Mailwatch(ed) Forum

News from Birmingham : It ain’t good. Looks like we might be headed for only about 25 Labour seats (there are currently 65).
Reform might have up to 40.

Lib Dems about 30. Others around 10.

Looks bloody ungovernable to me, but I surmise a Reform/Tory coalition is what we’ll end up with.

Isn't Birmingham broke?

No, the council moved out of bankruptcy last year.

Are they still on the strike the bin men?

mattomac wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2026 6:06 pm Are they still on the strike the bin men?

We're still waiting for the ballot result.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2026 9:10 pm Looks bloody ungovernable to me, but I surmise a Reform/Tory coalition is what we’ll end up with.

Tories having to play junior partner to councillors too shit or unhinged to have been selected as Conservative candidates. Its what this party deserve.

It will be interesting to see how that plays out and if they do get bad press it might be something to hammer home in a few years time. I am speaking from relative security in Morden which I expect goes from Lab to NOC or Lib Dems

Other than the results, the worst thing will be the discourse.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Wed May 06, 2026 12:08 am Other than the results, the worst thing will be the discourse.

Discourse will be worse than the results probably. They will get the debunked model out that told them for about 3 years that Labour wouldn’t win an Election only for them to win and it’s going be even worse this time with 5 not 4 parties.

No elections in Leicestershire, as we’re on the “opposite” cycle. I can take this as a small mercy

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Wed May 06, 2026 12:08 am Other than the results, the worst thing will be the discourse.

If Reform's seat gains aren't that different from the Greens, Plaid or Lib Dems and Labour's losses lower than expected, it will still be Nigel's night.

Problem with local elections is that the party elected to run the council can be an incompetent no policy bunch of life's misfits but the government get the blame as the term goes on, because they're the government and the people who voted for said party at the locals certainly aren't capable of differentiating between the two.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2026 9:10 pm News from Birmingham : It ain’t good. Looks like we might be headed for only about 25 Labour seats (there are currently 65).
Reform might have up to 40.

Lib Dems about 30. Others around 10.

Looks bloody ungovernable to me, but I surmise a Reform/Tory coalition is what we’ll end up with.

Now it's looking even worse. More in Common have them winning 47 seats.

MIC do overestimate the Reform vote. It’s actually a test for some of these pollsters.

Does a council that can't take your rubbish away expect or deserve to be re-elected?

This article does set out a lot of background to the bin strike.

https://labourlist.org/2026/04/time-to- ... e-workers/

It is six o’clock in the morning, in a Birmingham suburban street. Everything is quiet and still. Then suddenly there is a rumbling of engines and a clatter of wheelie bins. This is before last year, and the refuse workers have arrived. They go at the gallop. The bin lorry goes up and down the road as fast as it can. The bins are emptied in a rush, and left anywhere, away from the houses they belong to, sometimes at the end of the street. Rubbish from bins that have been quickly tipped – or bags that have broken being taken to the lorry – is left in the road.

Some weeks this didn’t happen, because it just wasn’t collected. About one week in every three from my experience, though sometimes there were three week gaps between collections.

This was the reality of bin collections in Birmingham until Unite went on strike a year ago. It was a practice called Task and Finish. That meant that when they had finished their allotted round they were free to go home. A big incentive to go fast and do as little as you can get away with. Task and Finish was supposed to have stopped in 2015 but it didn’t. It came back with Covid, and was still going in 2022, when lorries were filmed leaving Tyseley depot at 5a.m. and coming back at 9a.m having done rounds which were meant to take a day.

It’s easy for Labour people to believe Unite when they paint their members as working class heroes victimised by a wicked unworthy Labour council. They have a magnificent press operation. Experiencing their service, though, gives you pause. And what makes things worse is their role in the financial problems of Birmingham city council.

In 2023 Birmingham issued a section 114 notice, which meant the council was unable to meet its debts: what the unsympathetic local press called ‘bankruptcy’. The result was two years of drastic service cuts. They included closing libraries and reducing hours; significant cuts to adult social care and children’s services; and a phased withdrawal of all arts grants, including that to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Council tax rose by 10% in 2024 and 7.5% in 2025. It’s been a painful experience for all Brummies. But this is where the Unite refuse workers come in.

The main cause of the section 114 notice was the liability from equal pay claims. There was also a significant problem with a new computer service, but the biggest issue was and is equal pay. Local authority job grading is done by a national system which allows very different jobs to be compared against each other.

I know the background to the bin dispute but when you're in charge you invariably take the bullet for the chaos.

Youngian wrote: ↑Thu May 07, 2026 7:56 am ... but when you're in charge you invariably take the bullet for the chaos.

Unless your name is Michael Howard, you're the Home Secretary, and there's a crisis in the Prison Service. Then it really is nothing to do with you.

Doesn't mean 'he did it, sir' will wash with the electorate. Or Paxman in Howard's case.

Resolute leader taking on bullies holding the country to ransom, brings respect. As long as you win.

Having thought I’d left frantic polling day activity behind me, I’ve been persuaded to have our abode used as the Campaign Centre for two wards (my own ward and its neighbour) here in south Brum.

Things haven’t really got started yet, but the house feels a bit like the condemned cell. Before the whirlwind.

Ahh well. C’est la guerre. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and all that bollocks.

Wish us luck. We’re going to need it.