D-Day disaster, Army Colonel parachutes in and a new boss at the city council
And why every national journalist is in Alum Rock this week
Hey Insiders, it’s the end of week two of the General Election campaign, with just four to go. Isn’t it whizzing by? The polls seem to have it that a Labour landslide is now nailed on, and Rishi Sunak seems to be doing his best to hammer that lead home.
No apology will ever overcome the optics of being the UK Prime Minister who decided an election campaign telly interview was more important than sticking it out to the end of the D-Day 80th anniversary events in Normandy. Lest we forget, the focus of the day and the coverage of it should have been wholly about people like Joe Mines, a veteran of the landings.
His poignant words floated across the memorial gathering under a sharp blue sky.
“I’ve never been back here for 80 years. I’ve often thought what would I go back for, after all the terrible things I’ve seen. Like a picture book up there (in my mind) I can visualise everything…we cleared the mines on the beach, that was the first job I got, all over the place they were. Joe Mines, clearing mines. One of our fellas trod on one, and blew his leg off. The whole leg went. War is brutal.
“I was 19 when I landed but I was still a boy. I don’t care what people say, I was not a man, I was a boy and I didn’t have any idea of war, and killing…I was lucky, I had lots and lots of luck. So why would I come back…well, this is the last and only opportunity for me to be here, the last there will ever be and it’s because of the lads. I want to pay my respects to those who didn’t make it. May they rest in peace.”
You can watch Martin Freeman share his words beautifully here.
While Sunak’s PR machine battles to overcome that insult, national journalists are descending on Birmingham en masse - well, to Alum Rock Road to be precise, drawn in by the prospect of an upset for Keir Starmer key ally Shabana Mahmood in Ladywood. While Sunak can hardly get anything right, Independent Akhmed Yakoob is controlling the media spin with aplomb, despite multiple outstanding questions about his policies, funding and ambition.
Alum Rock is his preferred backdrop, where Palestinian flags adorn street corners, and where he secured a winning margin of votes over Labour during the mayoral election last month. It’s a ward that only recently came under Ladywood thanks to the redrawn constituency map, and is his campaign HQ.
In Yardley, currently the seat of Labour’s Jess Phillips, disabled activist and Palestine campaigner Jody McIntyre is also making waves; in Selly Oak, Prof Kamel Hawwash is getting traction; and in Hall Green, both Shakeel Afsal and Mohammed Hafeez are taking the fight to Tahir Ali, among others.
Khalid Mahmood is facing an Independent Gaza challenge in his Perry Barr seat from barrister Ayoub Khan, who recently quit the Lib Dems - and to add to his woe, it was hinted that he was also going to face his former parliamentary aide and ex lover Elaina Cohen on the campaign trail. She has now ruled that out.
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The Conservatives, Lib Dems, Reform UK, George Galloway’s Workers Party, the Greens, the Communists and others are also mounting campaigns across the city. A full list of candidates in every constituency will be out tonight, after which the battle for seats will ramp up considerably.
Next week I’ll be bringing you insight from my dig into who the candidates are and what they stand for as part of my Massive General Election Road Trip. I’m visiting every constituency in the city, meeting candidates and voters from Boldmere to Bordesley Green, Soho to Shard End. Look out for my reflections on what I find.
Brummie home-coming for new boss at Birmingham City Council
Speaking of Shard End, one of the neighbourhood’s own, Joanne Roney, is heading back south to take on the, cough, £295k job as Managing Director of Birmingham City Council.
It’s a mahoosive job - the biggest and most challenging in local government in the country, exacerbated by the fact the council is currently under the oversight of interventionist commissioners, with a huge deficit and in the throes of flogging prized assets. Roney, 62, had been widely expected to make her current job at Manchester City Council her swansong before retiring. Instead she’s heading home.
She started out as a 16 year old apprentice in the housing department, fresh from a council house in Shard End. Reaction to the announcement among senior local government bods with any previous links to the city has been swift, most hugely hopeful that Roney could be ‘the one’ to bring stability.
Among those giving their public seal of approval is Jo Miller, former Doncaster CEO now living in New Zealand, who unsuccessfully interviewed for the Birmingham job some years back. In a tweet today she wrote: “Congratulations to my dear pal…every place is fixable, everything is doable & Birmingham has richness in its people, place and institutions. Jo will put her shoulder to the wheel and galvanise all to make it work. Go Jo, go. Exciting times ahead.”
It was a view shared by former city education director Prof Colin Diamond, who tweeted: “Jo has been an excellent CEO in Manchester. A great appointment for Birmingham and we are lucky that she is choosing to come home. The city desperately needs the stable and able leadership she will bring.” The reaction has not been 100% positive in truth from the local government community, with one questioning her ability to keep staff on side. One critic did however concede that she is nothing if not a ‘street fighter’ who will battle for the city. I look forward to interviewing her about her ambitions and hopes for us all.
The city council has been plagued by a run of in-and-out chief executives since Mark Rogers was all-but booted out in 2017 after three years. Since then it’s been a proper hot seat, burning the bums of everyone who has sat in it. First Angela Probert acted up, then Stella Manzie came in as an interim (2017-18), then came Dawn Baxendale (2018-2019). Clive Heaphy acted up from 2019-20, quitting after he was rejected for the permanent gig. Graeme Betts acted up for a few months, until the council brought in Chris Naylor as interim CEO. He didn’t last long, his planned permanent appointment scuppered in a row about his contract among other things.
Graeme Betts stepped up again, only to make way for Deborah Cadman in March 2021. Brummie raised and strongly connected, she was going to finally bring stability -only to get out in the wake of the council’s financial implosion. Betts is back for now - but only until Roney steps in this autumn. We wish her all the luck in the world - it looks like she will need it.
But now, onto the main event today - my look at why the Labour Party overlooked any local talent in favour of NEC-favoured outsiders. Do read on Insiders. If you are a paying subscriber, thank you so much, I love you. If you’re a free subscriber, thank you also - you are missing out on the full caboodle of my musings, for what they are worth, but if you can cope with that you are hugely welcome all the same.
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Did Labour organise a stitch-up to parachute in MP candidates - and who cares anyway?
I worked for a newspaper in the 1990s that had as its strapline on advertising boards: ‘Local News for Local People’. It predated the League of Gentlemen’s creation of darkly comic Royston Vasey village by at least a decade but would have made a perfect A-board outside Tubbs’ Local Shop for Local People. “Strangers would not understand us, our customs, our local ways,” as the murderous Tubbs would have it.
It was this recollection that first came to mind when concerns were aired about why the Labour party had eschewed any local talent to fill its newly vacant seats in Northfield, Selly Oak and Tipton and Wednesbury.
“They aren’t local” seemed to be the main objection, and still is among some Labour members. But just being ‘an outsider’ is not the issue here.
Had the party gone through its usual member-led selection process, and the chosen candidates emerged as the best choice, members could not have cared less if they were from Sparkhill or Sunderland, they tell me. Jack Dromey and Steve McCabe are recent examples of outsiders done good, they say.
But some members are irked at the timeline involved and say the least the party should give them is honesty.
“They had a list of people who had been promised seats when they came up, wherever in the country that was. It didn’t matter who came forward locally, the choice was already made,” said one member.
This seemed to be confirmed by the partner of Antonia Bance, a Londoner and head of communications at the Trades Union Congress, who claimed in a now deleted tweet that Bance’s Tipton and Wednesbury candidacy had been personally endorsed by deputy leader Angela Rayner, giving little chance for local candidates. Rejected alternatives were understood to have included former assistant West Midlands police and crime commissioner Tom McNeil.
In Selly Oak and Northfield, the story got conspiratorial. That’s because the window for applications to stand in a specified seat at the GE closed at noon on May 28th - and it was only after that when candidates for Selly Oak and Northfield announced they were not going to stand after all.
At 11pm on the night of May 28th, veteran MP Steve McCabe posted a message on Twitter announcing he was giving up the quest to retain his seat. He spoke of reaching his decision after much deliberation and of standing aside to make way for someone new.
Over in Northfield, Labour’s candidate there, Alex Aitken, was also making the decision that he did not want to stand after all. His announcement went out at 8pm, also on May 28th.
It meant Labour had ‘no choice’ but to use its emergency procedures and parachute in candidates waiting on the sidelines who were prepared to stand anywhere to get a shot, had passed due diligence and had the approval of the National Executive Committee. I understand that Labour was asked to bend the rules, given the sudden announcements - but no, it was too late.
Luckily, they had just the men that were required - in the formidable shape of Army Colonel Alistair Carns, a winner of the Military Cross for bravery in Afghanistan, no less, and union policy chief Laurence Turner. How great that they were both ready and waiting to move to Birmingham.
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