Month: May 2020

Birmingham Youth Strike for Climate ‘Get Serious about the Climate’

I have lived in Birmingham for over half a century. Much of the article reblogged here is new to me; communication to the public, to council tax payers, of climate related issues is essential given that the council has declared a climate emergency – something else which was news to me.

Birmingham Against The Cuts

Our demands to Birmingham City Council

Birmingham City Council declared a climate emergency on June 11th 2019. This is a very serious declaration. Birmingham Youth Strike for Climate believe the council is not taking the declaration seriously and thus we put forward these demands. We want the council to respond formally and publicly to our demands, it is in the best interests of all residents of Birmingham and of the world that they do so. To highlight the council’s failings, we will be targeting them in 6 areas where we feel they have contradicted the declaration of climate emergency. We want the council to Get Serious about the Climate.

  1. Communicate.

We want the council to communicate to the public in a way that is clear and accessible for all residents of Birmingham, especially on climate-related issues. The council should prioritise climate-related issues in their communications and ensure they are telling the public what they are doing to tackle the…

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F.A. Cup final 1987, Coventry 3–Spurs 2, but British Rail were my real winners!

This match always puts me in mind of the Monty Python Communist Quiz sketch, in which Lenin, Marx, Mao and Che Guevara, believing themselves to be on a political debate show, find they are actually participants in a game show. One of the anglocentric football questions is this:
“Well bad luck there, Karl. So we’ll go onto you Che. Che Guevara – Coventry City last won the FA Cup in what year? (cut to Che looking dumbfounded) No? I’ll throw it open. Coventry City last won the FA Cup in what year? (they all look blank) No? Well, I’m not surprised you didn’t get that. It was in fact a trick question. Coventry City have never won the FA Cup.”
Clearly no longer the case post ‘87.
Then again Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson didn’t win the 1959 Eurovision Song Contest, so I am assuming certain comic licence.
Cheers Phil, great story, thanks for sharing.

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FAcup1

The cup final of 1987 was a remarkable match. Not only because it was Coventry City’s first and only appearance in the FA’s Wembley final, but for me, it was also one of the best days I ever spent with my late father in law Harry Moore. Tickets for the match were hard to come by in Coventry. Everybody in Godiva’s city wanted one, and I, as a young father couldn’t afford the official price let alone the ridiculous figures at which they changed hands in Coventry pubs. However, Harry ran a business in Foleshill Road and had obtained two tickets through the Chamber of Trade. He wasn’t really an avid football fan and confessed to me he really wanted to go for the community singing and marching bands that precedes the match. Still, a Wembley final is a special event and something everyone should experience at least once in…

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Adult Social Care in England and Birmingham – and how the Council can take it out of the market

Birmingham Against The Cuts

These are Notes for a talk by Richard Hatcher at Birmingham Trades Council’s May Day event, 2 April 2020

We all have experience of doctors’ surgeries and  hospitals. Most of us have little experience of adult social care. (I’m not going to include children’s social care which raises different issues.) It has taken the pandemic to make people more aware of the social care system – the number of deaths the shortage of PPE, the risk to dedicated staff.

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A 35% job loss in Birmingham as the result of Covid-19 in April to June

Birmingham Against The Cuts

Professor Anne Green writes about ‘Estimates of the Local Impact in the West Midlands of the OBR Scenario of a 35% Reduction in Real GDP in Q2 2020’ in the City REDI Blog at Birmingham University, 28 April:

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