If I had a pound every time I heard a rumour that an MP, senior councillor or MEP was going to resign, only to have it dismissed as utter rubbish I would be sitting on a beach right now instead of being sat at a desk writing this.
The rumour mill is particularly aggressive in the Labour Party – partly no doubt a result of its dominance of politics in Birmingham, but perhaps as much a result of its set up.
So it was no surprise to see that Hall Green MP Roger Godsiff has reached the end of his tether after hearing that senior councillors are going around the local membership lobbying for a successor. Godsiff was given a safe Birmingham seat in 1992 in controversial circumstances as a reward for helping then Labour leader Neil Kinnock in his modernisation of the Labour Party by supporting the campaign against the ‘loony left’.
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I heard an unfounded rumour that he was stepping down in 2010. So this week’s events are by no means unprecedented.
But the reaction has been furious. His stiff letter, leaked to the press and the Birmingham Labour group at large, told Couns Habib Rehman and, by implication his friend Tahir Ali, to stop stirring.
Coun Ali’s response was that MPs really should not be getting worked up about rumours of their resignation as they are so frequent.
And he is right.
I have heard several times that Hodge Hill MP Liam Byrne is all set to follow his Blairite friend David Miliband out of the House of Commons to various lucrative jobs outside party politics.
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There have been about 500 different rumours (and that is only a slight exaggeration) that Khalid Mahmood is giving up his Perry Barr seat – partly because he has had to deal with kidney disease – but in a recent meeting he seemed as determined as ever to carry on.
About the only Birmingham Labour MP not attached to any such rumour is Jack Dromey in Erdington – but that is because he has only been in the House for a couple of years.
Of course, Jack secured the seat on the back of a genuine resignation. The announcement of his predecessor Sion Simon that he was stepping down to campaign for mayor of Birmingham came out of the blue. Demonstrating another failure of the rumour mill.
The problem is that Birmingham has over the last 15 years delivered at least eight MPs to Parliament, most of them safe and secure – these seats are highly desirable and selection for any ambitious politician virtually guarantees a job for as long you want it.
That is why the contest to succeed Clare Short in Ladywood, between Shabana Mahmood and Yvonne Mosquito, a few years ago was so bitter. Divisions have still not healed.
Similar rumours and jockeying are now beginning to surface over Labour councillors as we near selection for the 2014 local elections. Some of these in the past have ended up with court challenges.
Part of me believes that these selections and rumours are matters for the Labour Party, in the same way that the election of a bowls club committee is a matter for the club.
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But when that selection virtually guarantees the winner public office because the seats are that safe, then it is imperative the Party gets its house in order.
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I recently suggested that Sir Albert Bore had secured a convincing victory over his rival for Labour leadership John Clancy and decided that would be the end of the matter.
But it appears that even securing two-thirds of Labour group on a 51-23 vote - a majority a national Prime Minister or party leader can only dream of - is not enough for Sir Albert.
Not least because he and his supporters cannot work out who the 23 dissenters are.
There are a few hard core members of the anti-Albert camp, including those overlooked for top jobs and some who want to inject a more socialism into the Labour administration.
There are also somewhere between five and ten who remain unknown following the secret ballot.
I have now heard reports of an internal inquest, councillors have been summonsed and quizzed. As one senior councillor suggested the first job of the new group chief whip Mohammed Idrees is to find out who is no side and who is not. No easy task.