Uk Politics: Big Babies in Birmingham

Following the recent local elections we have seen several occasions of the 2 oldest parties in the UK behaving like spoilt children rather than responsible mature adults.

Below are links to examples where one or the other has refused to work with other parties to create working coalitions to manage local councils.

• New Birmingham Labour Leader rules out any coalitions – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyplryyrevo
• Green Leader rules out coalition with Reform – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93x98yvkg1o
• Reform Leader announces unable to form coalition – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g0er7e7eko
• Conservative HQ meddles in local coalition – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1427x5zm26o
• Worcester MP Defends Conservative meddling – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62r066nlk6o

I have no issue with a party preferring not to form a coalition with parties that hold views opposite to their own, but kicking out a local party leader, blankly refusing to consider any coalition, and otherwise throwing their toys around the room, is not acceptable.

OK let take a step back

If you have read my previous posts looking at local elections and politics –

You will know that I believe we need a more mature approach to politics, one which is less performative and more productive.

As such I believe the results of the recent elections should be informing our Political Parties that the country has numerous and varied priorities. This being the case a single party will not meet all of them, and the people evidently don’t trust any single party enough.

Therefore instead of moaning that they don’t have enough support, what the parties should do is show that they can work together to deliver for the city, county and country. Yep that means finding areas of mutual agreement and working to best represent their constituents, not moaning that they no longer have all the power.

We are in a situation in Birmingham where

• The Greens will not go into coalition with reform as they are ideologically opposed on too many issues
• The conservatives have stated at head office that they will not go into coalition with greens,
• The local labour leader has said they will not form a ruling coalition with any parties but would rather stay in opposition.

This leaves a situation where even if the Greens, Lib dems and all independents allied they would still not have a majority.

Now what is fairly difficult to do – is to actually create an analysis of what each party stands for locally. This means for outsiders it is quite hard to understand what the stumbling points are.

I am currently navigating a rabbit hole to look at Birmingham City Council Councillor attendances and council activity. It looks I may need to expand this into councillor voting behaviour by party, so that us lay people can navigate the political jungle, when what we really want is a well cared for park, with litter collected on time, our vulnerable people properly cared for and pot holes filled.

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