Last year‘s Birmingham Post Power Fifty caused a lot of fun in offices around the city. I remember Chas Watkin (Editor of Midlands Today) being referred to as “number 48″ by his newsroom staff for a few days, which is alright unless you’re the second “most powerful” and get people sniggering “number two” behind your back. I went to the launch of this year’s list, where Marc Reeves of the Post admitted that it was designed to “infuriate” and stimulate debate (and one would hope from his point of view stimulate paper sales and website traffic). The Post have been brave and put the entire list up online, with open comments on each entrant (it’s a bit flaky at the moment — the paging system doesn’t work and the images are missing, but the list is there and you can comment on it). One can only hope their moderators are up to the task of the heated debate. Reading the list, and especially listening to the top ten being announced, it strikes you how difficult it would be to work out a list of people in order of real ‘power’ (influence is a better term, I think). You’d probably...
