politics

Erdington Councillor gets stick for stones

Erdington Councillor Gareth Compton (Conservative) manages to make the papers this morning for a Tweet he published last night suggesting (jokingly one would hope and assume) that a journalist to be stoned to death: “Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan’t tell Amnesty if you don’t. It would be a blessing, really,” He’s now since deleted it, apologised, and said: “Twitter is a forum for glib comment of the moment. It was a glib comment. Who could possibly think it was serious? ” And no, in the context of the @GarethFCompton twitter account it’d be hard to take it seriously, but each Tweet can be seen on it’s own, without context. Around the election, his un-disguised glee at the result was understandable, but on Twitter at least he was hardly magnanimous in victory. That episode (go read about it) did have it’s comic value though, however much it disappointed those who live in his ward in Birmingham. If brevity (and 140 chars is pretty brief) is the soul of wit, it’s also the saving grace of being able to converse with those of wildly different opinions. It’s why so many people can watch or read the views of...

Marc Reeves of The Birmingham Post spends a couple of hours talking shop, blogging and council newspapers with Michael Grimes on Sunday Local — the weekly local news show on Rhubarb Radio: It’s intelligent, honest and unafraid — something of media at its best — is it only volunteer-led internet media that has the space and motivation for this?

Rainbow Meeting

As you should all know by now The Rainbow pub in Digbeth is fighting for survival as it’s been served with a noise abatement order. They’ve got tons of support (joining the Facebook Group is a painless way to do that, actually going is better) and held a meeting tonight. Landlord Kent Davis gave a speech that was impassioned enough to stand the cliché of being called an impassioned speech: Pete Ashton recorded it and shared it for all, so listen.

Brum is having a new Lord Mayor. Beowulf playing, hobbit fan (and Professor) Coun Michael Wilkes was “handed the chain” on the 19th. Previous Lord Mayor Coun Chauhdry Rashid is now deputy mayor. Coun Rashid, you may recall has a website — the wonderfully URL’d lordmayor.org — we were hoping for blogging from him, but sadly the site isn’t updated much (nor does it look to be council run, official stuff is here). Is he going to hand over the virtual keys, no sign yet? And while were at it Coun Wilkes, do you fancy setting up a blog? I’ve just grabbed birminghammayor.wordpress.com and you can have it whenever you like. Image from lolitics.

Bright Lights, Big City

You know how big and complex Birmingham is, well it is. Very. Sometimes things like even knowing who owns a building is tricky (that falling into itself one by the Silver Blades opposite the indoor Market — I’m guessing the owners might be sealed inside) — so how do you make huge decisions about the whole of the City Centre that will affect things for the next 20 years? Well, you’ve got to have a plan. And in this instance it’s The Big City Plan (which we’ve mentioned before) — an overarching document that is attempting to make big and brave decisions about how the city centre will work in the future. At the moment, there’s a consultation process about it — which lasts until the 6th of February. I’ve been involved, with a number of other bloggers, in putting together a blog-site version where we hope some of the “wisdom of crowds” will help pull together Brum’s finest minds and crack some of the problems. It’s at bigcitytalk.org.uk and you’re invited to link to it, copy chunks of the blogged version for your own use, but most of all go discuss and comment and feedback to the Council...

Step aboard the Big City Plan Bus today

The “Beyond Midnight” bus, which has more info about the Big City Plan (that will decide what happens in Birmingham over the next 20 years), is in the city centre today and Highgate tomorrow. Only just heard about this and we’re too late to let you know that it was in Ladywood yesterday. Please go along if you can, in great numbers, to find out more about the Big City Plan, have your say and show the council that we really care about our city. The details: Tuesday 13 January City Centre * 9am – 3pm, Edgbaston Street, Markets area * 3pm – 8pm, Victoria Square Wednesday 14 January Highgate * 12 noon – 3pm, Joseph Chamberlain College * 3pm -5pm, Gooch Street shops * 5pm – 7pm, Stanhope St Youth and Community Centre * 7pm – 9pm, St Martins Youth Centre Gooch Street, Highgate, Birmingham B12 Not quite sure why it’s called the “Beyond Midnight” bus, as it only seems to be open during the day and early evening. Oh well, I suppose 9am is beyond midnight. If you can eat After Eights at any time of day, we’re sure you can visit the Beyond Midnight bus too...

Ten things we found out at the Tory Party Conference

A load of Brummie Bloggers were invited to the Tory Conference at the ICC, this week. For almost all of us it was our first taste of a Party Conference, for all of us it was a weird experience as we spent a good deal of time wondering why we were invited and why we accepted. So, what did we (or in this case I) find out? 1. Spin all you like, it’s not possible to stay on message about Birmingham: “for one Conservative MP … the city already seems to have been hung, drawn and quartered. After the welcome drinks had started to flow he made his way through rowdy Saturday night revellers to queue at a secured hotel bar. “I’d forgotten just how vile Birmingham is,” he commented to his colleagues surveying the drunken scene. Unfortunately most of the rest of the queue was made up of members of the press.” This is Nottingham Blogs. 2. No one in the national press can cope with the name of the ICC (or International Convention Centre) It was often listed as the “International Conference Centre“, at one point the ITC and, most amusingly, at one point the “Indoor Conference...

Be Birmingham site goes 2.0, in a way

Be Birmingham is what used to be called Birmingham Strategic Partnership — that’s a sort of talking shop between things like the police and the council, which everyone is invited to contribute to. They’ve revamped their website to include a forum, as well as blogs from their “community champions” – who take “various views from the community to be considered when strategies and activities are being developed”. Apart from the sin of calling blog posts “blogs”, most other things seem to be three (comments, RSS and the like). It’s one to stick in your feed reader and watch with interest anyway.

Save the Flapper

I have no idea how to protest against the plans to demolish the Flapper and Firkin, but these days the first thing to do is start a facebook group. We’ll see how we go from there.

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politics

Erdington Councillor gets stick for stones

Forward with the Post

Rainbow Meeting

Mayor regenerates, website doesn’t

Bright Lights, Big City

Step aboard the Big City Plan Bus today

Ten things we found out at the Tory Party Conference

Be Birmingham site goes 2.0, in a way

Save the Flapper

@onBirmingham – Breaking Brum News on Twitter