How giant rats and tax rises could hand Reform the keys to Birmingham

inews

Labour is expected to lose control of Birmingham City Council, with support surging for rivals including Reform UK, the Green Party and independents.  Labour took control of Birmingham City Council in 2012, but its 14-year hold on the UK’s largest local authority could come to an end when voters head to the polls on 7 May.  Since Labour was last elected five years ago, the council has declared bankruptcy, raised council taxes by 24 per cent over three years, and overseen a 16-month long bin strike that led to giant rats roaming the streets.

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00:00You don't want f**king rat s**t everywhere, sorry.

00:03There's rats everywhere.

00:05There's like rats and foxes that have torn apart a lot of rubbish.

00:08For years, Birmingham has been solidly labour.

00:11But now, thanks to a calamitous few years that saw the council declare bankruptcy

00:16and suspend rubbish collections,

00:18other parties are sniffing around.

00:21It's just a bit depressing, really, to live in a city

00:23where there are piles of rubbish all over the place.

00:26And it's no good for our reputation.

00:27Where there are piles of rubbish, there will be rats.

00:30And obviously that has been a major issue in different parts of the city.

00:34And it's been appallingly handled from the word go.

00:37It won awards as the cleanest city in the UK in 2007

00:40and now is at the other end of the extreme.

00:43It's put people's council tax up because they went bankrupt,

00:46still doesn't have a functioning IT system.

00:49All these things combined mean the people are just fed up of them and want change.

00:53Yes, there are issues specific to Birmingham,

00:55but there was a wider context of austerity that ripped the guts out of the local government

00:59up and down the country.

01:01Councils like Birmingham, big metropolitan areas,

01:03were unfairly funded at the expense of other places.

01:05In Birmingham's case, that cost us a billion pound.

01:08With local elections approaching in May,

01:10will all this change people's votes?

01:12I would like to vote restore but they haven't got anyone in power yet

01:16so I'm kind of thinking I'm going to have to vote reform for now.

01:19They're saying they're going to deal with immigration

01:20but I'm not sure, I don't hold out much hope

01:24but I just think we need to get Labour out at the moment.

01:27In the local election, I'll be voting for this reform party.

01:30The area that I live in was primarily Labour,

01:33especially a few years ago but have converted to the Green Party.

01:36Who are you voting for?

01:38Probably Green.

01:39Fed up with Labour, broken promises,

01:41pretty much everything that they said they were going to do they haven't done.

01:44I'm Asian, Labour always helps us,

01:47so we like Labour.

01:48Thank you very much.

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