Well my guess is that they will reshape the bin service and that may mean contractors coming in and current bin workers booted out. But my preference would be proper management of the service. I certainly can't believe you feel no garden waste collection or no recycling is a better way to run the service although I do suspect that out recycling is a bit of smoke and mirrors as to where it actually ends up. As for the feathers well for some your probably right but I feel certain it's not for all
Thanks again Richard - I think you are touching on something many people quietly recognise, even if they are often reluctant to discuss it openly.
Naturally those who lead such discussions always say "we would love to discuss it" but then slink away.
Birmingham is no longer a politically or culturally uniform city. Was it ever ? Different areas increasingly have very different social identities, priorities and voting behaviours, and that clearly affects how the city is governed and how politics is conducted. In some wards, politics is becoming far more community-based and identity-driven than the old broad Labour-versus-Conservative model that dominated for decades.
That does not automatically mean communities cannot live together successfully, but it does mean the traditional idea of Birmingham speaking with one coherent political voice is becoming harder to sustain. The old civic glue has weakened considerably.
I also think there is a wider frustration building among many residents who feel that perfectly legitimate concerns about cohesion, integration and representation are too often dismissed outright rather than discussed honestly. That tends to deepen polarisation rather than reduce it.
Where I would slightly differ from you is that I would be cautious about viewing the city purely through a racial or religious lens. Economic decline, weak governance, housing pressures, educational disparities and the collapse of trust in mainstream parties are all feeding into the same atmosphere as well. Essentially it not about race it's about social class.
Your broader governance point, however, is a serious one. Birmingham is now enormous, highly diverse and politically fragmented. There is a respectable argument that a more devolved borough-based structure might produce better accountability and more responsive local decision-making than the current over-centralised model.
At the very least, this election is likely to expose just how different various parts of the city now are politically, culturally and socially, and pretending those differences do not exist is probably no longer sustainable. We will know Friday evening ...
Poor quality councillors… poor quality officers… poor democracy… democracy only prevails when people believe that councillors and officers work for the people they represent rather than feather their own nests… sadly there are many many feathers in Birmingham… as to the bin men they are but a symptom of nest feathering… the Council should have sacked the lot of them months ago… I dread the return of the striking bin men because the collection of bins has been better without them!
Your analysis misses the elephant in the room… racial and religious differences. Birmingham is a broken city because one section will vote in a completely different way from the other section. As one so-called Independent put it (really the Muslim Party if Electoral Commission had not stopped that title being used) in today’s Telegraph put it “my area is 99% Muslim or immigrant and I represent my people”, the balkanisation is obvious. I do not walk my dog in majority Muslim areas (the dog is haram) because I have been told to take the dog away, so I stick to long walks in the overwhelmingly British white areas, where I live. We have become like the USA. I lived once in New Orleans and there the Mississippi River separates the black east from the white west, Democratic east… Republican west. The elephant in the room means that the mainly white north and south of Birmingham will be won by Reform or the Tories… the mainly immigrant centre will be won by whatever… left wing Labour, Green or Independents with the odd Liberal in wannabe Bohemian Moseley… the answer to all this is to break up the City into 3 or 4 distinct metropolitan boroughs… because this election will show the elephant cannot be rode by two very different views of the future. An ungovernable City must be broken up for the good of all.
Well my guess is that they will reshape the bin service and that may mean contractors coming in and current bin workers booted out. But my preference would be proper management of the service. I certainly can't believe you feel no garden waste collection or no recycling is a better way to run the service although I do suspect that out recycling is a bit of smoke and mirrors as to where it actually ends up. As for the feathers well for some your probably right but I feel certain it's not for all
Thanks again Richard - I think you are touching on something many people quietly recognise, even if they are often reluctant to discuss it openly.
Naturally those who lead such discussions always say "we would love to discuss it" but then slink away.
Birmingham is no longer a politically or culturally uniform city. Was it ever ? Different areas increasingly have very different social identities, priorities and voting behaviours, and that clearly affects how the city is governed and how politics is conducted. In some wards, politics is becoming far more community-based and identity-driven than the old broad Labour-versus-Conservative model that dominated for decades.
That does not automatically mean communities cannot live together successfully, but it does mean the traditional idea of Birmingham speaking with one coherent political voice is becoming harder to sustain. The old civic glue has weakened considerably.
I also think there is a wider frustration building among many residents who feel that perfectly legitimate concerns about cohesion, integration and representation are too often dismissed outright rather than discussed honestly. That tends to deepen polarisation rather than reduce it.
Where I would slightly differ from you is that I would be cautious about viewing the city purely through a racial or religious lens. Economic decline, weak governance, housing pressures, educational disparities and the collapse of trust in mainstream parties are all feeding into the same atmosphere as well. Essentially it not about race it's about social class.
Your broader governance point, however, is a serious one. Birmingham is now enormous, highly diverse and politically fragmented. There is a respectable argument that a more devolved borough-based structure might produce better accountability and more responsive local decision-making than the current over-centralised model.
At the very least, this election is likely to expose just how different various parts of the city now are politically, culturally and socially, and pretending those differences do not exist is probably no longer sustainable. We will know Friday evening ...
Yes I agree Liz, unfortunately we have had a pretty poor set for some time now. But democracy will prevail...
Poor quality councillors… poor quality officers… poor democracy… democracy only prevails when people believe that councillors and officers work for the people they represent rather than feather their own nests… sadly there are many many feathers in Birmingham… as to the bin men they are but a symptom of nest feathering… the Council should have sacked the lot of them months ago… I dread the return of the striking bin men because the collection of bins has been better without them!
Your analysis misses the elephant in the room… racial and religious differences. Birmingham is a broken city because one section will vote in a completely different way from the other section. As one so-called Independent put it (really the Muslim Party if Electoral Commission had not stopped that title being used) in today’s Telegraph put it “my area is 99% Muslim or immigrant and I represent my people”, the balkanisation is obvious. I do not walk my dog in majority Muslim areas (the dog is haram) because I have been told to take the dog away, so I stick to long walks in the overwhelmingly British white areas, where I live. We have become like the USA. I lived once in New Orleans and there the Mississippi River separates the black east from the white west, Democratic east… Republican west. The elephant in the room means that the mainly white north and south of Birmingham will be won by Reform or the Tories… the mainly immigrant centre will be won by whatever… left wing Labour, Green or Independents with the odd Liberal in wannabe Bohemian Moseley… the answer to all this is to break up the City into 3 or 4 distinct metropolitan boroughs… because this election will show the elephant cannot be rode by two very different views of the future. An ungovernable City must be broken up for the good of all.
I don't live in Birmingham, but I really do hope the voters there get a decent set of councillors, who know what they're doing,and actually do it!