Someone must have stiffened Alistair Dow's backbone. The head of Birmingham city council's scrutiny section has hand-picked members of the awkward squad for his review group examining the business case for the £193 million new library.
Mick Wilkes, the Lib Dem who brilliantly exposed the folly of the split site library scheme, is on board along with former Tory leisure cabinet member John Alden, who has no reason to be too loyal to his old chums on the executive. Labour deputy leader Ian Ward and rising star Penny Holbrook are also there.
You would have needed a heart of stone not to feel sorry for Brian Gambles, the head of library services. He had plenty of the vision-stuff, but unfortunately the committee wanted facts – which were about as thin on the ground as Shakespeare first folios.
Wilkes grumbled about "flowery language" and "slippery words" in the business case, which in his view were being used to disguise an inferior product.
A production area, grandly described as a dedicated space where live performances could take place, turned out to be the building's foyer, he pointed out. A 350-seat theatre might have only 250 seats, or it might not.
Ward said the whole project was being driven by accountants rather than librarians. And even the gentle Dow took the view that, frankly, things were not entirely unsatisfactory.
The new library would be significantly smaller than first planned, there were no signs that the city was getting the best it possibly could, and Birmingham seemed to be losing its way, he feared.
The appropriately named Mr Gambles ended with a flourish. The size of the library may have been reduced, but there is no shrinkage in the vision, he said. Size doesn't matter.
Mark my words. They'll be selling tickets to get in before this scrutiny ends.
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Is there anything remaining of the consultants' report into the future of Moseley Road Baths that has not been leaked to the media?
But council cabinet leisure member Ray Hassall still refuses to release the document publicly.
Attempts by senior Liberal Democrat councillors to persuade Hassall to see sense appear to have failed.
Hassall can expect support from the Conservative side of the progressive partnership, where obsessive secrecy is a way of life.
We have witnessed the emergence of what looks like a deliberate policy to treat the electorate with contempt. In particular, non-co-operation with Freedom of Information Act requests.
Hassall refused to release the Moseley Road baths report, while a separate request to say how many council employees had used FoI legislation to uncover personal details about the new pay and grading system was also rejected.
But the most ludicrous decision of all – and a real two-fingers to MPs who drafted the Freedom of Information legislation – was the refusal to release officers' recommendations about the future (or lack of future) of the Tyburn Road bus lanes.
In drawing up the legislation, Parliament made it clear that there would be occasions when advice given by civil servants, or indeed council officers, would have to remain confidential.
But surely the legislators had in mind sensitive subjects, issues involving security and the defence of the realm for instance.
Whether there should be bus lanes along the Tyburn Road hardly comes under the category of state secrecy.
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It is probably an extraordinary coincidence, but the proposed route for next year's Birmingham half marathon takes in mainly Liberal Democrat and Conservative wards.
Starting at the Alexander Stadium in Perry Barr, safe Lib Dem territory, the race will snake its way through marginal Aston, where the Lib Dems face a tough fight to save council seats, and through the city centre before heading out in a magisterial procession through Tory Edgbaston.
It is true that the race finishes in Centenary Square, in Labour-held Ladywood, but the runners will be kept well away from the tower blocks and council estates.