Digby Jones ‘could seize Birmingham’
A HERALDIC expert says Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, has legal rights to seize political and financial control of the city through a loophole that ministers overlooked when the former lawyer was ennobled in 2008.
Professor Alan Fisher of the history department of Birmingham University said he had stumbled on the oversight when researching recent political appointments to the House of Lords. The mistake means that Lord Jones could – theoretically – oust council leader Mike Whitby and take control of Birmingham’s £5 billion annual budget.
The academic said: “It’s not uncommon to see traditional processes circumvented in political appointments, where expediency means the government needs its chosen minister in place as soon as possible. These are usually minor and can be easily rectified retrospectively, but this is far more potentially serious, as it revolves around an ancient law of ‘Quartus Mensis Fossor Dies’. This says that anyone acceding to the baronetcy of a cathedral city ‘shall hold over all within all tithes, honours, tributes and favours for and through the Regent.’
In effect, this means Lord Jones could set and receive taxes, decide planning issues, and make appointments to key posts in the city.
Because the government failed to bring a simple ten-minute rule bill before the House of Lords to nullify the law, the professor said, it would now technically take an act of Parliament to prevent Lord Jones from seizing control of Birmingham.
That is thought unlikely, however, as sources close to Lord Jones said he was ‘amused’ to hear of the loophole, but he had no current plans to march on Victoria Square.
Cllr Mike Whitby, current leader of Birmingham City Council, could not be contacted.
Meanwhile, constitutional experts were this morning understood to be formulating an emergency bill to be put before parliament in what has already been labelled ‘Digby’s April 1 Law’.
