Birmingham Tory councillor James Bird has been one of the more successful opposition frontbenchers having kept the council’s children’s services and education department on its toes for much of the last two years.

Such have been his assured performances and detailed grasp of his brief that colleagues have spoken of him as a future Tory group leader or even an MP.

But he will be stepping down next May due to work commitments, having served a single four-year term.

The Tories will miss him but Labour rivals may breathe a collective sigh of relief.

He arrived on the city council four years ago amid a storm of controversy having replaced June Fuller as candidate for the Sutton New Hall ward – she had been councillor for 16 years and was not happy to go.

Such was the outcry that then chairwoman of the local Walmley Residents Association, Maureen Murphy, stood as independent candidate in protest.

Bird, having overcome that hurdle, has now thrown the New Hall Conservative Party into another round of bickering with his resignation.

In fact some of the stories coming out of the party are more like those bitter selection rows which frequently grip inner-city Labour seats – where the regional party gets flak for fixing seats and candidates are accused of farming members votes.

In my experience, some of those who don’t like a result will complain of foul play.

Five candidates are in the running for the Conservative candidacy, not surprising as Sutton New Hall is one of the safer seats for Tories in Birmingham.

But there has been much mud-slinging, with some elements complaining of a take over of the Sutton Coldfield Conservative Party by Birmingham elements – most notably Tory deputy leader and Erdington councillor Robert Alden.

One of the five is Gary Sambrook, a young Tory from Kingstanding.

He has made headlines already after scaring Labour by getting within 80 votes of taking their safe Kingstanding seat in 2008.

So successful was his grass roots campaigning – backed by Robert Alden’s party pamphlet production line – that a rattled Labour group resorted to personal abuse and was forced to apologise. Colleagues suggest that he has earned a tilt at a winnable seat.

Similar claims of manipulation were made after Coun Alan Rudge was deselected as Sutton Vesey Councillor after 32 years.

The Vesey seat has become the focus of much attention after becoming the first in Sutton ever to fall to Labour and the party line is that Coun Rudge refused to sign a campaign commitment.

For his part, Coun Rudge was said to be unhappy at interference from outside the Sutton Coldfield party.

It looks like the selection will soon be sorted, but not necessarily to everyone’s satisfaction.

There’s been more silliness at the full council meetings which only serves to highlight both the confusing Cabinet set-up under the Labour administration and the fact that some people would be better suited to a career in law than politics.

Lib Dem deputy leader Jon Hunt and colleagues have now twice submitted a series of written questions to the Labour Cabinet on the state of housing in the city.

This week Coun Hunt, a former Birmingham Post health editor no less, asked Labour cabinet member for health and wellbeing, Steve Bedser, to answer the questions, which included details of rent arrears in the city.

He was told: “The details of your question relate to functions that have been delegated to District Chairs. I suggest you re-read the constitution and try again next month.”

It is a lawyer’s answer which follows the constitution to the letter. Other cabinet members, of all parties, have been guilty of this in the past.

But it shows a complete lack of common sense as well as a degree of obstruction. Surely the inquiry could easily be passed on to the person responsible for an answer.

All it suggests is that the Labour administration has something to hide on housing.

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Any hopes that the Labour cabinet member for social cohesion John Cotton might be able to get cross party support for his motion condemning the bedroom tax were quickly scuppered by a pair of amendments from the Tory and Lib Dem opposition.

Coun Cotton attacked the principle of the charge due to its ‘destructive impact’ on the city.

The Lib Dems chose a middle ground, saying that in principle measures to deal with under-occupation of social housing are a good idea, but that the implementation has, in the words of Coun Iain Bowen (Lib Dem, Acocks Green) ‘been appalling’.

He pre-empted the Tories by pointing out that similar measures in private sector housing introduced under the Labour Government five years ago had been handled in a ‘more humane’ way.

Even the Tory spokesman, Coun Gareth Moore (Erdington) while largely supportive of the Government’s line, had some suggestions, including the sensible one that someone on a waiting list to down-size should get their full housing benefit.

The amendments were rejected, as expected by the Labour majority.

But while the opposition refused to support Labour’s condemnation, none of the Tories or Lib Dems managed to vote against it.

Meaning Labour won the vote 69-0, confirming there is little support for this ‘hated tax’ in local government.