Mike Whitby

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Mike Whitby is a Conservative Party politician and current leader of Birmingham City Council, a post he has held since June 2004. He is one of three Conservative councillors representing the Harborne ward in the west of the city.

Contents 1 Background 2 In politics 3 Controversy 4 Relationship with Conservative Party Leadership 5 References

[edit] Background

Mike Whitby was educated in Birmingham at James Watt Technical Grammar School, and also at Michael's Hoven College in the then West Germany. He then undertook a period of voluntary work in Germany, helping to rebuild communities destroyed during World War II.

He has worked in the cultural sector in Liverpool, and also lectured in Business and Management Studies. He is currently Chairman and Managing Director of Skeldings, a small Smethwick engineering company, which was the winner of the Birmingham Post Business Award in June 2001

Whitby has served as both a Director and as Chairman of various large organisations, including the Engineering & Employers Federation, the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses, the National Exhibition Centre and the Aston Science Park. He is a member of the Institute of Directors.

[edit] In politics

Whitby joined the Conservative Party in 1979. He first stood as a candidate in the Midlands West European by-election in 1987, then as a Westminster Parliamentary candidate for Delyn in 1992, on both occasions unsuccessfully. He finally achieved elected office in 1997, on winning the Harborne ward of Birmingham in a by-election. He has retained the seat since, most recently in the 2006 local election.

He became Leader of the Conservative Group on Birmingham City Council in 2003, and following the city-wide elections in 2004 has led the Council in what he terms a 'progressive partnership' with the Liberal Democrats.

On August 15, 2007, Mike Whitby announced the appointment of Urban Initiatives as lead consultants for the new Birmingham masterplan. The first comprehensive city centre masterplan in the history of the city, it is hoped the process will usher in a new period of regeneration within Birmingham.

[edit] Controversy

At times ,Whitby has attracted headlines as a result of comments he has made in public. In 2006, he made a written apology to newly-elected Respect Councillor Salma Yaqoob following remarks he made that she would be "better off" in Oldham or Burnley. Yaqoob had criticised the Council leadership for the absence of Black or Asian Councillors in the Council Cabinet or in senior positions such as Chairs of Scrutiny Committees.^[1]

In February 2007, Whitby withdrew remarks which attracted the attention of mental health charity Mind. In a council debate, he accused Labour Councillors of suffering from schizophrenia. In the same debate, a Cabinet colleague also described the Labour Councillors of suffering senile dementia. Following media attention Whitby issued a 'partial apology'.^[2]

On becoming leader of Birmingham City Council in 2004, one of councillor Whitby's first acts was to discontinue plans for a new central library in the Eastside regeneration area of the city. Despite planning for the project being well advanced and there being a widely admired design by Richard Rogers, the newly elected Conservative-Liberal partnership believed the proposed building was in the wrong place and would cost too much. Since then, there have been suggestions (later retracted and then repeated) that the city would hold an international competition for a new library on a different site next to Centenary Square. Suggestions have since been raised that the new site is too small and that the costs have actually risen since the Rogers scheme was rejected. Objections have also been raised by some conservationists to the proposed demolition of the existing Central Library, designed by local architect John Madin.

In December 2007, Building Design listed Mike Whitby as amongst those people who had had a 'bad year': 'Conservative Whitby has presided over the collapse of Birmingham’s design credentials from the days of former council leader Albert Bore. Most damage was done when he announced that the new Birmingham library would be smaller and more expensive than the Richard Rogers’ design, abandoned on his orders in 2005. Birmingham’s reputation took a further blow when he publicly backed the RTKL’s Vertiplex (pictured), a design roundly criticised by Cabe and local architects, while the city’s Orion housing came second in BD’s Carbuncle Cup.'^[3]

[edit] Relationship with Conservative Party Leadership

Whitby has clashed with the leadership of the Conservative Party and the Leader David Cameron on more than one occasion. In December 2007, he criticised the study of a Tory think tank headed by former Conservative Party Leader Iain Duncan Smith to be "error-ridden, inaccurate, out of date and misleading".^[4] The report claimed the Council needed to tackle crushing poverty and unemployment before it could hail Birmingham as a great city.

In the same month, Whitby also criticised David Cameron in relation to the issue of directly elected mayors to run major cities in England. Whitby has been opposed to having a directly elected mayor in Birmingham. He compared the Tory leader's support for elected mayors to other ideas Cameron had put forward such as "taxing plasma screen televisions and taxing cars in car parks". Whitby commented that "he soon rescinded" those.^[5]

At the time of those comments Whitby described the debate around elected mayors as "puerile" and disputed the idea that support for the idea would form part of the forthcoming Conservative Party manifesto.

[edit] References