I am a foreigner from the South. I came to Brum over 20 years ago and have live in the south and west and north of the city since then. I have walked in those years every part of the city. My conclusion is that it is not and never has been while I have been here a cohesive place. It has always been divided and those divisions were hidden by the dominance of a one party state, Labour. When a child I live a while in a similar one party state called Spain under Franco’s Fascist dictatorship. In many respects when I came to Birmingham things were familiar. The lies of the one party rulers were self evident. Every now and then the propaganda would spew forth how this and that was planned and how building for this or that would start next year. Take for example the Typhoo wharf… nearly tens ago the then Council Leader Ian Ward appeared on TV and in the local newspaper, which has been the propaganda machine for Labour, stating that a deal has been signed to develop the wharf and picture of what it would look like were shown but it never happened. And now there a new plan. Take for example also Perry Barr former athletes village, which was never used by athletes because it was not finished in time, and is now filled with migrants when locals live in squalid HMOs… HMOs that grow in number day by day. Unlike the middle class liberal Moseley types I have visited some of these because I have friends who lived in them. They are a disgrace to a civilised society. But back to Spain for a second. I had friends in Franco’s Spain, where every was in the propaganda as in Birmingham, lovely. But I visited my teenage friends with chickens in the kitchen and no electricity because they could not afford the connection to the grid. Another interesting link between Spain then and Birmingham was that those who represented in the Cortes in Spain the poor working class areas rarely lived there. The same was true in Labour Birmingham. It was hard to find the facts because most councillors unusually, unlike most areas, kept their address a secret. But gradually I discovered the truth through other means. A parish priest is required to live in his parish but not so with councillors ; more’s the pity. I asked a council official to change the rule allowing anonymity so that the first part of the post code say B44 could be known but that was months ago and I have yet to have a concrete answer. Of course in Franco’s Spain the fascist representative would not reflect the socialist leanings of his electors (yes there were elections but with only party candidates). In Birmingham the reason for living in another part of city or outside it was more insidious. It was that they did not wish to live among the “poor and unwashed”, their electors.
Birmingham is ungovernable. You spoke of another podcast with a person who does not live here, an academic on colonialism… well well there are certainly colonies here. In fact the City is divided into distinct colonies. You speak of your podcast and people in the Moseley area as if they know Oscott or Kingstanding or even Frankley or Longbridge. It is no good having a podcast discussing the future of BIof
… Birmingham if all the people are in the same echo chamber. The future of Birmingham lies in it being broken up so that them people of Sutton, Erdington, Kingstanding, Oscott, Perry common etc can get on with running their own area and similarly for the people in the south of the city and its centre. The reason it is so politically divided is that people in the north would never dream of electing a green or liberal or independent…. While those in the centre would never dream of electing a Reform or Tory… as in SPAIN where after the end of Fascism the state was divided up into the old historic kingdoms so that Galicia has a right wing Neo Fascist well nearly! And Andalusia a socialist government and Catalunya a Catalan government so the way and the only way forward is the division of Birmingham… other wise you will get the more left wing centre lauding it over the right wing north and south… and that is the probable outcome of this election when those in the centre refuse to negotiate with the Reform Party and thus the majority in south and much of the north are denied a voice… and when people are denied a voice they will take to the streets. I have no doubt about that. So the only way forward as with Spain after Franco is harmony through division.
Two further points 1. I really must proof read what I wrote above and 2. The veracity of what I wrote about the political divisions is shown conclusively in my analysis of voting. People to the north of ASTON and PERRY BARR would never dream of voting Liberal, Independent, Green or now Labour. It is a sea of blue and teal. Conversely south of that line until you reach far south the blue and teal is not to be found. But as my ward analysis will show the margins of victory are increasingly more polarised, so that would never dream of voting x or y is apt. And when you have such huge divisions the break up is inevitable, because the results in 2026 were not a blip but something more fundamental which began a decade and more ago.
I am a foreigner from the South. I came to Brum over 20 years ago and have live in the south and west and north of the city since then. I have walked in those years every part of the city. My conclusion is that it is not and never has been while I have been here a cohesive place. It has always been divided and those divisions were hidden by the dominance of a one party state, Labour. When a child I live a while in a similar one party state called Spain under Franco’s Fascist dictatorship. In many respects when I came to Birmingham things were familiar. The lies of the one party rulers were self evident. Every now and then the propaganda would spew forth how this and that was planned and how building for this or that would start next year. Take for example the Typhoo wharf… nearly tens ago the then Council Leader Ian Ward appeared on TV and in the local newspaper, which has been the propaganda machine for Labour, stating that a deal has been signed to develop the wharf and picture of what it would look like were shown but it never happened. And now there a new plan. Take for example also Perry Barr former athletes village, which was never used by athletes because it was not finished in time, and is now filled with migrants when locals live in squalid HMOs… HMOs that grow in number day by day. Unlike the middle class liberal Moseley types I have visited some of these because I have friends who lived in them. They are a disgrace to a civilised society. But back to Spain for a second. I had friends in Franco’s Spain, where every was in the propaganda as in Birmingham, lovely. But I visited my teenage friends with chickens in the kitchen and no electricity because they could not afford the connection to the grid. Another interesting link between Spain then and Birmingham was that those who represented in the Cortes in Spain the poor working class areas rarely lived there. The same was true in Labour Birmingham. It was hard to find the facts because most councillors unusually, unlike most areas, kept their address a secret. But gradually I discovered the truth through other means. A parish priest is required to live in his parish but not so with councillors ; more’s the pity. I asked a council official to change the rule allowing anonymity so that the first part of the post code say B44 could be known but that was months ago and I have yet to have a concrete answer. Of course in Franco’s Spain the fascist representative would not reflect the socialist leanings of his electors (yes there were elections but with only party candidates). In Birmingham the reason for living in another part of city or outside it was more insidious. It was that they did not wish to live among the “poor and unwashed”, their electors.
Birmingham is ungovernable. You spoke of another podcast with a person who does not live here, an academic on colonialism… well well there are certainly colonies here. In fact the City is divided into distinct colonies. You speak of your podcast and people in the Moseley area as if they know Oscott or Kingstanding or even Frankley or Longbridge. It is no good having a podcast discussing the future of BIof
… Birmingham if all the people are in the same echo chamber. The future of Birmingham lies in it being broken up so that them people of Sutton, Erdington, Kingstanding, Oscott, Perry common etc can get on with running their own area and similarly for the people in the south of the city and its centre. The reason it is so politically divided is that people in the north would never dream of electing a green or liberal or independent…. While those in the centre would never dream of electing a Reform or Tory… as in SPAIN where after the end of Fascism the state was divided up into the old historic kingdoms so that Galicia has a right wing Neo Fascist well nearly! And Andalusia a socialist government and Catalunya a Catalan government so the way and the only way forward is the division of Birmingham… other wise you will get the more left wing centre lauding it over the right wing north and south… and that is the probable outcome of this election when those in the centre refuse to negotiate with the Reform Party and thus the majority in south and much of the north are denied a voice… and when people are denied a voice they will take to the streets. I have no doubt about that. So the only way forward as with Spain after Franco is harmony through division.
I continue my details of each election ward on here shortly… as I do not know how to write separately on here…
Two further points 1. I really must proof read what I wrote above and 2. The veracity of what I wrote about the political divisions is shown conclusively in my analysis of voting. People to the north of ASTON and PERRY BARR would never dream of voting Liberal, Independent, Green or now Labour. It is a sea of blue and teal. Conversely south of that line until you reach far south the blue and teal is not to be found. But as my ward analysis will show the margins of victory are increasingly more polarised, so that would never dream of voting x or y is apt. And when you have such huge divisions the break up is inevitable, because the results in 2026 were not a blip but something more fundamental which began a decade and more ago.