England’s entry to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games: ‘a degree of perspective’

The government will decide, in November, whether to make a formal bid to host the Games.  Birmingham based its application around the city’s four indoor arenas and the Alexander stadium, currently the home of UK Athletics, which it plans to refurbish for the 2022 event and make it the UK’s largest permanent athletics stadium. It also put forward plans to run a business convention alongside the Games.

The Origin Sport Group was selected by the council to assess sporting facilities such as this

In the Birmingham Press (2012), the website that was first to call for Birmingham to try and stage the Commonwealth Games in either 2022 or 2026, Steve Beauchampé congratulates Councillor Ian Ward, Steve Hollingworth (lead officer for sport at the Council) and their colleagues at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bid Company, stating: “The government chose Birmingham because it offered a low risk, low cost Games fit for post-Brexit Britain”.

He points out that Birmingham’s cautious and (a word they used often) ‘compliant’ bid spoke to the government’s search for a low-cost, low-risk Games and adds: “It is telling that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport statement outlining why Birmingham’s name is the one that goes forward highlighted phrases such as ‘risk-minimisation’ and ‘value for money’”.

A Games for our times

“A Games for our times then, and a decision set against very real concerns that a further extended period of economic uncertainty for the UK lies ahead. A decision taken by a Government striving to reduce the annual budget deficit, yet confident that overseas competition for the right to host 2022 would be limited. An austerity Games perhaps; strong and stable, yet deliverable and placed in the hands of reliable and trustworthy organisers”.

Beauchampé adds that as Britain leaves the European Union, damaging relations with our closest neighbours in the process, it urgently needs to develop new trading links beyond Europe and counter Britain’s growing image as an insular, nationalistic and increasingly irrelevant island.

Yet despite the understandably positive response by many in Birmingham to Thursday’s news, he feels that a degree of perspective might not go amiss

He foresees that if Birmingham is eventually selected to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games it will not transform the city or its fortunes in the way that hosting in 2002 transformed Manchester. After listing the changes to be made to Birmingham’s sporting infrastructure he ends:

“Undoubtedly there will be some permanent new employment opportunities (along with considerably more temporary ones) whilst Birmingham’s national and international profile and image may undergo a degree of positive change. Fine as far as it goes, but should the city eventually be awarded the Games, it must use them as the starting point for long-term transformation, rather than the culmination of it. And that will require considerably greater ambition than we have witnessed thus far”.

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Source: http://thebirminghampress.com/2017/09/commonwealth-games-2022-box-ticking-success-strategy/

 

 

 

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IDS: killer facts (Times) or self preservation (Birmingham Press)?

A former aide to Iain Duncan Smith, Tim Montgomerie, writes in The Times, “You do not have to believe that Mr Duncan Smith’s motives were pure to recognise the letter’s political power”. He then gives four compelling ‘killer facts’ about the government’s fiscal strategy (reordered):

1. Big decisions on cuts, with far-reaching consequences for vulnerable households, should not be rushed to fund gimmicky announcements that the Treasury hopes might win a few good headlines in one day’s newspapers.
2. Some of the lowest income families, already working very long hours to make ends meet, are bearing too large a share of Tory spending cuts.
3. Richer pensioners shouldn’t continue receiving expensive perks while vulnerable groups such as the disabled lose entitlements.
4. If difficult , are necessary they should fund reductions in the historically large deficit rather than finance tax cuts for the better off, as happened in last week’s budget.

Were ‘Mr Duncan Smith’s motives pure’ or pragmatic: linked via The Brummie, Steve Beauchampé writes in the Birmingham Press (see punning title if you can bear it):

“It may be that not only are a significant number of the electorate becoming tired of Osborne’s perpetual austerity at a time when many economic indices are going south, but that voters have increasingly had it with the continual raids on the income of the disabled and the working poor, worse that they are overseen by millionaire Ministers such as David Cameron, George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith.

“Yet even without the link to tax reductions that Osborne’s intervention allowed to ferment, Iain Duncan Smith may well have discovered that his plans to reduce PIP payments for the disabled would have courted widespread unpopularity”.

Was this high-profile resignation primarily a matter of principle, or a move towards ‘facilitating the erstwhile Work and Pensions Secretary a swift return to front line politics’ (Beauchampé)? We shall see . . .

 

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PMQs: Lutz in the Birmingham Press got it right. Corbyn impressed, but Solihull MP . . .

A recent article by Richard Lutz in the Birmingham Press opened: “The Prime Minister will have to have change his upper class bully boy tactics once he faces new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

As Lutz recounted: “PMQs is hardly polite. In fact, it is so red in tooth and claw that the Speaker had to recently warn baying Parliamentarians to calm down as some of the more demure MPs said it just wasn’t worth showing up any more . . . but with the chance to perform for TV, it has become more and more nasty, personal, vindictive and, ultimately, void of any real content”. He referred to Cameron: “braying personalised attacks at those sitting across the House from him”.

Watching PMQs today – recorded here.

Elderly readers of the Times who have been voicing concerns about his appearance will be reassured by the fact that he was wearing a tie – a concern which also seems to loom large in the mainstream press.

Corbyn, with considerable gravitas, opened – to Labour applause and opposition silence – by referring to the public’s perception that conduct in ‘this place’ is too theatrical and out of touch. He remembered welcoming Cameron’s 2005 promise to end the “Punch and Judy” politics of PMQs, sadly unfulfilled . . .

SNIP!

Conservative bloomer, surely?

Julian Knight (MP for Solihull) stressed the importance of Britain having an independent nuclear deterrent – which actually does not exist, as many point out, Alex Thomson for one: our “independent” Trident missiles in reality come from Lockheed Martin in the US and are maintained by the US Navy. So we are being asked to spend around  £100bn to maintain and replace an “independent” nuclear strike capability – which does not exist. David Morrison adds: “If Britain doesn’t maintain friendly relations with the US, then it won’t have a functional nuclear weapons system, despite having spent billions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money on it – because the US would simply cease providing Britain with serviceable Trident missiles”.

Ends:

Lutz was right on target:

Cameron did ‘play it cool’, not going for ‘the teenage nastiness that has sadly stained the current level of PMQ debate in the last years’.

He did stick to answering questions and for the time being he appeared to be “growing up”.

And my neighbour said drily, ”Only another 25,000 questions to go.”

Full account in Political Concern

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Corbyn on Radio WM: Osborne’s austerity has increased debt and cut services

A lead from John Wight led to the Handsworth Herald, which then led to a clip from Adrian Goldberg’s thoughtful interview on BBC WM (1.53.54 ).

“It was the political event of the weekend – the arrival of Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn in Birmingham” – standing room only

Adrian caught up with Jeremy Corbyn and asked him what difference he thinks he would make if he was to be the next leader of the Labour party. The Herald’s audiBoom extract from the Bordesley event prompted the writer to find the interview on Monday’s programme. 

Corbyn thinks of this leadership contest as being more about democratic expression – the wishes of ordinary people, currently not accurately represented under the present electoral system – and an alternative economic vision: in sum: “We don’t have to accept austerity”.

Osborne’s austerity has increased debt and cut services

Corbyn response to two questions: first, that the alternative to austerity is to expand and rebalance the economy, collect taxes due, increase pay, support manufacturing and invest your way to prosperity.

Second, that the crisis in Calais and the Libya refugee camps is a product of wars around world – a shared human responsibility. The United Nations as an internationally responsible organisation should look at the causes of insecurity causing those unable to survive to go somewhere else.

Birmingham author and Birmingham Press contributor, Steve Beauchampé writes – as many think:

“A Tim Farron led Lib Dems, Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP, the Greens, Plaid Cymru and Corbyn at Labour … not a bad left leaning alliance”.

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New Street Station and the Madin Library – cost benefit analysis rules OK?

In the Pevsner guide to Birmingham Andy Foster described the proposed destruction of the Madin Library as a tragic mistake, reminding the reader that the architect’s original design was curtailed:

“It was the first library in Western Europe to be designed as a complete cultural centre Including exhibition areas, lecture hall, children’s and music departments under one roof. The scheme covered all of Paradise Circus and was to have included a drama centre and athletic institute, and tough landscaping, with extensive water feature. What was built is the Reference and Lending Library complex, a linking wing to the Council House Extension and to the Conservatoire. They combine the grand romantic gestures of the Brutalist period with subtle use of Internal space, and remarkable tact in relating to their C19 neighbours”.

In the Birmingham Press recently Alan Clawley recalls, “The architect, John Madin, was known to have wanted Portland Stone or Travertine for the cladding, but the City Architect, representing the client, the City Council, insisted on cheaper pre-cast concrete. Twenty years later the failure of many of the panels shows that quality was indeed sacrificed to cost. Madin could have resigned over the issue, but faced with an authoritative City Architect who had been instructed to cut costs, his acquiescence is understandable”.

Clawley reflects on the news that architect Alejandro Zaero-Polo had ‘walked away’ from the New Street Gateway project, emphasising that money is usually the cause of the rift; architects tend to believe that good, original design costs more than generic, run-of the mill stuff. When costs are cut, they assume, quality will inevitably suffer:

He suspects this is the case with New Street Gateway’s ‘Grand Central’, the retail element of the station scheme: “The architect’s original design involved cutting a huge hole in the roof of the old Pallasades Shopping Centre and constructing a glazed skylight to keep the weather out. We have seen the computer-generated images – strong swooping white ribs in the style of Art Nouveau holding the curvaceous panels of glazing. It’s obviously of a piece with the architect’s design for the stainless steel cladding on the outside and the wavy suspended ceiling slats of the new Ticket Hall”. The client, Network Rail, wanted the skylight to be constructed in tensioned fabric, cheaper and easier to construct, but not as durable as the rigid structure proposed by the architects.

After further analysis he concludes wryly: “Meanwhile, the trains come and go much as before”.

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Democracy ‘promoted’ overseas, denied in Birmingham

The public was never consulted about the Capita contract

Even at City Council level, the Council’s corporate activities are protected from public scrutiny. Birmingham’s citizens were never consulted about the huge contract that was handed out to Capita (Service Birmingham). See Alan Clawley’s post in the Birmingham Press ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul’.

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An order authorising the Birmingham City Centre Extension (BCCE) was made in July 2005. Government approval was given on 16 February 2012 for the extension, a new fleet of trams and a new depot at Wednesbury; the sanctioned sum is £128m.

Steve Beauchampé earlier reflected at length on the decision-making process in the Birmingham Press. He made some valid points about the Metro extension in a Stirrer article and at the public consultation in 2011 but “they were essentially waived away as being out of date as Metro was the future”.

Beauchampé’s points summarised – readers, judge for yourselves:

• When run on public streets trams can quickly become a disruptive transport system, one that displaces buses, a more popular and flexible alternative
• With their rails and overhead mechanics . . . any breakdown or accident, repairs to the system’s infrastructure, road works can force services to be delayed, curtailed and cancelled.
• Unlike buses, trams cannot be easily and quickly re-routed to account for changed passenger requirements, new roads or road re-alignments… in fact, the very reasons why trams were phased out of Britain’s towns and cities (including Birmingham in 1953) and replaced by buses in the first place.
  

£42.4 million of public money will be spent extending the Midland Metro from New Street Station to Centenary Square – a 5-15 minute walk, depending on New Street departure point and the walker’s fitness level.

Beauchampé describes the displacement of buses to the city outskirts, the damage to the retailers in the area “leaving the once thriving shopping environment of Corporation Street and Upper Bull Street a shadow of its former self.”

Why then has there been so little public outcry at the downgrading of the bus services?

“Partly because those most affected by the changes primarily consist of the groups within society that have almost no voice, and carry no influence; the elderly, the poor, migrants, students, the unwaged and the low waged. They are a captive market, people for whom switching to cars is not an option, and the decades-long annual increase in bus fares demonstrates that transport bosses realise this”.

“To the city’s politicians and professional media, most of whom rarely, if ever, use these bus routes (cars, taxis and trains being so much more tolerable) the effects are probably imperceptible. Yet the consequences for those passengers who do are very real. Sometimes the extra walking may amount to just a few minutes (albeit in both directions), but when it is wet, cold, dark, when you’re running late, weighed down with bags, coping with young children, elderly, infirm or disabled, these effects matter.

“The bus companies, primarily National Express, which owns Travel West Midlands and (crucially) operates Midland Metro, are not bothered. Passengers must still travel so the company doesn’t lose out fares wise, while removing buses from the core of the city centre allows their vehicles to turn around quicker (i.e. they are operating a shorter route) – far easier for passengers to come to them than that they go to the passengers.

“But the business and marketing community (and thus those councillors in the vanguard of the ‘Birmingham is open for business’ mentality) adore it; Metro is photogenic, it swishes along in a very modern, continental kind of way making a most pleasing sound. Oh, and Manchester’s got one.

“Metro’s champions see it as the catalyst for coaxing commuters from their cars, although as we shall explain this requires a far bigger project than mere city centre line extensions. Finally, there is the social engineering aspect: Metro is often viewed as an upmarket mode of travel and some of its proponents imagine/hope that those cruddy people (see list above) won’t use it . . .

“As right now, every extra metre of track that is laid takes us in entirely the wrong direction of travel”.

Beauchampé might agree with Monbiot – paraphrased: “When a council-corporate nexus of power has bypassed democracy and . . . public services are divvied up by a grubby cabal of privateers, what is left of this system that inspires us to participate?”

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Links to relevant analyses: in the FT, sham consultations by Anna Minton (Royal Commission Fellow, Built Environment) and in the Guardian by award-winning journalist George Monbiot. Other information: The Midland Metro (Birmingham City Centre Extension, etc.) Order 2005

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Yes, Press contributor: “Pissing weedkiller” should be taken very seriously

An article in the Birmingham Press focussed on the laboratory tests, published last week by Friends of the Earth and GM Freeze, which found traces of the weedkiller glyphosate in the bodies of people across several European countries, including Britain.

A really disturbing assertion seen in another report is that all the volunteers who gave samples live in cities, and none had handled or used glyphosate products in the run up to the tests.

As the Press reported, “Glyphosate is one of the most widely-used weed- killers in the world, used by farmers, local government and gardeners, as well as sprayed extensively on some genetically modified crops which are then imported into Europe for use as animal feed. The biggest producer is Monsanto which sells it under the brand name Roundup. Despite its widespread use, its presence in food, animal feed or surface and ground water is rarely monitored by governments”.

The author of the Press article asked if we should be concerned; other research evidence suggests that we should take the issue very seriously indeed

There is a huge body of research into human exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides listed here, with a few examples below: “Even at very low doses may result in reproductive and hormonal problems, miscarriages, low birth weights, birth defects, and various cancers—especially haematological cancers such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and hormonal cancers such as breast cancer.”

The most recent, published in the US Journal of Food Chemical Toxicology, links glyphosate with breast cancer as urine samples from people across Europe as research show that it induces growth of human breast cancer cells.

Are US and EU regulators in the US making an impartial assessment of the evidence?

Despite its widespread use, the presence of glyphosate in food, animal feed or surface and ground water is rarely monitored by governments and four new GM crops designed to be cultivated with glyphosate/Roundup are currently waiting for approval to be grown in Europe. Approval of these crops would inevitably lead to a further increase in the exposure of EU citizens.

Pete Riley Campaign Director of GM Freeze said: “The European Commission needs to sort this out immediately and improve monitoring. We need to know how this weed killer is getting into our bodies and what it is doing to us and our environment.”

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Some research papers:

McDuffie HH, Pahwa P, McLaughlin JR, Spinelli JJ, Fincham S, Dosman JA, Robson D, Skinnider LF, Choi NW. 2001. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and specific pesticide exposures in men: cross-Canada study of pesticides and health. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers, Prev 10:1155-63

Gasnier C, Dumont C, Benachour N, Clair E, Chagnon M-C, Seralini G-E. 2009. Glyphosate-based herbicides are toxic and endocrine disruptors in human cell lines. Toxicology 262(3):184-91.

Garry VF, Harkins ME, Erickson LL, Long-Simpson LK, Holland SE, Burroughs BL. 2002. Birth defects, season of conception, and sex of children born to pesticide applicators living in the Red River Valley of Minnesota, USA. Environ Health Perspect110(suppl 3):441-9.

Arbuckle TE, Lin Z, Mery LS. 2001. An exploratory analysis of the effect of pesticide exposure on the risk of spontaneous abortion in an Ontario farm population.Environ Health Perspect 109:851-57

‘We need to shake things up’ – Salma Yacoob

A letter from Salma Yaqoob – described in the Birmingham Press as ‘surely the most refreshing thing to happen to politics in Birmingham over the last decade or more’ – was published in the Mail today. All she sees are ‘the same old politicians – the very people who have failed this city for so long’ – adding ‘We need to shake things up’. 

Neither campaign fills the bill: a no vote leaves us with ‘the system that gives power to the fixers and rewards the conformist’ and ‘yes’ vote offers ‘the risk of electing a mayor who would at least owe their position to the electorate; a focus for democratic political debate and campaigning across the city’. 

The Birmingham press notes: 

’Her coherent, articulate views have found an audience amongst those frustrated by the similarity of the policies offered by the three main parties . . . lifting the debate above the level in which it has usually been mired. The essence of her argument is that voting for a mayor offers the best (and perhaps only) prospect of breaking the stranglehold of established party dominance over the city’s politics, of countering the cosy consensus, the deals done behind the scenes.”

Read the ‘forensic interrogation’ of her advocacy of a ‘progressive’ mayor here: http://www.thebirminghampress.com/2012/05/02/birmingham-mayor-too-much-like-hit-and-hope/

See the gallery of prospective candidates http://www.thebirminghampress.com/2012/05/02/birmingham-mayor-the-candidates/

And mull over the final words in the Press article:

Long-term change (and it really is ‘Change We Need’) can’t be achieved by simply replacing the person at the top, while their acolytes and party apparatus remains in place. A successful revolution starts at the street, plants roots and eats away at the decaying structure (sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly), until the system collapses.

Learning more about elected mayor issue and an alternative at ORT café in Balsall Heath

The elected Mayor debate at the Ort Café last Thursday was a thought-provoking event, organised by Steve Beauchampé and Andy Goff and sponsored by the Birmingham Press. Some feedback has already been given by Alan Clawley.

Debra Davis, former Head of Communications at Birmingham City Council, said that the future of cities is tied to economic prosperity and that needs leadership. She wanted to dispel the myth of Mayor as dictator and stressed that s/he would have to delegate and consult. Ms Davis also feared that if the referendum rejected the elected mayoral system, Birmingham would be placed at a disadvantage, though the implications of such disadvantage were not spelt out.

Les Reid, Political Correspondent for the Coventry Telegraph, an award-winning journalist, pointed out that one person would not be able to transform the city’s economy because there are macro national and international factors involved. He pointed out that an elected mayor would run the council, not the city and asked what a mayor could do, that a council leader could not. Several points made had been heard at earlier meetings and explored in the press and various blogs, so only one new reference and two questions are featured here.

1. City deals

Mr. Reid spoke about Manchester’s City Deal, which had been achieved under the current system and suggested that this was the path to follow. Localis, a think-tank, explains that Greater Manchester councils will be able to keep a share of the extra national tax revenues generated in the conurbation under the first city deal to be struck by the government. In December Nick Clegg launched the proposal, offering England’s largest cities ‘a menu of transformative new powers’, and Manchester’s deal refers to:

• a Greater Manchester Housing Investment Board,
• a business Growth Hub,
• an extra 6,000 Apprenticeships
• a low carbon hub 50/50 Joint Venture which will create a strong pipeline of investable low carbon projects.
• acting as a beacon for high value inward investment from China and India in a unique partnership with London.

It is estimated that the whole deal will create 3,800 new jobs and protect a further 2,300 existing ones. Read more here.

2. Local councillors affected?

Afterwards a member of the audience asked whether the number of local councillors would be reduced. We looked at one of the useful LWM/BP fact sheets on display but didn’t find the answer there. Later it came, via Steve Beauchampé in the Birmingham Press,  quoting Cllr Michael Wilkes:

“Birmingham is Europe’s largest local authority, its 40 wards are served by 120 directly elected (to use contemporary parlance) councillors. But how long would this remain the case if the city’s electorate vote Yes in May’s mayoral referendum? Liberal Democrat Councillor Michael Wilkes, writing in his online blog last month, stated: “The City Council itself would undoubtedly be scaled down in the not too distant future to no more than 80, or possibly to as few as 40, seats. An electoral review is needed but this is under active consideration in other councils. For example Rochdale plans to reduce councillors from 60 to 40 and in Doncaster the executive mayor wants to reduce the number of councillors from 63 to 21.” Birmingham’s council wards are the largest in England, serving an average population of more than 18,000 people per ward. While a two-thirds cut in their numbers seems very unlikely, several councillors we have spoken with share Michael Wilkes’ assertion that there will probably be a smaller, but still significant, reduction in the reasonably near future.”

3. Questioning the basic assumption

Chairman Karen Leach of Localise West Midlands asked why one person would be more effective than a group, given that research finds otherwise. This assertion was new to the writer who looked around and found a reference to such research about online activity: “Subjective norms failed to affect intentions. Group norms proved to be important determinants.”

A parting shot – the privatisation agenda?

Finally Les Reid warned that there is a rhetoric of devolution and localism but we should look beyond that to what is actually done. For instance, the offer of greater financial advantage was not what it seemed: it would simply be restoring the 27% cut from regional development and the fire and police services. He asked if this drive for elected mayors is a search for “those who will play the government’s privatisation game”.