The Conservative Party’s £1 billion deal with the DUP has caused a mix of anger and anxiety for politicians here in Birmingham.
Much of this surrounds concerns about the Democratic Unionist Party’s more controversial views and what it means for the relative peace Northern Ireland has enjoyed in recent years.
But there is also anger in English provinces that this is yet another example of the Scots, Northern Irish and Welsh getting favourable devolution from the Government’s ‘magic money tree’ – a point made repeatedly at the Birmingham City Council cabinet meeting this week.
Opposition Conservative leader Robert Alden cheekily suggested that if Birmingham’s nine Labour MPs had held their noses and offered to prop up the Conservatives in Parliament then Birmingham’s cash-strapped public services could have secured a lucrative payout.
Such a move would of course have been the ultimate sell-out.
And Labour leader John Clancy hit back with his own suggestion - that perhaps 15 Conservative MPs from the wider region could side with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour to secure a better deal for the West Midlands.
Behind this gentle sparring contest is, of course, the very real fact that a relatively small number of MPs can put pressure on a Government with a wafer-thin majority.
Now how about some of our representatives putting together a bid for a fair share?
Getting the house in order
Birmingham City Council has responded swiftly and decisively to the Grenfell Tower block blaze to ensure that it gets its own house in order.
Historically mistakes have been made – keeping tower blocks beyond what residents have been led to believe was their 40-year sell-by date is something which should have been avoided.
When there is a drastic housing shortage – and we are only just beginning to emerge from a slump in house-building – it seems there may have been little alternative but to keep them going.
But the response since the tragedy has been one worthy of a responsible landlord.
The city’s leadership has ordered fire safety tests on all 213 high and low rise blocks , not just the recently refurbished, without waiting for the inevitable Government order.
It will come as great relief to tenants that none of the council’s flats have been clad in the dangerous materials and none so far have been found to have flammable coverings.
And it was also right of council leader John Clancy to start the ball rolling on retro-fitting sprinklers in blocks – even it meant raiding the council’s reserves and asset bank to pay for it.
Of course, the Government has now offered to pay or at least contribute .
Next job is to accelerate the regeneration of Druids Heath, an estate dominated by 15 tower blocks, and which has seen little non-essential investment. A decision to go ahead was taken a year ago and now needs to be acted on.
Saving their skins
Now that the election season is over and we have a new mayor and sort of Government, our local politicians are getting back to more parochial matters such as saving their own skins ahead of next year’s council election.
The local Labour Party had kept a lid on its internal squabbles and deferred its hotly contested council candidate selections in the noble pursuit of the greater good of Jeremy Corbyn’s national campaign.
Now with all that behind us the blood letting is beginning. There are several pressures - one is the reduction of councillors from 120 to 101 meaning less safe seats to go round. The other is that there is a shift in the balance of power with the Corbynistas in the ascendancy.
Third, are the little petty divisions, rivalries and factions within Birmingham, such as between cronies of former leader Sir Albert Bore and acolytes of his replacement John Clancy.
And finally there are complications over gender equality rules which means several male councillors are scrapping for their political lives.
One battle which has reopened is over the rush of new Corbyn-inspired members who have joined since summer 2015, initially they were blocked from voting in selections to prevent a hard-left takeover – but now this appears to have been lifted, placing several long-standing and hard-working local councillors at risk of de-selection. Details of these behind the scenes shenanigans are of course patchy and evidence unreliable, but we will see what emerges.
Strong and stable
Councillors and council staff looking to buy the leader a birthday or Christmas present could do little worse than get a thesaurus to broaden his vocabulary.
One of John Clancy’s predecessors as council leader, Mike (now Lord) Whitby, was fond of picking the odd slogan like ‘fiscal discipline’, ‘journey to excellence’ and the always winning ‘global city with a local heart’ and then repeating it like a stuck record to anyone within earshot.
Even our Prime Minister has suffered from this tendency with her ‘strong and stable’ mantra during the election campaign.
But beating the lot for repetition was Cllr Clancy during his three-minute speech at Birmingham’s impressively huge Eid celebration on Sunday after.
He managed to say ‘great’ an incredible 18 times including mentioning the ‘great diversity of this great city’ and what a ‘great day’ he was having at this ‘great event’.
So here’s a few synonyms to help him mix things up a bit: ‘fantastic’, ‘excellent’, ‘wonderful’, ‘outstanding’, ‘superb’.
As one onlooker observed: “It begins to grate after a while!”
