Tonight's Question Time is from Bath, and it should be of interest to those of us from Birmingham, as it features Liam Byrne and Salma Yaqoob.
A fine hypocrisy fest in store me thinks!
Byrne will be giving the banks a bashing, whilst sanctimonious Salma will be telling us that Israel are scum and that it doesn't matter who gains power there because they are all evil!
At least Kelvin McKenzie will be there to add a certain colourful gaiety to the occasion.
The Birmingham Post is this morning reporting that 400 firms went bust in Birmingham in the last quarter of 2008.
Understandably, media attention is often focused on the mass employers in the region. Yet scores of employees have lost their jobs, and continue to do so, in the SMEs that underpin the local economy.
So where are Birmingham's Labour MPs when this is going on? I'll tell you where...hiding, or at least trying to distract our attention by talking about something else.
The most high profile of them is Liam Byrne, Cabinet Office Minister and MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill, a constituency that has one of the highest unemployment rates in the UK.
The only time I ever see Byrne quoted these days is when he is taking pot shots at John Lines in the press. Other than that, nothing.
Sion Simon is another MP who seems to have nothing to say about unemployment in his constituency. He is easily being outflanked on the Jaguar issue by Erdington Conservative Councillor Robert Alden.
Gisela Stuart, the 'pretend Euro-Sceptic' MP for Edgbaston, has nothing to say about anything, now that her government has ignored her insincere pleas for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Although she did pop up recently attacking her nemesis and replacement, Councillor Deirdre Alden, in a ridiculous spat about tower blocks.
Khalid Mahmood is a 'rentaquote' merchant who can always be relied upon to stir the pot of racial intolerance, but has nothing to say about the appalling youth jobless figures in the inner city.
Steve "Lollipop Man" McCabe's only public appearance of note in recent months was moonlighting as a crossing warden, a poor taste stunt, campaigning for a crossing that was already being planned by the city council.
Lynne Jones and the rebellious ex-Labour Party MP Clare Short have been in the departure lounge for so long now, waiting for their pensions to kick in, that no one remembers them ever getting elected. McCabe himself spent the early part of his current term of office trying to fight Roger Godsiff for the right to become the MP for Hall Green, a situation only resolved when Jones took the decision to stand down.
Then we have Richard 'Al' Burden, the MP for Northfield, a man who has always been too preoccupied with events in the Middle East, to have to worry about a major car plant going under in his constituency. Of course, now that Longbridge is a desolate wasteland, waiting for the economy to pick up before it can regenerate itself, Burden can spend his time trying to compete with Salma Yaqoob for the 'I hate Israel more than you contest'. Wait until Netanyahu is back in office later today, then we'll hear from him I am sure.
Birmingham needs a new start, with a new group of MPs who will address the unemployment issue head on.
According to a number of news sources, Ed "Fletcher-Dervish" Balls (pictured), who was with Gordon Brown when this terrible economic mess was in incubation, warned a friendly Labour audience over the weekend that the economic crisis currently engulfing the UK could last for a decade and will be the worst recession experienced in a hundred years. He also was pushing the now familiar Labour line that the BNP are the ones who are going to profit from the turmoil.
Naturally, comments like this from Mr. Balls and other Labour politicians are designed to scare the horses and bolster their own precarious positions in their own backyards.
I am much more optimistic than Mr. Balls and his ilk, for I don't share his belief that the working people of this country are so unsophisticated that they will run into the arms of a racist party like the BNP.
Yes, the BNP have tried to jump on the 'British jobs for British workers' bandwagon, but even on the picket lines, their presence will not be appreciated.
Unfortunately, it is the Labour Party and their anti-British policies that has spawned the BNP monster. When they deservedly return to opposition, they can dust off their placards and their Searchlight subscriptions and do what they have to do to help remove the boil of national socialism from the British political scene.
However in government, Labour, like they did the late 70s, have created the fertile conditions for the BNP/NF to grow.
Another reason, if we didn't need it already, to demonstrate that Labour are a disaster in power.
In a piece of classic socialist posturing, the man who has wasted BILLIONS of pounds on gold sales, flawed IT projects, compensation for hurt feelings, bailing out banks, etc.., our Prime Minister is expressing angry exasperation about bank bonuses.
Well after seeing my taxes poured away weekly in the Society Guardian jobs page for the last 12 years, I am afraid I have no sympathy for him.
Some of the bonuses may be obscene Mr. Brown, but not as obscene as what you have presided over.
Rage on mate, no one gives a toss what you have to say.
Well this Nottinghamshire Deputy Headteacher thinks so.
Probably a bit unfair to castigate or demonise a whole group of people who may be living their lives in the way they do for specific reasons. However, there is an awful lot of truth in what he says.
His message will of course fall on deaf ears in liberal circles purely because of the language used.
But of course a large residual group of the population in constant need of the state's assistance is what makes the Labour Party tick. If such people didn't exist then there would be no jobs, no grants, and no sinecures for their supporters.
Depressing.
So as soon as Coun Leddy splits hairs about the performance of Birmingham City Council's housing department, he is quickly left floundering when the performance of the last Labour administration is brought to his attention.
From soundings I have taken amongst some of his colleagues within the Birmingham Labour Party, they believe that Housing is not really his thing and suspect that he covets the position of Deputy Leader Ian Ward or may be that of his ward constituent Sir Albert Bore!
Anyway, Coun Leddy has joined the ranks of Labour's councillor bloggers, and given his penchant for playing the class warrior it should be an interesting read. Like our old friend Chris Hillcox, Coun Leddy lives a good few miles away from the area he is campaigning in, currently lamenting the fact that Oscott is turning blue again after years of Labour neglect.
Leddy's blog will be one I shall be monitoring over the next few months. You can be sure I will be commenting on it here.
