City council cuts its losses as it finally calls time on a bad deal
ANDY Street chose his first week as West Midlands mayor to launch a taskforce on homelessness and rough sleeping – pulling together an impressive panel of high profile charities and public agencies to pool resources and come up with ideas to get people off the streets.
As well as being firm action to tackle an acute problem, it showed the value of the mayor’s role.
Homelessness is not one of his direct responsibilities but he has decided to take a lead.
It is a clear indication of using influence or soft power to make a difference.
Only the mayor has the regionwide remit and moral authority to do this.
THERE was a good-natured, if a little sly, dig at our new West Midlands Mayor as he chaired his first combined authority meeting.
Labour Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson welcomed Tory Andy Street to his new job and promised that he would not mention the fact that he has the biggest personal mandate in the region.
Mr Jamieson secured 306,578 votes in his 2016 election over the same area compared to Mr Street’s 238,628 votes earlier this month.
A little bird has informed us that Mr Jamieson, once a transport minister during the Tony Blair years, celebrates his 70th birthday this Thursday and is showing no signs of slowing down.
He regularly declines to take the lift up to his eighth floor office at Lloyd House Police headquarters and runs up the several flights of stairs – leaving his younger less agile advisers catching their breath behind him.
IT is a tired football cliché that managers often say when they are expected to triumph that there are no easy games.
You hear it when a Premiership team draws a non-league side or when England play a qualifier against San Marino, or Liechtenstein.
It’s often a case of getting the excuse for failure in early and trying to lift a team from complacency.
Now it is creeping into politics with Tory party chairman Patrick McLoughlin saying the Tories are taking nothing for granted in the election, suggesting that the walkover widely predicted is in some doubt. Surely if there’s any time the Conservatives can be complacent it is now.
THIS week we will finally get to see what the Conservatives – sorry, Theresa May’s fan club – have got planned for us when they almost inevitably form the next Government in June.
Until now there has been scant detail and we’ve been left wondering will there be any commitment on hard or soft Brexit and will there be a further grab for the centre ground and working class votes?
And we will see what sort of offer is being made for those “just about managing” (or more appropriately poorly paid, in debt and struggling to keep a home) families the Prime Minister promised to help when she made a visit to Birmingham last summer.
It will also be a relief that the politicians will finally have something concrete to promise instead of trotting out the meaningless catchphrases and generic pledges about a strong economy and uniting the country.