I posed the question last week of how much longer Liberal Democrat backbenchers were going to allow themselves to be humiliated by the Conservative half of the coalition running Birmingham City Council.
The answer would appear to be indefinitely if the great wheelie bin fiasco is anything to go by.
A meeting of the Lib Dem group on the eve of this week's full council meeting agreed to send John Hemming to "broker a deal" with Tory transportation cabinet member Len Gregory, who harbours a pathological hatred towards wheelie bins.
Why they didn't ask group leader Paul Tilsley, whose diplomatic skills and extraordinary charisma are renowned across the West Midlands, to have a cosy chat with the leader of the council I do not know. But there it is.
Hemming, who is unusual in that he has a brain the size of Texas but can still do the touchy-feely stuff, was told to find a compromise in order to allow Gregory to accept the recommendation of a scrutiny committee, chaired by Lib Dem Martin Mullaney, that wheelie bin pilot projects take place in parts of Birmingham where local councillors approve of the idea.
My man in the sandals and recycled suit explains that Hemming's first "deal" fell flat when the Tory group rejected it out of hand. A second proposal by the great man (Hemming, not Gregory) was rejected by the Lib Dem group when it was realised the text of a resolution to the council meeting didn't actually include the words "wheelie bins".
Finally, Gregory agreed to think about wheelie bin pilot projects in parts of Birmingham where local support for the idea can be shown.
But how is this support to be measured?
Mullaney thinks this means support as in the backing of ward councillors.
Am I alone in suspecting that Len Gregory will want to see extensive consultation among council tax payers, an exercise that could go on almost indefinitely before anything is decided? It could even last as long as the infamous Tyburn Road bus lane consultation, which has been running for three years with no sign of a conclusion.
Mullaney, meanwhile, is fuming over what he calls the "unethical behaviour" of Tory councillors Robert Alden and Tim Huxtable, who were members of the wheelie bin scrutiny committee but spoke out at the full council meeting against recommendations for pilot projects. They introduced "new evidence" which ought to have been presented and discussed at the scrutiny committee, according to Mullaney.
He is to ask for a scrutiny code of conduct to be drawn up.
That should be a document worth seeing.
-------
Iron Angle's suggestion a few weeks ago that a Labour Government might spike the guns of Tory-led Birmingham City Council by placing the Central Library on a list of architecturally important buildings, thus preventing its demolition, seems to have set off a certain amount of panic.
A last-minute letter writing campaign by council leader Mike Whitby, to the great and good of the city, urges recipients to write to the Department for Media Culture and Sport in support of the local authority's application for a certificate of immunity from listing.
Knocking down the library, described by the 20th Century Society as a fine example of brutalist architecture, is of course an essential requirement for Whitby's grand plan to redevelop Paradise Circus and build a new £193 million library in Centenary Square.
Unfortunately, Government officials are unlikely to receive many messages of support since Whitby's letter fell through letter boxes on the very day the DCMS consultation period ended.
-------
West Midlands Police are showing their usual unwillingness to investigate alleged election fraud in Birmingham, despite the best efforts of a judge to gee them up.
Timothy Straker QC, presiding over the Aston election court, appears to have had his fill of evidence from witnesses who find it impossible to remember anything, even in one case of where they live or their age.
Alarm bells should sound, however, since Mr Straker has made it clear any findings of illegal practices he may make will not necessarily be limited to the Labour Party.