John Hemming's Web Log

team Birmingham the plan of creating "team Birmingham" with the objective of uniting people in Birmingham behind promoting the city seems a welcome step forwards from the traditional arrogant role of the city council. This does include sorting out all the failures in the services of the city council, but it is important to have a jointly shared direction.

The Concordat FAQ A number of questions have been asked about the Concordat between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives on Birmingham City Council. Our Website has the basic reasoning behind it and the policy statement. A few points It is based upon consensus. Any policy changes need to be supported by both parties on the City Council. There has been no proposal for a staffing freeze or any commitment to a 0% Council Tax increase. We are trying to make the council more efficient Labour did have a deal last year ... with the tories. Clearly Labour would have been happier had they done the deal with the tories. They also offered us a shared cabinet, but I would not consider this because if we left them in power there would be no chance of honest elections in Birmingham. The concordat puts Cllr Mike Whitby into the role of City Leader and me as Deputy City Leader. Sadly at the time of writing we have not managed to move into the offices because Labour decided to squat in...

I visited Hodge Hill twice today. In the morning we (Nicola Davies and I) visited a location which demonstrated The growth of anti-social behaviour under this Labour Government The failure of the Labour Council's repairs service and its inability to do repairs The massive housing crisis created by Labour in Birmingham and their inaction on voids The location was a block of flats where someone set a chair on fire in the hall about 3-4 months ago and nothing has been done. Meanwhile there is an empty cytexed flat at the side whilst thousands of households are homeless. Later in the day we met ex Labour Councillor Amir Khan who is backing Nicola Davies to win in Hodge Hill. Amir was a PJP candidate in Nechells in June 2004. He is, therefore, the second PJP candidate to call for people to support the Lib Dems rather than the SWP. Nicola and I then visited Shard End Carnival. Labour may claim that they cannot find Nicola, but Labour supporters complained about us talking ...

I am pleased that I manage to provide such entertainment for people such as Tom Watson and Lib Dem Watch. Lib Dem Watch do tend to be somewhat selective in their quoting from my emails so I feel it entirely reasonable that I provide full details here.

Now and again I have a go at publishing a web log. Blogger seems a bit variable, but it may have now managed to get things right so I will have another go. It still comes up with odd error messages, but does seem to manage to publish things at the end.

I am given the news that a consultant paid by Centro has said at the public enquiry into transport that Electroliners (aka Trolley Coaches, aka Trolley buses) are not cost effective. This, of course, not news. News would be when a consultant paid by Centro said something that centro did not agree with. If someone is paid to write a report they generally write what they are asked to write. The payer of the piper may wave around the report saying "this report agrees with me", but that is generally meaningless. The other substantial issue that arose at the Cabinet Meeting was the PFI scheme into roads. The PFI scheme is essentially getting the roads improved on Hire Purchase. The headlines look quite good. The City Council gets a "PFI credit" of £379 Million (over 25 years). Indeed it might be good for the city. However, the city loses £175 Million of Local Transport Plan funding and also has to commit to paying out around £50 million a year (index link...

The City Cabinet on Monday had a few interesting decisions. The demolition and redevelopment of North Newtown is a typically absurd decision by the Housing Department and Cabinet. This estate has a problem with crime. The Housing Department have plucked a figure out of the air that it would cost about £33,000 to improve each of the properties. By underestimating the cost of repurchasing the 35 private properties (which would not cost 33K to improve) they come out with specious figures indicating that it is cheaper to knock the properties down rather than improve them. This, of course, ignores the cost of rebuilding any properties. Meanwhile in the real world the drug dealing will continue. The people living on the estate will live on an estate that deteriorates dramatically whilst they wait to be cleared and fewer houses will exist for people to live in and as a consequence more people will live in crowded conditions. Meanwhile the Birmingham Trades Union Council have writt...

Why a weblog For someone who established the first ecommerce site on the internet outside the USA it may seem odd that I have not so far established a web log. The logic is that people interested in the City Council in Birmingham or the constituency of Birmingham Yardley may wish to use the internet to find out a bit more about Liberal Democrat activity in those areas. (I am the Leader of the City Council Liberal Democrat Group and Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Birmingham (Yardley)). The most efficient way of keeping something like this up to date is by using a web log (as far as I can tell) hence this web log.