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Calm, Professional, Invisible - The Real Business Culture of the Drug Economy
A world where a miscounted note earns a beating and a delayed payment earns a bullet....REALLY...!! If the drug economy behaved like that, it would not…
20 hrs ago
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Mike Olley
A Festive Change of Focus, From Questionable Public Figures to Proper Stocking Fillers
So here is a festive selection of this year’s books from Birmingham and the wider West Midlands. They are fresh, readable and rooted in the region…
Dec 4
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Mike Olley
Taxed and Sanitised Part 3 of 7: How the State Profits From Money It Publicly Condemns
Behind the speeches lies a quieter reality. The British state earns billions from the laundering of the very industry it denounces.
Dec 3
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Mike Olley
Who Really Runs Birmingham’s Bin Crisis?
Several councillors have said privately that they feel restricted in what they can say about the strike. Their concern is not the commissioners, but…
Dec 2
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Mike Olley
2
Knowing, Logging, Allowing - Part 2 of 7: What They Never Tell You About the UK Illegal Drugs Trade
Banks do not miss dirty money. They manage it. They price it. They mitigate their own legal exposure while letting the financial system breathe.
Dec 1
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Mike Olley
1
November 2025
Tony Iommi, Black Sabbath, and the Architecture of Sound
The music was labelled dangerous. Ugly. Corrupting. Something for troublemakers and teenage rebellion. Critics mocked it. Parents feared it. The radio…
Nov 29
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Mike Olley
3
The Drugs Industry: The High Street as a Digital Laundrette
The first of a seven part series focussed on the illegal UK drugs trade: things you are never told by the authorities or the media.
Nov 28
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Mike Olley
3
Rachel’s Budget, and the Different Ways Labour Is Trying to Save Itself
Reeves may be right on the arithmetic but does Labour understands how close to the edge many lives now sit.
Nov 27
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Mike Olley
Shabana Mahmood and Labour’s Last Test
She is not cuddled by activists. She is not packaged for conference halls. But she is doing something Labour has quietly forgotten how to do. She is…
Nov 26
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Mike Olley
GRIT | Who is really running Birmingham’s bin war?
Sam Donoghue, regional director of the Labour Party in the West Midlands. If he thinks these questions are unfair or unwelcome, he can say so. He can…
Nov 25
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Mike Olley
1
Birmingham City Council and the Theatre of Managed Dissent
Up sprang Councillor K McCarthy, wielding a response clearly written by a committee of people whose main skill is saying something without saying…
Nov 24
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Mike Olley
1
Labour Must Learn to Respect Work as Much as Wealth
There is no institutional alarm bell when families ration heat in December because the cost of warmth has outpaced dignity.
Nov 22
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Mike Olley
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