Tag Archive for West Midlands

West Midlands NO!: Coventry leaves City Region

November 25, 2009 Regions No comments

Please try not to laugh because this is very serious.  Coventry has left the City Region of Birmingham, Coventry & the Black Country.

Since Telford & Wrekin parted company with the city region, it’s become more and more irrelevant as its focus narrows to providing the same Birmingham-centric services as the plethora of regional quangos infesting the euroregion.  In other words, a pointless duplication.

They had to change their name from Birmingham, Black Country & Coventry City Region after West Midlands NO! registered the name to the City Region of Birmingham, Coventry & the City Region.  They can’t call themselves the City Region of Birmingham, Coventry & the Black Country now that Coventry is no longer part of it so I wonder what they’ll call their quango now … has anyone though about Greater Birmingham?

Anyway, I’m sure the City Region’s unelected leader, Dr Simon Murphy, will appreciate any helpful suggestions you might have.  His email address is simon.murphy@birmingham.gov.uk and his phone number is 0121 464 8168.  Let him have your suggestions, I’m sure he’ll appreciate them.

Down with this sort of thing

October 6, 2009 General No comments

Despite appearances to the contrary, I’m not just a keyboard jockey.

On Thursday I will be at the Campaign for an English Parliament‘s protest at the pantomime that is the regional grand committee for the West Midlands euroregion.

The regional grand committee for the east of England euroregion was a complete farce – hardly any MPs turned up to the meeting (not enough for a quorum so they couldn’t discuss anything on the agenda) and they spent 30 minutes of the 50 minute meeting debating whether to put the PA system on.  The whole thing cost the taxpayer nearly £2m, the meeting in the West Midlands euroregion will also cost roughly the same amount.

This is El Gordo’s vision for the future governance of England but it’s certainly not mine.  The protest will be at 6:30pm on Thursday the 8th of October at the Sandwell College campus in Smethwick.