Weekly Digest: Week Ending 11 July 2026
30,000 Reads… and Birmingham Just Keeps Giving Us Stories
Another week, another milestone. Midlands GRIT comfortably passed 30,000 reads this week. That’s exciting, slightly daunting and, if I’m honest, rather motivating. Raise the bar once and readers quite rightly expect you to clear it again. Can we? I genuinely think we can. Even as I write, there are already a couple of strong investigations lined up for next week that I think you’re going to enjoy. But first, let’s look back at what has been another remarkable seven days.
Monday: Elite Culture. Working Culture. One City. One Question.
England’s dramatic World Cup victory over Mexico, followed by Norway sending Brazil home, reminded me that football isn’t simply sport. It is culture. Millions of us shared exactly the same emotions at exactly the same time. That led to a bigger Birmingham question. When we talk about “culture”, whose culture do we actually mean? Museums, galleries and orchestras unquestionably matter. So do grassroots football clubs, brass bands, darts leagues, pub music, working men’s clubs, anglers, classic car enthusiasts and thousands of volunteers who quietly keep communities alive every week. Looking through Birmingham City Council’s budgets, I could identify significant investment in what might broadly be called elite culture. What I could not clearly identify was an equivalent, recognisable investment in working culture. Perhaps it exists across several budgets. If so, now seems the perfect opportunity to show us where. Perhaps Birmingham doesn’t have a culture problem. Perhaps it simply has a definition of culture problem.
Tuesday: Britain’s Employability Challenge
National Employability Week proved that Britain’s biggest employment problem may not simply be skills. It may be opportunity. EmployabilityUK brought together educators, employers and policymakers to ask why, despite decades of discussion, too many young people remain NEET, not in education, employment or training. Professor Edgar Meyer argued we should stop describing communication, resilience and confidence as “soft skills”. There is nothing soft about convincing somebody to offer you your first job. Former MP Professor Khalid Mahmood questioned whether Britain measures activity better than outcomes. For me, one point stood out. Employers often say young people lack experience. But somebody has to provide that first experience. One apprenticeship, one placement or one week of work experience could change a young person’s life. Education opens the first door. Employability gives people the confidence to walk through it.
Wednesday: Who Is Cllr Alan Feeney?
Political interviews too often tell us what politicians think. I wanted to discover who one actually is. Meeting Cllr Alan Feeney revealed a far more interesting story than party politics alone. Before entering elected office he worked in hospitality, became a funeral celebrant, served as a prison officer, performed Shakespeare, sang opera and somehow still found room to become a devoted Star Trek fan. He also corrected me. In last week’s article I referred to him as a being a Worcestershire county councillor, as well as currently a Birmingham City and Solihull MBC. In fact, Alan served as a Worcester City Councillor, and I’m very happy to put the record straight. Whether readers agree with Reform UK or disagree entirely, understanding the people asking for our votes seems far healthier than simply repeating party press releases. I hope this profile series becomes a regular feature of Midlands GRIT.
Thursday: Hide and Seek with Day Rates
Sometimes local government almost writes the jokes itself. I submitted a Freedom of Information request asking one simple question. How does the public contact Birmingham’s government-appointed commissioners? The answer? Through the Council’s Complaints Team. That immediately raised another question. Who actually reads the emails? The council could identify no written protocol explaining how correspondence reaches commissioners or how replies are managed. So I have now written directly to them and asked for an interview. The questions cover everything from consultants and cashable savings to Birmingham’s pension fund, neighbourhood knowledge and whether anyone overseeing Britain’s second city truly understands the place beyond spreadsheets. Deadline: Monday. If they answer, Birmingham learns something. If they don’t… well… sometimes silence says just as much.
Friday: What Changed?
Former Cabinet Member Cllr Majid Mahmood asked a question Birmingham’s new leadership has yet to answer. Before the election, fortnightly, or as GRIT insists on calling them, bi monthly, residual waste collections were described as unacceptable while services remained unreliable. After the election, a pilot proceeds. Perhaps that is the correct decision. Perhaps circumstances genuinely changed. Perhaps officers produced evidence. Perhaps commissioners insisted. All of those explanations could be perfectly reasonable. But residents deserve to hear them. Politics is not judged simply by what governments do. It is judged by whether they explain why. Majid’s question remains refreshingly straightforward. What changed? Birmingham is still waiting for the answer.
Thirty thousand reads tells me something important. People haven’t lost interest in local journalism. They’ve lost interest in journalism that doesn’t ask difficult questions, admit mistakes when they’re made, celebrate good people wherever they’re found and challenge those in power, whatever political colour they happen to wear. That’s exactly what Midlands GRIT intends to keep doing. Thank you, as always, for reading, sharing, disagreeing, correcting me when I get something wrong and helping build a publication that believes Birmingham, the Black Country and the wider West Midlands deserve serious journalism that still knows how to smile. Have a wonderful weekend.
Mike Olley
Editor, Midlands GRIT