Conservative

The big parties’ council tax claims: correct, deceptive and useless

Cameron's Villa punditry is as reliable as his tax claims

By:
Published April 23, 2013, in Opinion


(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Did you catch David Cameron on Aston Villa’s Premier League survival chances last week? He was in Nuneaton launching the Conservatives’ local election campaign and, being a longstanding Villa fan (in the way so many of us developed our childhood allegiances, his uncle was the club’s Chairman), he was asked about their chances of avoiding relegation. His response: “I’m sure it’ll be alright in the end”.

Fantastic! A politician’s near-perfect answer. Short and upbeat. Inoffensive, in that it didn’t mention at whose expense Villa might survive. No definition of ‘the end’ – of the season, of the decade, of the millennium? – so no possibility of being proved wrong. And, as a consequence, utterly meaningless. The trouble was that several

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Former councillor Matt Bennett bids to become Police and Crime Commissioner

Recently defeated councillor attempting political comeback in new regional role

By:
Published June 15, 2012, in Police Commissioners


Former  Matt Bennett has announced his candidacy for the role of Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands. Having failed to retain his council seat in the recent local elections, the former Executive Member of Children’s Social Care, has turned his attention towards the region’s policing and its efforts to tackle local crime.

Emphasising his roots in the area, Bennett notes his upbringing in Sutton Coldfield and his current home in Edgbaston.

Bennett says: “Too many crimes go unreported because

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Whitby names his shadow cabinet team

Phil Parkin back in favour as Conservatives face up to life in opposition

By:
Published May 22, 2012, in Politics


Sutton Coldfield Tory Phil Parkin has been promoted and will join his party’s shadow cabinet on Birmingham City Council.

Coun Parkin was deputy leader of the Conservative group in 2011, but resigned to concentrate on running a family business.

But Parkin, a keen exponent of social media and a campaigner for an elected mayor of Birmingham, is back in the fold and will be Tory spokesman for the wide-ranging brief of Culture, Leisure, Sport, Green & Smart City and Sustainability.

Mike Whitby, whose leadership of the council in coalition with the Liberal Democrats ends today (May 22), was re-elected unopposed as Tory group leader, with Robert Alden as his deputy.

With the exception of one newcomer, Sutton councillor James Bird, the Tories have opted for an experienced team to lead the opposition against the Labour controlled council.

The rest of the Conservative shadow cabinet is:

Deirdre Alden (Edgbaston) Health and Wellbeing

Alan Rudge (Sutton Vesey) Social Cohesion and Equalities

Timothy Huxtable (Bournville) Development, Transport and Property

Randal Brew (Northfield) Finance, Commissioning, Performance and Contracts

Anne Underwood (Sutton Four Oaks) Children’s Services

James Bird (Sutton New Hall) Education.

The posts follow the new cabinet positions devised by Labour.

However, the Conservatives have decided to split responsibility for schools and children’s social services between two members – James Bird and Anne Underwood.

Labour says: trust the people (even Tories and Lib Dems)

Birmingham devolution plans will put opposition councillors in city council cabinet

By:
Published May 22, 2012, in Politics


Sutton Coldfield Town Hall

Devolving powers and budgets from the centralised Council House to locally-based constituency committees has, on paper, been a key Birmingham City Council policy since 2005.

But the push towards localisation put in place by Sir Albert Bore before Labour lost control to a Tory-Lib Dem coalition in 2004 struggled to achieve its aims, caught up in a clash of opposing interests between the council’s executive cabinet and backbench councillors from all political parties on the committees.

Too often, the constituency committees discovered that important budgetary decisions were taken by the cabinet and that, in any case, city-wide service contracts severely limited the scope for change when it came to services like refuse collection and street cleaning.

The initiative also exposed internal differences in the coalition, where

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Birmingham Tories ‘odds-on’ to re-elect Mike Whitby as leader

No-one wants job enough to mount a credible challenge, claims top Conservative

By:
Published May 9, 2012, in Politics


Mike Whitby

The cockerel in the Council House courtyard didn’t crow three times, but Mike Whitby’s claim that the Conservatives haven’t been in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats for the past eight years was still a denial on an almost breath-taking scale.

Whitby, the Tory leader of Birmingham City Council until May 22 when Labour’s Sir Albert Bore takes over, was being goaded with the C-word when he finally snapped: “We were never in a coalition.”

He was of course attempting to distinguish between a formal coalition and his preferred form of words for the council’s current arrangements, a partnership between Tories and Liberal Democrats. Or, as Coun Whitby insists on calling it: the Progressive Partnership.

The sharp exchange at the Council Business Management Committee did however raise two important issues: namely,

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