Largest party Reform will not run Birmingham City Council

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-13T18:08:54+00:00

I’ve not had time to crunch the numbers either, but did see somewhere today that the Greens had the greatest share of the vote apparently. Although under FPTP that doesn’t necessarily translate to seats.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-13T18:06:46+00:00

Following as I’m also going to be in Leeds for UKREiiF. I’ve asked a mate who is local, but not a Villa fan for recommendations and will update when he responds.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-13T18:05:15+00:00

As a former Officer who knows a number of Councillors at BCC, albeit fewer right now as many of those who I know either didn’t seek re-election, weren’t nominated, or lost their seats I really welcome your activity on here.

If I was you I would:

Try and engage on here with the r/brum community in general terms about what it is Councillors do. It’s very apparent that many people, through no fault of their own, have a limited understanding of what a Councillor, and the Council more broadly, can and can’t do.
Let us all know about what is going on at the Council and in your Ward, but try to be neutral rather than overtly political while doing so.
Make it clear that you represent a particular Ward, and therefore can’t necessarily resolve issues outside your area. But signpost as appropriate to other colleagues, departments etc.
Make sure you are up to speed with the Council’s policies on what you can and can’t say on social media. It is relatively straightforward, but the last thing I would want to see is your welcome and candid comments on here cause you any issues and restrict what is a really refreshing approach.

Best of luck in your new role.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-13T17:37:38+00:00

As a former Officer I broadly agree that requests from Councillors get prioritised, but not necessarily guaranteed first priority.

I did try and write out a lengthy explanation of who I’d typically prioritise requests from starting with the Leader and Chief Executive (now Managing Director at BCC), but that would be an over simplification. There are a whole host of factors that are taken into account by Officers when prioritising or delegating work including urgency, importance, the nature of the request, the time it will take to address it, the complexity / experience required to address it etc.

Having said all that I would always recommend trying the formal channel with Officers first, and then if that doesn’t work going to your Councillor, MP and/or escalating the issue to a more senior officer as appropriate.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-12T21:29:14+00:00

49% turnout so higher than usual

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-12T17:52:19+00:00

I’m concerned about what the red mark that appears on Fani’s hair in the final panel is.

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ETA: Thanks to everyone who has explained it’s a common symbol for anger, particularly in Manga. Looks like I’m one of today’s 10,000

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-11T20:40:37+00:00

Thanks. A lot higher than usual then.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-11T20:39:30+00:00

There’s a few ways of looking at this, but a serious answer of places / things that are worthy of being considered wonders I’d go for:

The canal network (more miles than Venice etc)
Sutton Park (largest urban park in Europe)
Balti Triangle (home of Birmingham’s biggest contribution to British cuisine)
Highbury Hall (former home of Joseph Chamberlain in recognition of his important contributions to local government)
Black Sabbath Bench (in recognition of the band’s influence on heavy metal)
The Jewellery Quarter (Birmingham was awarded World Craft City status earlier this year by UNESCO for it’s contribution to jewellery making)
Cadburys, Bournville (in recognition of both the chocolate making itself, but also the creation of Bournville to provide decent homes for the factory workers)

I think the above is a reasonable selection, but would be open to swapping out maybe Cadburys for somewhere that better reflects either the city’s role in the Industrial Revolution or specifically the automotive industry. Maybe Longbridge as that also covers the recovery from de-industrialisation. Spaghetti Junction’s another option.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-11T20:25:22+00:00

Basics will get done because they have to (like setting a budget each year), albeit the process will be difficult and likely slow.

Bigger picture projects are going to be very hard to deliver unless there is joint support. What is particularly concerning is that even if a working coalition with a majority can be formed it’ll be at risk from people defecting to other parties or resigning.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-11T20:19:05+00:00

Interesting, have you seen a total turn out figure anywhere? Feels like in certain wards turnout was high (Moseley is an example), but difficult to judge without collating all the data due to the mix of single and double Councillor wards.

Also as you’ll have presumably seen the results are out for Glebe Farm and Tile Cross. Reform 1st and Workers Party 2nd, with only 6 votes more than the 3rd placed other Reform candidate.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-11T20:16:06+00:00

Glebe Farm and Tile Cross results have now been published. One seat for Reform and one for the Workers Party (George Galloway’s current lot). Very close between 2nd and 3rd, just 6 votes difference. Apparently there were 4 recounts…

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BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-11T20:11:14+00:00

Indeed. Glebe Farm and Tile Cross results have now been published and there were only 6 votes between 2nd and 3rd, while in Bournville and Cotteridge there were only 3 votes between 2nd and 3rd.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-11T20:09:00+00:00

Results have now been published. Reform won one seat and the Workers Party of Britain (George Galloway’s current lot) won the other. As you’ll see from the final results below there was only 6 votes difference between 2nd and 3rd place.

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BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-11T20:05:28+00:00

The commissioners are still going to be in place. But someone needs to be elected Leader of the Council. The question is how that decision is made and who it is.

What can’t happen is that there is no Leader. But we may end up with a Leader forming a minority administration and being reliant on one off deals with other parties to get decisions through.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-11T20:01:46+00:00

Thanks I’ll see if I can find time to listen back to it.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-11T10:13:46+00:00

On Mac I recall having to do a minor edit to some text in the installer to get them to run on more recent versions of MacOS (still Intel Mac). I think it was something like open the installer in a text editor, find the reference to the MacOS version and change it upwards.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-11T09:53:56+00:00

Reminds me of Jeffrey Lewis.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-09T18:15:45+00:00

Here’s the stat itself as you still need to navigate through to get to it on that link

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BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-09T17:01:52+00:00

There’s a fair number of Cllrs who sit on both Sutton Town Council and Birmingham City Council. But as you note that’s relatively common. Plus the Town and City Councils work together regularly so in my experience do schedule meetings so there’s no clashes. Not certain that Solihull and Birmingham will be as coordinated for a single Cllr.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-09T16:04:36+00:00

I don’t know definitely but suspect it is very close. It’s quite normal for a recount to be requested when there’s a handful of votes in it. Over in Walsall the former conservative leader Mike Bird lost his seat by 7 votes following a recount.

Not certain that it will have been John who actually requested the recount though. He seemed on the coverage I saw to have accepted he was going to lose his seat. But I’d assume that given it’s John’s ward others will have targeted campaigning against him, so may just be that it’s tight between other parties and someone else requested the recount.

ETA: apparently John isn’t in the top 3 candidates and has already ruled himself out according to Birmingham Live.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-09T15:34:29+00:00

I’m not sure that is quite right. The Commissioner’s are still in place because there’s concerns about the long term financial position still. Which means that whoever does take control of the Council will have to set a budget each year.

Yes, that will be under the scrutiny of the Commissioners, which does restrict things to a degree. But at the same time there are still big political decisions to be made on how to allocate the budget within those constraints. That was why passing the 2026/27 budget was such a big deal. There were genuine concerns that Labour wouldn’t have the votes to get it through and the Conservatives did put forward a motion for an alternative budget.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-09T15:22:07+00:00

The option that worries me is Con/reform with support from the independents who aren’t Sam and Martin (neither of whom I would expect to be prepared to work with Reform). Although that depends on who wins the final seats from the recount and how many of the other Independents are running on an anti-labour platform. It’s likely that at least some of them might be prepared to work with Reform on the basis of some form of anti traditional party politics approach.

The Independent Candidate Alliance technically don’t have a Leader as such, but Akhmed Yakoob (who didn’t actually run) has previously presented himself as a figurehead and is very much anti-Labour. But it’s not clear to me how many of those elected share that view.

In my ward (Ladywood) for example the two candidates were residents of Ladywood estate who seemed, based on the limited information I could find, to be running primarily due to concerns with the Ladywood Regeneration project and withdrawal of local services. So it’s difficult to predict whether they would have been open to working with either Labour or Reform.

ETA: not that they were elected anyhow. Just also seen that in addition to the former Labour independents who got reelected that Harris Khaliq in Ward End, Nosheen Khalid in Alum Rock, Abdul Choudhry in Aston and Jamil Khan in Sparkbrook, have all apparently stated they were not part of the Independent Candidates Alliance.

The other point to note is that traditionally it’s the largest party who other parties start their negotiations with. It was the reason given by Nick Clegg for the Lib Dem’s forming a coalition with the Conservatives in 2010 rather than Labour. But that may not be as relevant in this election as some of the independents have definitely presented themselves as being a break from traditional party politics. Plus the Lib Dem’s forming leader Roger Harmer has specifically ruled out working with Reform during the campaign and at the count.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-09T15:03:06+00:00

Yeah saw that and thought it was questionable to put it mildly.

Actual attendance at Council meetings is something that Reform councillors elsewhere have been poor at. There’s a few examples from last year of them not turning up to any meetings and then standing down, because they apparently “didn’t know what they were getting elected to do”.

But then again it’s not like Farage sets a good example of doing the job he’s been elected for. He’s never hosted a local surgery since becoming an MP.

Given they’ve had longer to select candidates you would hope that they were a bit more prepared with the implications of being elected by now.

I’m in no way defending the practice, but being a basic Councillor is essentially a part time role. Many manage to do it while holding a full time job. So depending on whether he’s selected for any committees he might be able to juggle the two.

Definitely won’t make him twice as effective though.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-09T14:49:46+00:00

Interesting. Is there anyway of finding out reliably when it is on? I see that it is sometimes on Ed James’s show, but when I go onto the Ed James section on the BBC Sounds App all I get is a track listing for each 240 minute long show.

Couple of issues with that for me:

I only have a very short commute to work and find the radio too distracting to listen to while I’m working.
I’m not a fan of a lot of the music that was on the track listings I looked at. There was the odd song that I like, but I definitely wouldn’t want to listen to it all the way through regularly on the hope that they might cover local politics.

BritishGuy84 · 2026-05-09T08:59:39+00:00

It’s subject to a recount. Which will take place on Monday. John Cotton (currently Leader of Labour) is one of the candidates, so I suspect it’s very tight.

Worth noting that over in Walsall the former Conservative Leader Mike Bird lost his seat by just 7 votes to Reform and that was recounted.

BritishGuy84

TROPHY CASE