anything.

Compared with Kennedy and Diana, the great Birmingham newspapers conspiracy theory is small fry.

Nevertheless, the suggestion by the cabinet member for leisure, sport and culture, Martin Mullaney, that this newspaper and its sister paper the Birmingham Mail are in the pockets of the Labour Party appears to have taken hold among the more excitable members of the city council’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition who simply can’t work out why they don’t always get the positive press coverrage they think they deserve.

Mullaney bases his theory on the fact that the coalition has been on the end of some very bad publicity of late.

Controversy over £212 million of cuts, attempts to remove council-funded social care packages from 4,000 elderly people, outsourcing Service Birmingham jobs to India, the rumpus over plans to close the wholesale markets on their existing site, embarrassment over downsizing the historic Gun Quarter.

Apparently, and I wasn’t aware of this, Mullaney has discovered there is an editorial board that controls the Post and Mail. And it takes its orders directly from Ed Miliband. At least, that’s what a lot of people think so it must be true, according to Coun Mullaney.

Unfortunately, while I hate to burst his bubble, this conspiracy theory falls flat on its face because:

a) There is no such board.

b) The journalists responsible for the Post and Mail political coverage have never been ordered to slant a story in favour or against any political party.

c) A cursory glance at press coverage of Birmingham council in the dying days of the last Labour cabinet 2002-04 highlights consistent criticism of that administration’s shortcomings.

This explanation won’t stop Coun Mullaney, who has begun his own monitoring exercise analysing press coverage in the run-up to next May’s crucial city council elections, where the Tory-Lib Dem coalition is defending seats it is unlikely to win in the current political climate and will probably be out of office as a result (whoops, that’s another unhelpful anti-coalition story for Coun Mullaney’s little book).