The Birmingham Mail's fight for democracy may yet win the day...!

Funny how newspaper campaigns never quite die off...

In early 2007, the Birmingham Mail launched its 'Elected Mayor: Let the People Decide' campaign, insisting that the city council should allow its electorate to decide whether a change in the form of local government was wanted or not.

Many at the council were not happy, as councillors of the ruling parties enjoy selecting their own leaders.

That may well be the eventual wish of your average Brummie... but because of previously flawed consultations we'll never know until we ask them. See HERE for a full discussion on this issue.

Anyway, that campaign was calmed after a year, because the only way we could legally force a referendum was to have collected 36,000 signatures of registered voters. We managed 10,000+, but were well short of the total needed.

But the subject just won't go away.

Annoyed by various councils' intransigence, civil servants at the Dept for Communities and Local Government have been working away at new trigger levels (2% is the understood target in a white paper) and have also been researching digital petitions (the one we ran had to be in ink, with signatures, with no email or online support accepted).

And that's just the Labour government's attempts to further the idea of elected mayors.

The Tories, meanwhile, have long promised a forced referendum in all major cities, something that local council leader Mike Whitby, a Tory, has already clashed with his political boss David Cameron about.

Now, at this week's Tory conference, the party has confirmed that this will happen, with shadow local government minister and Meriden MP Caroline Spelman saying they would hold referenda across the country on the same day as soon as possible after coming to power.

This could be as soon as May 2011, a year after a general election, with voting coinciding with local council elections.

The BBC's Politics Show came to our offices at Fort Dunlop to film an interview with yours truly on the matter, and this will be shown in a special report tomorrow, (noon Sunday, BBC1).