The left wing establishment among the officer corps at Birmingham City Council is becoming a little gung ho over the near certainty of Labour returning to power at next May’s civic election after an eight-year absence.

I revealed last week that an advertisement for the new £155,000-a-year Strategic Director for Children, Young People and Families took the unusual step of informing potential applicants that Birmingham may be under socialist control before long.

That was followed by a public notice from the same department revoking a proposal to merge a couple of primary schools. The text took the trouble to explain that the scheme had to be withdrawn “following the coalition Government’s cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme”.

As a statement of fact, the reason for pulling the merger cannot be denied. But it is odd for councils to single out the Government for blame in a statutory public notice, although Tory critics of ‘Red’ Les Lawrence, the Conservative cabinet member for Children, Young People and Families, who has opposed aspects of his party’s national education policy on academies and free schools, may not be entirely surprised.

The content of the advertisement and the public notice was probably drawn up by a junior council official, but the fact that the wording went through unchallenged may, I suspect, be significant.

There can be little doubt that the tectonic plates at Birmingham City Council are beginning to shift in preparation for power change next May.

Labour needs to pick up just six seats at the elections to oust the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, although that figure will fall to five if Labour can beat Respect at next month’s Sparkbrook by-election.

To make matters even safer for Labour leader Sir Albert Bore, his party only has to bother about defending eight of the 40 seats being contested in May. There is speculation that Labour, attacking seats it lost at the height of its unpopularity in 2008, could end up with 75-plus councillors.

Party strategists are even talking about the possibility of inflicting an amazing double whammy on the Conservatives by winning in Harborne and Edgbaston, where long-serving Tories John and Deirdre Alden are up for re-election.

And for those who suggest Edgbaston will never go red, don’t forget that Tory councillor James Hutchings held on this year with a majority of only 22 votes.

Some of the council’s very senior, well paid, officers are already beginning to make private overtures to Sir Albert and his deputy leader Ian Ward. They want to get a sense of Labour’s policy priorities so that they can “hit the ground running” after May, apparently.