The recent Bank Holiday and school holidays seem to have slowed everything down for the last week, so I've had a rare week without meetings. Obviously that means I'm making up for it this week, with Labour Group tonight in preparation for yet another Council Meeting tomorrow. Two topics of interest in the Council House this week will surely be Lin Homer standing down as Chief Executive - the Evening Mail have yet to update their bit of the website, but in my copy of the paper, neither the Leader or the Deputy Leader of the Council have seen fit to comment on this news; the only comment is from a backbench Lib Dem Councillor (no prizes for guessing who..)

The other topic, which politicalhack has already touched on, is the result of the Lib Dem Leadership contest, and in particular the identity of the indecisive Lib Dem who couldn't make a decision between Tilsley and Wilkes. In the circumstances, it's not surprising that they fed the incorrect story to the press - but then again, showing up the Chief Reporter for the Birmingham Post probably isn't the best way to kick off a tenure as Deputy Leader of the Council...

Still awake (just) - I went to Manchester yesterday to see U2 , who were fantastic; unfortunately getting back to Birmingham saw us getting the 3.30am coach, so today has been slightly disorientating, having been up all night and only having had a few hours sleep this morning. I'm officially swearing off coach travel for life after hanging around the coach station for several hours and the journey back, but it was a small price to pay to see a band that I've always wanted to see live. I'm still not sure what to make of Manchester though - this was my third visit there, and I still haven't really got a feel for the place. I went up once to go the excellent People's History Museum, I've been to a conference there, and I was very impressed with the City Of Manchester stadium where we were yesterday, but I haven't seen anything to set Manchester apart from many other places I've visited. The early hours of the morning are probably not the best time to get a good impression of any city, but Manchester just doesn't feel like the Second City it keeps claiming to be.

This article in The Guardian got me worked up yesterday:

Worried about airline pollution? Sell your car, says Ryanair boss
Andrew Clark, transport correspondent
Wednesday June 22 2005
The Guardian

The thorny issue of climate change has left most airlines bending over
backwards to sound green. But Europe's largest low-cost carrier, Ryanair,
has dismissed its environmentally nervous rivals as "lemmings".

Ryanair's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, has refused to support an
industry-wide effort to limit carbon dioxide emissions. Asked yesterday
what he would say to travellers worried about the environment, he replied:
"I'd say, sell your car and walk."

This week, airlines including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, easyJet,
Flybe and First Choice, formed a sustainable aviation group aimed at
cracking down on pollution, noise and harmful emissions.

Mr O'Leary said Ryanair would not be joining: "A lot of members of the
sustainable aviation group won't be around in 10 years' time - that'll be
their main contribution to sustainable aviation."

He described the coalition as an example of "high-fare airlines getting
together to pursue policies blocking competition," adding: "The sustainable


aviation group, God help us, is another bunch of lemmings shuffling towards
a cliff edge."

Aircraft account for about 5% of carbon dioxide emissions and air travel is
forecast to double within 25 years. There are fears that cheap flights
could hamper efforts to fulfil Britain's commitments agreed at the Kyoto
summit in tackling climate change.

The aviation industry favours an emissions trading scheme, allowing
airlines to buy and sell carbon dioxide allocations. But Mr O'Leary said
such a scheme amounted to a plot by airlines such as British Airways to
punish rapidly growing rivals.

"British Airways won't be growing its existing emission levels because it's
going nowhere - it's shrinking," he said. "We will be increasing our
emissions over the next few years simply through growth in traffic."

Roger Wiltshire, director general of the British Air Transport Association,
said: "They obviously don't want to engage in a debate over the
environment, which is rather sad."

Environmentalists were less circumspect. Jeff Gazzard, of the GreenSkies
Alliance, said: "Michael O'Leary is a recidivist, serial polluter and he
should be arrested for crimes against the climate."

I've just finished reading High Tide by Mark Lynas, which is sort of a travelogue about climate change. Bascially he spent three years going around the world talking to people about how they felt climate change was affecting them, and it is well worth reading. I was feeling a bit smug about not driving a car when I started it, but when he points out that it only takes a couple of short haul flights a year to to bring carbon emissions up to the level of the average driver, I started to feel a bit guilty..and then a bit angry. I am flying up to Scotland next week. And for the first time I'm flying because it is cheaper than taking the train. The trip from Birmingham to Edinburgh is 5 hours by train, and once you factor in getting to and from airports and check in times, it's not a great deal less time by plane. But when I wanted to book this trip, back in March, the cheapest train ticket I could have bought was £85.00, whereas the plane ticket was £50.00 - a big enough difference to make it worthwhile to me. And now I see that rail companies are talking about congestion charging on trains where they are already making a huge profit on tickets..not really an idea that will encourage people to give up their cars and get the train instead.

I've been trying to finish everything up this week so that I can take a few days off without feeling guilty - a plan that may have been foiled when I collected the papers for Tuesday's Council Meeting, which is a three inch stack of reports which I will have to read between getting back on Monday, attending Labour Group and getting to Council. It includes the Mobile Masts Scrutiny report, which I have read, having been a member of the Committee; the Local Transport Plan, Bus Strategy, Housing Strategy and Revenue Account Reports and the Council Performance Plan. Not a lot to get through there then..

I'm off to Edinburgh later today, and I'll be going to the Make Poverty History march on Saturday, and then finding somewhere to watch Live8 - Edinburgh is supposed to have a screen but I've no idea where as yet - I think that will depend on the weather!