THE HEZZA-BORE SAGA

Between Sir Michael Heseltine and Sir Albert Bore I have no idea where Birminghamis headed.

It seems to be as dysfunctional as ever.

Thanks to Sir Albert’s out of date philosophies and his ‘war’ with Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles – a war which cannot be won – we as a city are increasingly isolated from the Government.

The Prime Minister for Birmingham, Sir Michael, seems obsessed with his own half-baked blueprint whose chances of success seem in the lap of the gods.

Meanwhile West Midlandsunemployment continues to rise as national rates fall.

Both men seem to think that inward investment can be conjured out of thin air.

Birminghamdoes pick up small scale job boosts from business expansions and arrivals yet the employment ledger remains in the red – for example in the last few months we have seen the Hovis bakery closure and now, down to the unfortunate fire, it looks like nearly 700 jobs gone with the likely abandonment of Daw Mill Colliery.

For years it has been one step forward and two steps back.

What ‘growth’ there is in the city centre tends to be law and accountancy firms moving around rather than genuine newcomers being attracted, and currently professional services is under pressure as never before, with the sector quietly axing people rather than taking them on.

Then we have enterprise zones – a re-make of in initiative which never really made it first time round in Mrs Thatcher’s day.

Ours is a bizarre patchwork of seven clusters of 26 development sites – the Dalmatian Zone.

The two schemes lauded so far are Paradise Circus and the Assay Office.

The former, while welcome, is just one load of new offices replacing a hotch-potch of existing development. The latter is simply a modernisation of something we already have.

I repeat – what we need is genuine new investment, it hasn’t been happening and there is no indication that it will.

Not so long ago I was chatting with a senior industry figure who had no confidence that enterprise zones would produce anything of consequence. Companies, he suggested, would not be attracted simply on the basis of a bit of a rates holiday and some sexy broadband – there would have to be a much more significant reason to want to be located in Birmingham.

Apart from which the space is already there now for anyone who wants it – look at the vast acreage of Longbridge.

If we are not careful we will be in the farcical position of industrial sites competing with each other for the slim pickings on offer.

It is all very well to cite how these initiatives will mean thousands of new jobs, but only if you can attract businesses willing to create those jobs. Otherwise the whole thing is a mirage – a delusion.

And delusions are dangerous because you can only move forward if you understand your limitations and are realistic about what might be achieved.

The only big scheme of recent times has been Jaguar Land Rover building its new engine plant at the i54 complex near Wolverhampton – logical because it links the car maker’s Birminghamand Liverpool factories.

But for the most part such big projects are few and far between these days and anyway the JLR success is purely down to JLR and parent Tata. Its achievements are its own – indeed in the depths of the 2007/8 recession the then Labour government would have allowed it to go to the wall.

Nothing to do with enterprise zones or government incentives.

Meanwhile Heseltine seems to think that if Birmingham can manage more of its ‘own’ expenditure then this will somehow be transformational.

Why?

How are the sums he quotes going to be extracted from the national pot?

We might get the odd sop but turkeys don’t vote for Christmas so why should the Treasury and other Government Departments willingly cooperate?

In any case Birminghamhas a pretty poor record on spending the money it currently gets. What evidence is there that it would be any wiser with more to play around with … especially in Sir Albert’s Alice in Wonderland world?

After all, this is not new money but merely existing money which is already spent here.

As for borrowing against punts that the future will somehow bring better times … that is a recipe for disaster.

The only way forward in my view is to encourage the private sector to re-create the manufacturing base, and get back to selling to the world.

Playing politics the Bore-Heseltine way – the former a man who seems incapable of learning from his previous mistakes and the latter who appears well past his sell-by date – will get us nowhere.