There is still no sign of the business plan which must be delivered to the Government and meet with Ministerial approval before the extension of the metro system through Birmingham city centre can be sanctioned.

Officially, discussions are continuing between the city council and Centro,

In reality, the council's Tory leadership is engaged in a major re-examination of the cost of the proposed route from Snow Hill to Five Ways. The aim is to cut the amount the council will have to find for road realignments by piling "incidental" costs on to the business plan.

This, of course, will make the metro scheme more expensive and less likely to meet the Government's cost-benefit ratio and could give Transport Secretary Alistair Darling a chance to boot out the entire project – assuming of course that he receives the business plan this side of Christmas.

Len Gregory, the Birmingham cabinet member for transportation, won't be hurried.

"We don't want another Scottish parliament situation," he said.

Len, the Scottish parliament was famously over-budget. But at least it was built.

 Word reaches me of a radical plan by Labour to increase the number of women councillors in Birmingham.

Wards where the party has a very strong chance of winning have been instructed by regional officials to draw up all-women short lists and to select candidates for the next three years.

Strangely, in Ladywood, one of the safest Labour wards in England, the comrades have decided to ignore this.

Could this be in any way connected with the fact that Labour group Sir Albert Bore is scheduled to stand for re-election in 2007?

He could always try a sex change, I suppose.

 And talking of Sir Albert, the one question he managed to ask of the leader of the council at this week's full council meeting takes the biscuit. The ship's biscuit, that is.

Why, he wanted to know, was no Labour representative invited to the launch of HMS Daring in Glasgow on February 1?

Tory council leader Mike Whitby was there, along with the Lord Mayor and the Deputy Lord Mayor and representatives from the private sector, but there was no space for poor old Albert at what must have been a most enjoyable beano.

Whitby explained that he had no control over invitations for the event, which were drawn up by BA Systems.

Albert, whose enthusiasm for the Royal Navy has until now been a closely guarded secret, was not amused.

 Breaking news: the statue of Boulton, Murdoch and Watt may be placed in Centenary Square after all.

After discovering that the sculpture of Birmingham's Industrial Revolution pioneers was too heavy to be positioned over a railway tunnel, city council leisure officials have just remembered that another part of Centenary Square, close to the Hall of Memory, benefits from underground reinforcement which was installed years ago precisely to take a statue.

That's a bit of luck, then.

Trouble is, no one knows exactly where this reinforced spot is.

An inquiry is therefore underway, according to hapless cabinet leisure member John Alden.

Zzzzzzzzz.

By Paul Dale