This week’s city council cabinet meeting was treated to the unusual sight of a beaming leisure, sport and culture member Ray Hassall showing off the “gold” medal presented to him for finishing the first Birmingham half marathon.

He wore it proudly around his neck.

I half expected him to stand and give Perry Barr’s version of a black power salute while the national anthem rang round the room. Sadly, he didn’t.

Hassall’s age is uncertain, but put it this way: he won’t see 60 again.

Council leader Mike Whitby, who would have entered if only he didn’t have troublesome knees, revealed colleagues went to extreme lengths to keep an eye on proceedings with specially appointed Hassall-watchers on the route.

Possibly, they were ready to call an ambulance.

Thankfully, months of intensive training paid off and Hassall completed the 13 miles in good shape.

Whitby, triumphal, said he could reveal Birmingham had been chosen to stage a World Half Marathon next year.

Unfortunately, this particular piece of information was first released by the council in April this year.

Still, there’s no harm in re-announcing good news stories, as my old chum Neville Summerfield can testify.

The good news for cabinet members is that Whitby expects many more of them to take part in next year’s half marathon. It’s all part of what he likes to describe as the Team Birmingham spirit.

One person definitely not accepting the challenge is deputy council leader Paul Tilsley.

“I played football for the city of Birmingham until I was 52,” he explained.

A hard-tackling defender in the Norman Hunter mould, I imagine.

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Labour has set up a preposterous-sounding academy to train councillors in Birmingham.

Among those leading the sessions are former transportation cabinet member Stewart Stacy, whose failed attempts to stop cars driving through the city’s entertainment district earned him the title Butcher of Broad Street.

Another academy lecturer is Sutton Coldfield campaigner Dr Rob Pocock, whose greatest claim to fame is never being elected to the council.

Initially designed to be a mammoth 18 Saturday morning sessions of socialist re-education for councillors, campaigners and activists – including stuffing campaign leaflets, collecting petitions and making speeches – an avalanche of complaints has forced the number of sessions to be cut to five.

One irate Old Labour stalwart trumpeted: “I don’t need telling how to be a councillor by has-beens like Stacey and a never-was like Pocock.

Imagine spending 18 sessions in the company of these people – pure tedium.

“Even calling it an academy is the kind of pompous rubbish you get from the Labour Party these days.”

Not very comradely, is it?