Birmingham Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Birmingham City Council were criticised yesterday for arranging a seminar for local businesses on how to move their business away from the West Midlands.

The President of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, ironically, has a seat on the board of Advantage West Midlands, the unelected regional development agency whose job it is to attract jobs and investment into the West Midlands.  No wonder they’re on track to miss four out of their six targets from the British government!

The seminar has been arranged by Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and is being supported by Birmingham City Council and will offer advice and assistance on offshoring all or part of their business.

Of course, if the board of Advantage West Midlands was elected rather than appointed from a pool of eurofederalist yes-men, we would be able to boot the President of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce out of office through the ballot box.  But it’s not elected and the electorate is only allowed to pay for Advantage West Midlands, not have a say in how it’s run.

If a local councillor started offering practical assistance to local businesses to move to another town they would most likely find themselves out of a job come the next election but in the unelected regional quangos, incompetence is rewarded.  Take Phil Davies as an example – he used to be the Leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, was sacked by his own party for incompetence and has gone on to secure several high-profile, taxpayer-funded jobs with regional quangos.  The reason?  He’s a member of the Labour Party, he’s a eurofederalist, he supports the balkanisation of England into euroregions and – most importantly – he does as he’s told.

Call me old fashioned, but I think that if you’ve got a job to do then you do it and if you don’t then you should be out of a job – doubly so if your job is in the public sector and funded by the taxpayer.  The President of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, John Crabtree OBE, has failed in his position as a director of Advantage West Midlands by allowing his Chamber to arrange a seminar to encourage local businesses to relocate abroad.  He should be removed from the board immediately and a free and fair election held so that the electorate can decide who is going to have a say in spending Advantage West Midlands’ £300m taxpayer-funded budget.

Technorati Tags: AWM, Birmingham, Offshoring