Government
Birmingham City Council is the largest local authority in Europe with 120 councillors representing 40 wards. Its headquarters are at the Council House in Victoria Square. The council currently has a Labour Party majority and is led by Sir Albert Bore, replacing the previous Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition at the May 2012 elections.
Birmingham's ten parliamentary constituencies are represented in the House of Commons by one Conservative, one Liberal Democrat and eight Labour MPs. In the European Parliament the city forms part of the West Midlands European Parliament constituency, which elects six Members of the European Parliament.
Birmingham was originally part of Warwickshire, but expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, absorbing parts of Worcestershire to the south and Staffordshire to the north and west. The city absorbed Sutton Coldfield in 1974 and became a metropolitan borough in the new West Midlands county. Up until 1986, the West Midlands County Council was based in Birmingham City Centre.
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Famous quotes containing the word government:
“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.”
—Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)