The Birmingham Post Blog reports that Civic Society planning committee chairman Stephen Hartland has been banned from speaking to the press after expressing somewhat negative opinions on Council Leader Mike Whitby's pet project to copy the Bull Ring and dump a load of sand in Chamberlain Square. If that wasn't enough
"Whitby, meanwhile, further infuriated the conservation lobby by popping up on BBC Radio to announce that the TV Big Screen in Chamberlain Square, an essential element of the beach project, would remain in place over the summer. In doing so he naturally pre-empted the decision of the council planning committee, which meets at the beginning of next month to consider an application for the screen to stay in Chamberlain Square until September."The more I hear about Mike Whitby the more I just plain don't like him. Lest you accuse me of political bias, the same goes for John Hemming. In fact the more I get to know how local government works in Birmingham the less I want to do with it. Which is a damn shame.
8 Comments:
I agree about Mike Whitby. I also hates how he uses every opportunity possible to make everything appear 'world-class'.
When he first spoke about the plans for the beach in Chamberlain Square he said it would be a world-class attraction! What is he on?!
I feel the word is totally overused in Birmingham, as is iconic. All Brummie councillors should be banned from using the word.
I'm no Mike Whitby fan, but I don't believe everything the Post infers on this one.
The Birmingham Civic Society is an independent organiasation, with no mandate or responsibilities other than that it sets itself, they and only they can remove their officers from their positions.
The beach might be a very odd idea, but at least the council are trying something - as far as I see it at the moment the Civic Society and their mates at the Birmingham Post are coming across as nothing but kiljoys.
I'm not actually that bothered about the beach and it's not this specific thing that concerns me, more a general sense I'm getting about how the city is run.
In short, if you kick up a stink about something a councillor is involved in, to the extend that they see it as a criticism of themselves, you will get punished in some manner, be it by having your funding cut or losing access to power or whatever. The same goes for regional development agencies like Advantage West Midlands.
This might just be normal politics but the problem, as I see it, is that thanks to the funding / support system everyone who's done anything worthwhile on a city level has something to lose by speaking out, and these are the people who really know what's going on.
I'm trying not to be paranoid but I keep hearing this from people who I can't name because it will affect their, sometime voluntary, projects.
There seems to be too much concern about who's got the power and how they can hold on to it and less about how best to run the city. That bothers me.
It might be normal politics, it might not, worryingly I suspect it is. At least in theory if enough people dislike what's going on at the Council they can eventually be voted out (if people can be bothered).
Unelected, unrepresentative bodies wielding power worries me even more (and don't get me started on the bloody central government QUANGOs).
What I find odd is that a major topic of debate is whether or not the city has one or more beach at summer time.
"We will fight them on the beaches"?
There was once a sort of beach on the side of the canal under Spaghetti.
indeed there was/is...
It might be normal politics, it might not, worryingly I suspect it is. At least in theory if enough people dislike what's going on at the Council they can eventually be voted out (if people can be bothered).
My worry is the only people who get involved in local politics, and therefore stand for election, are the sort of people who think this kind of behaviour is okay and "normal". I'd love to get involved with local politics and take an interest in what's going on in the Council House but every experience I have turns me right off it, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
When you add low election turnouts to this mess it all gets very disturbing.
I suggest revolution.
It'd be great to be able to do something that worked at a local political level - local politics seems to ape the national, which is a mess of lobby groups and private financial interests.
"The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation."
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