Gordon Brown will be crowned the next leader of the Labour party, and therefore Prime Minister of the UK after his left-wing rival John McDonnell failed to get the requisite amount of nominations. This means the next Prime Minister will not be elected, either by the public or even his own party. I find this quite astonishing. With six people fighting it out for the deputy leader, it appears the Labour party is now full of rather spineless politicians who are not prepared to fight as the underdog.
Of course, part of this is because Blair systematically got rid of anyone in his cabinet who dared to speak against him (or more conveniently they resigned), instead promoting yes-men who have said yes to GB. Robin Cook has died; David Blunkett was embroiled in too many scandals; Charles Clarke failed at the home office; Iain Dale announce the reasons why Reid did not stand. and presumably Alan Milburn has been out of the circle for too long. Alan Johnson and David Milliband were the last genuine chance for a contest but bottled it, the former looking at the easier deputy leadership instead.
I remember speaking to some Germans last year who I advised not to bet on Brown, because the favourite often falls short in the end (Heseltine/ Clarke/ Davis; maybe it's a Tory thing). I could not have been more wrong. I hope he leads Britain in a better direction than his predecessor, but I won't be holding my breath.
Does anyone know why Blair should continue to hold office now the party has spoken coup has taken place?
Current affairs seemed to come to me this week. First of all in the terror swoops on Wednesday, along with the widow of one of the July 7th bombers, two people were arrested in Birmingham, one in Lozells and one in Victoria Halls on Grange Road, just around the corner from Birmingham University. I myself used to have a couple of friends living in these halls of residents and was surprised to here it was being searched in connection with terrorism. The rooms are not cheap, all being on-suite and tend to attract the richer students in the University, hardly the kind of clientele associated with terrorism.
Meanwhile, David Cameron has moved in with a Muslim family for a couple of days in Balsall Heath, where I have recently bought a house. I hope he does not stay too long.
I don't want the property prices to drop.
Update 13/05: An excellent post by the West Brom Blogger notes that Cameron's visit was not exactly all that it appeared to be.
Birmingham did not win the Championship, but West Brom and Wolves both made the playoffs and will face each other in the semi-finals.
It was not all bad news last week however, as Manchester and London both failed to get representatives in the champions league final. As for us brummies, we are just happy to have two teams in the top flight.
As Birmingham is twinned with Milan, I claim we will have representation in the Champions League final. There is a growing breed of latte-drinking football fan who will claim I am being unpatriotic by not supporting English teams in Europe. It is a club competition. Every red-blooded working-class football fan understands that football is tribal, and we fight against other tribes in our country.
Like Wolves and West Brom. The loser will not wish the winner good luck and hope that the Black Country has some representation in the Premiership next season. They will cheer on the winner of Derby-Southampton, even though it will be to the detriment of West Midlands football.
However, I'm a Brummie first and then an Englishman. I hope at least one of them gets into the Premiership so that the West Midlands has something to shout about again.
Update 13/05: I should be shot for not mentioning Walsall's excellent League 2 Championship win. The appointment of Dicky Dough was truly on the money.
That was a party political broadcast by the Labour/ Conservative/ Liberal Democratic Party. (Delete as applicable)
I wish.
The People's Republic is currently relocating (that is arrogant blogger speak for I've bought a new house). Unfortunately, as the United Nations do not currently recognise my independent status, I am still forced to pay taxes to the old country. Hitherto, I have managed to avoid paying council tax my claiming political asylum in my parents house, but that is now going to change. On the same day I cast my last vote in Moseley & Kings Heath, I received a council tax bill for my new address (in the Respect stronghold of Sparkbrook if you are interested). Funnily enough, I actually welcomed it (along with my water and energy bills; they do not waste any time do they?). It means I am now contributing to society/ my community and I am only paying the tax because I now own a pretty expensive asset, so it can be regarded as a mark of success (I appreciate not everyone will agree with this analysis, particularly pensioners and those on low-incomes who struggle to pay this badly-collected tax). It has also brought home the reality that my vote in a council election will from now on directly affect me, and my vote seems to matter more. Of course, council elections do affect me in less obvious ways, but there is nothing like a tax to focus the mind.
Of course, thanks to Margaret Thatcher's ridiculous obsession with centralisation, the only important issue now at stake in local elections is how frequently the bins should be collected. My opinion is that if it is going to involve the council, I suggest never. Let us contract our waste disposal from the private sector. We could decide how often we want our rubbish collected rather than have it decided for us, and we could choose exactly how to get rid of our waste e.g. some private companies might decide to provide a service (for a fee of course) where they take all our trash and sort it for recycling. I suspect recycling rates would improve dramatically, and if we did not want our binman to work on Bank Holiday's or pay them £900 for the privilege, we would have the choice to switch our waste removal services to someone else, or stump up the extra cash for the extra service. After all, our gas and electricity is provided by private companies; isn't it ridiculous that garbage collection is still provided by the state?
Of course, this would then leave us paying large amounts of poll tax for very little governing. If we elected a mayor, we would have even less for our councillors to do. Presumably we could then sack two-thirds of our councillors and have an election every 4 years (after all, one councillor per constituency is surely enough?). This will not be a very popular idea amongst councillors, or amongst people who aspire to be councillors, so I guess they will oppose the mayor and keep garbage collections under their responsibility.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, democracy simply doesn't work.
There has been a lot of analysis about what the local election results in England, and the devolved assemblies of Scotland and Wales actually mean. The Conservatives believe they are on the path to power, while Labour and the Liberal Democrats are playing down what are generally considered to be disappointing results.
The reality is that council elections prove very little. Everyone know we all vote differently in general elections. It matters little what percentage of the vote the Conservatives got, how many seats that will translate into, who won the popular vote, or all the other party political bickering we have seen on the pages of the political blogosphere. The reality is the biggest winner by far was apathy. The I-could-not-care-less-one-way-or-the-other party romped home with about 75% of the (non-)vote. And I can't even remember them campaigning in my area.
My personal opinion, not necessarily born out by the election results, is that the next general election will result in a hung parliament.
Former Blues striker Clinton Morrison helped Crystal Palace beat Derby which put the second-city Blues back in their rightful place in the top-flight. Hopefully Birmingham will seal the Championship next week (there is a sentence you do not get to write often!) Even sweeter: three London clubs might take our place in the second tier. Is this part of a general malaise that will require more lottery funding to improve sports facilities in our glorious capital?
In other news, the convicts won a hatrick of world cups in ludicrous conditions. I stand by my predictions that this is the beginning of the end.
Has the world ended in the South East? The reporting of the earthquake in Kent rivals that of the Tsunami in South East Asia a couple of years ago. It was not even as big as the on that centred on Dudley in 2002, which measured 4.8 on the richter scale compared to Kent's "at least 4.3". Am I incorrect in recalling that the bigger Dudley 'quake was generally called a (small-scale) tremor back then?
Next week on the BBC, as a pebble falls from a roof in London:
When the right-wing talk about the West's victory over communism, they usually credit the victory to those three great heroes of the right in the 1980's - Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II. Yesterday, the man who was actually responsible for the collapse of communism died; Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007).
The West loved to portray him as a mad Russian drunk, but the reality is he defeated communism when the West did not have a clue where to start. How did Ronald Reagan defeat communism? By bullying governments of small islands in his own backyard who had the audacity to look after the poor? Did Thatcher bring down communism by defeating Arthur Scargill? Did Pope John Paul's repression of liberation theology strike fear into the hearts of Marxists across the world? More likely, it depressed us Catholics who see support for it in nearly every book in the Bible, and perhaps moved some into the arms of the atheist leftists.
Boris Yeltsin famously stood on a tank to defy a coup by communists trying to overthrow another man who was pivotal in overthrowing communism, Mikhail Gorbachev. Unlike Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul II there was a real chance he could have paid with his life. He could have looked the other way. He didn't, and as a result millions of people are freer than they used to be.
The West never defeated communism. Just like the Chinese adopting privatisation, in Russia it was an inside job.
The England Cricket team's humiliating defeat to South Africa has brought a barrage of criticism from the assorted ex-England players, coaches and writers who played cricket in a very different time and in some cases with a lot less success than the current captain. The consensus seems to be that Fletcher and Vaughan should step down, the latter from the one-day version of the game at least.
Now although I do believe Fletch has taken the side as far as he can, and Vaughan should not be selected for the one-day side, let us get things in perspective. We are likely to finish 5th in this World Cup; in the last two, we have gone out in the first round (including in 1999 when we hosted it). Our record in one-day cricket is rubbish; we are ranked seventh, in the last year we have been whitewashed by both SriLanka and Australia and drew a distracted Pakistan team 2-2. If it was not for the Commonwealth Bank Series, which was, let's be quite clear, a freak result we have achieved nothing in this format of the game over the last couple of years. So why did people expect us to beat South Africa!? The reality is the best four teams in the world are now in the semi-finals, a testament to the format of the competition.
There are many problems with the one day side, including selection and coaching. Nixon has done well but was never a long term solution; Panesar is not a one day player; there are no pinch-hitters like Mal Loye in the top order; and what the hell is the selection of SajidMahmood all about!? Fletch has never taken the one-day format seriously. Perhaps a specialist one-day coach could manage a one-day side, or perhaps Fletch will reconsider his position after the summer.
However, finishing 5th at the moment is par for the course.
The local elections are coming up in May. If you click here you will find a map of the Moseley & Kings Heath, Acocks Green, Springfield and Sparkhill wards with the address of each election candidate marked on the map.
Notice the four candidates who live no where near the constituencies they are standing for. Here are a group of foreigners we should gladly send home empty handed on May 3rd.
The British Nazi Party. Your friendly neighbourhood fascists.
This weekend saw the NEC host the Davis Cup clash between Great Britain & the Netherlands which ended in a 4-1 victory to the British team. The Great Britain team included all three ranked players that have represented Great Britain over the last twenty years: Tim Henman, Greg Rusedski and Andy Murray. Greg Rusedski used the occasion to announce his retirement from the game after his doubles victory on Saturday.
It is sad that Britain has only produced one decent tennis player in 20 years, namely Tim Henman. Andy Murray gave up on the Lawn Tennis Association and went to learn his trade on clay in Spain; Greg Rusedski famously defected from Canada in 1995. So despite all the money and projects spent on encouraging our next Wimbledon champion over the last decade or so, not one has come through. I am not sure how much has been spent in total, but I am sure we could have managed to bribe Roger Federer to defect for a fortnight to win our first Wimbledon Championship in 25 years.
This is a damning indictment of the opportunities we give to the children of this country. It is not really a surprise that we came out as the worst place to grow up in that UN report recently.
Last night saw a real-life Rocky story at the Millennium stadium in Cardiff, albeit without the ending. Peter Manfredo Jr, runner-up on the American reality TV show the Contender, challenged Joe Calzaghe, the undefeated Welsh Super-Middleweight WBO and IBF champion.
The Americans widely predicted the fairytale would happen, but were incensed when Brummie referee Terry O'Connor stopped the fight in the third round. Most commentators believed it had been stopped too early for a title fight without a punch really hurting the young pretender, but most agreed it would only have been a matter of time before Calzaghe won the match. Supporters of the decision noted that Manfredo was not throwing any punches back, so the referee had no option.
It is difficult to understand why the Americans thought Manfredo had a chance against Calzaghe. After the match Manfredo himself implied this was perhaps a step too far. Many in Britain regard Calzaghe as pound-for-pound the best boxer in the world today. He has seen off tougher, more experienced opponents than Manfredo who has lost a couple of bouts against lesser opposition. Either the Americans have a deep-rooted belief in the American Dream, or they do not give Calzaghe the respect he deserves. Barry Mcguigan asked the question: when are they going to realise just how good Calzaghe is?
A smile was raised in the People's Republic a week ago when the Lords voted down plans which included the building of a super casino in Manchester. Mancunian MP's and Councillors piled onto every media outlet in sight decrying the "unelected house" for ignoring the will of the elected representatives. What they failed to mention is that the party in power, which held their autumn conference in Manchester last year, have had ten years to reform the House of Lords in which they have failed to do so and indeed all of their favoured options included an unelected element.
The defeat was caused by supporters of the Blackpool bid, who were regarded as favourites to get the super casino ever since the Government announced it was only going to allow one to be built. Thought for the Day on Radio 4 had an excellent suggestion. Why don't the Mayor of Blackpool and the Lord Mayor of Manchester play a game of poker to decide who gets the rights to host the Super Casino? After all, if gambling is not good enough to make such a decision, why is it such a good method of redeveloping a deprived area?
However, let us be a bit more balanced. Manchester had the best bid and deserves to hold the casino, you cannot throw the rattle out of the pram just because you do not like the result of the outcome of the selection process. Wolverhampton and Solihull will lose the rights to two of the sixteen smaller casinos which are also included in the bill, which would be bad news for the West Midlands. I suspect if the plans would not have been voted down if the casino had been awarded to Greenwich, London.
My personal view is that super casinos are a good way to redevelop inner city areas, but there should not be just one; there should be as many as necessary. Then the market can decide where they will be placed, rather than having controverdial decisions made by committees whose decision then needs to be scrutinised. The Government does not really need to interfere in such processes, except to liberalise the law.
It would also mean a 50% tax on them, as imposed by Gordon Brown in the budget, would mean less investment coming into the country and would not be economically acceptable.
I have only just recovered from the last weekend of sport which saw another poor England performance against Israel in the "European" Championship qualifiers. A 3-0 victory against the mighty Andorra midweek has hardly raised spirits and quite frankly, until Steve McClaren leaves the England job I will not be watching this joke of a national team again.
Meanwhile in the Cricket World Cup Bangaldesh and Ireland qualified for the Super Eight stage taking the place of those two subcontinent powerhouses of world cricket, India and Pakistan. The Aussies must be loving it. It also appears that sadly, Bob Woolmer was murdered and the hunt is on to find his killer. Inzamam-ul-Haq has been questioned twice, and CCTV footage has been examined.
This joke may be in poor taste but it can't have been Inzy, otherwise it would be obvious from the CCTV footage...
As he was running from the scene he would have forgotten to ground his bat...
Gordon Brown delivered what was likely to be his final budget yesterday and the People's Republic remains unimpressed. The consensus is that the headline 2p income tax cut actually means the poorer are paying more tax due to the abolition of the 10p rate. PragueTory claims anyone earning less than £17935 more than £5000 is actually paying more tax (not taking into account any tax credits). Not like the Tories to give a damn about the poor, and not like me to agree with them. Circumstance makes strange bedfellows.
This time last week HP stopped producing its sauce in Aston, Birmingham and moved production to the Netherlands where corporation tax has recently been cut to 25.5%. In what can only be described as shutting the door after the horse has bolted, Brown cut corporation tax to 28p yesterday, making up the shortfall by tightening up the rules and raising taxes on small business. We are still quite a way off Ireland's corporation tax rate of 12.5%.
Oh and tax goes up on beer by 1p a pint on Sunday.
What a weekend of sport! The fun started on Saturday when a double shock in the Cricket World Cup saw Ireland beat Pakistan and Bangladesh beat India. Unfortunately the former result took its toll on Pakistan's former Warwickshire coach Bob Woolmer, who was later found unconscious in his hotel room and died later in hospital. I would have loved to see him back at the Bears and the World Cup will be overshadowed by this tragedy.
Meanwhile post-Schumacher Formula 1 is more exciting than ever (unsurprisingly) with KimiRaikkonen beating Fernando Alonso in the first race of what promises to be an exciting season. And forget Jenson Button; third place Lewis Hamilton staked his claim to become Britain' best racer with an excellent podium on his debut.
Poor Sleep Clouds Moral Judgement reports the BBC in its health section today. Margaret Thatcher famously survived on only 4 hours sleep a night when Prime Minister.
On the day the European Indoor Athletics Championships came to an end it was announced that Birmingham will be the base of the USA athletics team for London 2012. Hopes are high that the Chinese team will follow.
Perhaps the People's Republic was wrong to believe only London would benefit from the Olympics. Now all they need to do is get ready on time and on budget...
No football at the community hall at the NIA this week as Europe's top Athlete's descend on the city for the European Indoor Athletics Championships that will take place over the weekend. It will be the most significant athletics event to be held in Great Britain before London 2012, and the London 2012 campaign acknowledge the contribution that Birmingham's hosting of the Indoor Athletic Championships has made to their bid. Birmingham has held more sporting championships than any other European city in the last four years. And when we hold a sporting championship, we don't just invite the nations we've conquered.
As if the title of second city can be decided by a poll. The monkeys must be mistaking this country for a democracy. As people have mentioned since, our city is not great at promoting itself so here are some aspects of Birmingham to be proud of.
1) The Lord of the Rings. The three books (along with the Hobbit) that created the whole fantasy genre were written by a Birmingham author, JRR Tolkien, inspired by Moseley Bog.
2) Black Sabbath. I am fed-up of listening about how influential bands from Manchester are (in any case, sporting and musical achievement is greater in Liverpool). They only dominated in this country for a small section of the 90's. Black Sabbath are one of the most influential bands in the world with Tony Iommi credited with inventing the heavy metal riff. And can you imagine an MTV show called "the Gallaghers"?
3) The Mini. This characterful car was first developed and built in Birmingham in 1959 until production ended in 2000? The new Mini was developed in Birmingham but is now built in Cowley by BMW.
4) The Lunar Society. In one of his books on the history of industrial Britain, Adam Hart-Davis devotes an entire chapter to Birmingham in which he states you cannot write a proper history of Britain without mentioning Birmingham and in particular the work of the Lunar Society.
5) Modern architecture. Birmingham may not have the tallest skyscrapers (in fact I believe we cannot because of the nature of the soil round these parts) but that has not stopped us creating some of the most recognisable buildings in the country. The Rotunda is being redeveloped, while the new Selfridges building may be controversial, but at least it is different.
The fantasy genre. Heavy metal-riffing. One of the most (if not the most) iconic cars in the world. Power when Britain was emerging into a superpower. Modern Landmarks. Birmingham's greatness transcends the city.
Tell you friends how great Birmingham, England is.
