- 3 minutes ago
Former Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood and former Birmingham Conservative deputy leader Ewan Mackey join Mike and Lorraine Olley to dissect Labour’s local election losses. A frank discussion on what the results mean for the future direction of Britain’s second city.
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00:24Welcome to Oli's Live.
00:27While the people of Birmingham have spoken, Labour has lost control of the City Council after 14 years in power,
00:35with the council now having no overall party control.
00:40In today's programme, we'll be analysing the local election results and considering what this means for the city.
00:47So joining us today, we have Labour's Khalid Mahmood, former Member of Parliament and indeed a City Council in Birmingham,
00:56and Ewan Mackey, former Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group.
01:01So welcome, guys. Now, Khalid, can I start with you, please? What went wrong for Labour?
01:06I think what went wrong isn't just what's happened now. There's two issues. One is national issue. I think there
01:14has been a lot of dissatisfaction with the national government.
01:19I think some of the U-turns that have been made had a devastating effect. Well, Birmingham locally has played
01:25its own fair share as well.
01:27I think the bin dispute, I think a number of other issues. I think also the introduction of the CAS
01:34and then on top of that, the 30-mile speed limit brought on to the zero carriageways.
01:39It just stifled people and other people who were feeling really hemmed in and just wanted to move away from
01:45that.
01:46And I think also there needed to be a recognition by the Labour Party locally that there were issues they
01:52needed to deal with and that wasn't brought forward.
01:54Ah, thank you.
01:56Ewan, what needs to happen now to get the trust back into the public arena so that they have confidence
02:04in their political leadership?
02:06I think ultimately what the council's got to do is just got to get its governance sorted out.
02:11It just needs a balanced budget. And then from there, it just needs to spend within its remit.
02:18I think the reason why the council went wrong was that we had the credit country all the way back
02:23in 2008.
02:24Other councils actually worked to their budget. Birmingham City Council never did.
02:30It was always overspending. It was always using reserves.
02:32And at the end of the day, as anyone knows, if you spend more money than you've got coming in,
02:38eventually you go bankrupt.
02:39And that's what happened to Birmingham.
02:40So was there no hope whatsoever for the city council?
02:44Under Labour, I presume, you know that way.
02:47Well, yeah, because, as I say, they never accepted their budget.
02:50Other Labour councils did.
02:52And as I say, Leeds, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a lot of the other metros, they did accept their budget.
02:57And whilst they were expanding and doing regeneration and left austerity miles behind, Birmingham City Council never did.
03:05And we're still looking to try and find cuts because it was always overspending.
03:10This time round, I must admit, the way that people voted, it was more like a shopping list.
03:16It was, what can each political party do for me?
03:19So it was a very change in the way that generally people tended to vote.
03:26And also, we have to take into account that 52% of Birmingham's population is now from a black or
03:36Asian background.
03:37Has this changed the cultural dynamics of how people vote in the future?
03:44Yeah, I think when you've got a lack of trust, you can see that certain areas voted very heavily for
03:53certain parties.
03:54The lack of trust in both Conservative and Labour, I think, came across that you can see the two biggest
04:01parties, Green and Reform.
04:03Not many people saw that coming, say, four or five years ago.
04:07You might saw it coming into the election.
04:10And whilst there is no trust, you've got some new people with very little experience heading up the two biggest
04:16parties in Birmingham.
04:18Can I just direct my question to you, Khalid?
04:20What do you think about the cultural shift in voting patterns?
04:23I think before that, I just want to address the issue of the budgets.
04:26I think it's important that we have officials who are supposed to monitor and manage the budgets.
04:32Of course, there does need to be responsibility for the politicians to take in relation to that.
04:38But we never brought into account the officials that were looking after those budgets.
04:44Year on year, they overran, despite the fact that we're in big financial trouble because of the equal pay issues.
04:51And the fact that they didn't even know when we were bankrupted whether there was a gap of 400 million
04:56pounds.
04:57And I don't understand how you do that.
04:59There is an issue of cultural understanding.
05:02I think in some instances there has been an issue of international issues coming into that.
05:09And I think that's played a huge role in all of this.
05:13And I think what we need to do is get back to looking at our city, making it a proud
05:20city.
05:20And I think we've failed in that.
05:22And I think we need to rectify that.
05:23So, could I ask, Khalid, who's responsible for these officials?
05:26And surely it's the elected representatives.
05:28It is the elected representatives.
05:29Therefore, surely it's the Labour group.
05:30They were in charge for 14 years.
05:32No, I've said this in a piece that I've done.
05:34Of course, ultimately, the responsibility and accountability lies with the elected members.
05:38And I think that this culture, perhaps introduced into the council over 15 years ago, where officers seemed to be
05:47supreme.
05:48This was the issue raised by Lord Bob Kerslake when he did the report, that the officers had far more
05:55prominence than the elected officials.
05:57And that remained as such.
05:59We needed to tackle that.
06:00That was never done.
06:01And so that's why we ended up some of the financial issues that we did.
06:05Gosh.
06:06What about the commissioners?
06:07They're still in situ, aren't they?
06:09Do we still need them?
06:11I think they shouldn't have been here for that long.
06:14They should have gone if they were doing their jobs properly.
06:16I've said, Khalid, many years at times that they should have gone by now.
06:21And I think either the council has run it or the commission has run it.
06:26Doing this continuously didn't help Birmingham.
06:29It was a complete state of status in what they were doing.
06:33And we needed to move on from that.
06:34Ewan, you were on the city council at the time the commissioners were in place.
06:39What was it like trying to make decisions?
06:41Well, I was lucky enough to be able to attend cabinet and comment.
06:46Obviously, we're not making decisions or voting anything.
06:49And one thing we did notice that when the commissioners arrived, the huge snafus, if you want to call it
06:55that, came forward.
06:57There was fewer of them because the commissioners were at least were a bit of a gatekeeper because there were
07:03some really bizarre decisions being taken by the cabinet, some very costly ones.
07:09I think the Athletes Village has been one of the most obvious ones where hundreds of millions of pounds was
07:15spent building properties that no one ever actually used or lived in.
07:20And these properties, they were built for more than what they could be sold for.
07:24So the commissioners at least stopped that sort of thing.
07:28But, I mean, this is just basic competence we're talking about.
07:32And, you know, I think the electorate, which has had the ultimate say, because obviously those Labour politicians are making
07:42those decisions, have all been removed.
07:44So what do you think, guys, the electorate were trying to say?
07:47I mean, no party's in overall control.
07:50No party's got more than a fifth of the council.
07:52So what were the electorate of Birmingham saying to you guys, who, if I may, represent the old parties, and
08:00about the new parties?
08:03They were not just happy.
08:04They were not happy with where Birmingham got to.
08:07They were not happy with the national issues of trying to get the cost of living down, the energy costs
08:15down.
08:16And so they didn't really have competence in anything.
08:19So people were in free fall, as much as the politics has been.
08:23And people just decided on the issues that felt close to them.
08:28And I think what it's done is broken the old two-party system by and large.
08:34And that will leave us in some sort of turmoil for some years, both locally and nationally, to be able
08:40to address that.
08:40And we'll have to see how we get through that.
08:42A lot of people over the years have talked about proportional representation.
08:46I think this is another small portion of representation through the back door, which we'll see how we have to
08:53deal with.
08:53You would say a flag on your old party's house, is it then?
08:57Well, there's certainly one of openness, transparency and communication.
09:03I would say that there's one, there's there where there's an element of trust, as you've referred to earlier.
09:10People have looked around for parties that they feel could deliver for them.
09:13I think that there has to be an element of understanding that this country was a very affluent country, sort
09:22of years gone by.
09:23I'm not quite sure we're quite that affluent.
09:26And there may have to be a bit of more honesty from some of our, sort of say, well-established
09:32parties to say where this country really is and what it can deliver.
09:35And can it deliver what the public wants is a big question.
09:40Before we're big winners in this local election, they have got the most shares on the City Council.
09:47And obviously, that's going to lead to a coalition.
09:50It's going to mean that there's going to be greater working together collectively.
09:56Can I just have your thoughts on what the strengths are of a coalition?
10:01Well, I mean, a coalition, if it's well put together, you will remove the extremes that you will have from
10:09there.
10:10Hopefully, it's one on consensus, one on respect.
10:14And there will be no major problems because everything will be very central and safe, says me, taking a very
10:21positive look at it.
10:22Over to you, Khalid.
10:25Strengths, any weaknesses that you see a coalition at leadership resulting?
10:31Well, there's always a weakness in coalition because you've got two different political parties trying to come on a common
10:38ground.
10:39And that causes a lot of friction in terms of how you deal with it.
10:43And they're coming from such very, very far...
10:45Well, some are not all of them, I think there's some are.
10:49You've got seven parties on Birmingham, plus a bag of very mixed independents.
10:55Yeah, and as I was saying, it brings you proportional representation in a very mixed way to deal with it.
11:02I wrote a paper for Policy Exchange, I think, in 2021, which spoke about how we're not engaging with the
11:09Labour Party.
11:10It wasn't engaging with the ordinary people who have to get up on a morning, whether it be snowing, whether
11:18it be raining, whether it be windy, whether it be piping hot.
11:21They have to go to work on public transport or on their own transport to get there.
11:27And what I said at the time, the bourgeoisie of London in the Labour Party had taken control and forgotten
11:33the people who have to go to work.
11:35And I think that's the reason why reform is doing well.
11:37Labour may have dominated Birmingham historically, but this election suggested that voters were prepared perhaps for the very first time
11:48to experiment politically.
11:50But where does that leave the Conservative Party previously in a strong opposition role on the City Council?
11:58So straight into you, Ewing, where did the Conservatives go so wrong to only pick up 16 seats?
12:03Well, I mean, the electorate have spoken and they've got the council that they want.
12:08I would suggest that, you know, we're off the back of a long period of Conservative rule, which ended with
12:17the Conservative Party not very popular in the electorate.
12:21I would suggest that the Conservative Party hasn't been forgiven sort of currently.
12:27And from a local government perspective, I think it's not the first time that our brothers in Westminster have given
12:36us something a bit more challenging to handle at the time.
12:40But I think there's a real good opportunity for all the parties, especially the Conservative Party, to actually prove its
12:47worth.
12:47I think reform, even though they're the biggest party, they quickly came out and said that no one wants to
12:56work with them, but they didn't want the role anyway.
12:58And from speaking to my old colleagues, the reform hadn't asked them if they wanted to go into coalition.
13:04I'm not saying they would have done, but they hadn't spoken to them.
13:08So that's one less party to form a coalition.
13:11If the Conservatives are part of any coalition going forward, that gives them a great opportunity to prove that they
13:16can be a safe pair of hands.
13:18Because I think we noticed the 2010 election, there was a coalition there.
13:22Everyone decided that David Cameron's government at that point had done a good enough job.
13:28And therefore they went ahead with just the Conservatives after that and didn't, when everyone was expecting a coalition again
13:33for a second government.
13:35OK, well, thank you very much.
13:36Kelly, you're not getting off lightly.
13:37You went wrong for Labour as well.
13:39Well, again, as I said, I think there's disconnect with the actual working people, which is what Labour needed to
13:46get back to.
13:46I'm not quite sure how advanced we are Labour is in order to get there.
13:51So there's a big issue for us that that connective happening again to lose by such a large majority of
13:59the votes that the Labour had.
14:00I think it is very damaging.
14:02And I think there needs to be a real assessment of the policies that Labour has made.
14:07Labour has been always part of the working people and the trade union movement.
14:11And it hasn't come to that.
14:13I think that's what the problem is.
14:14You were both on more or less the same point, polling-wise, or very close anyway.
14:21And the polls were very accurate in Birmingham, weren't they?
14:24So, I mean, but that polling result was disastrous, clearly, in electoral terms.
14:30Is there any way back for your respective parties?
14:32Or are you, I don't know, ready to be cast into the furnace of political history?
14:40I think it's going to be important how the National Party looks at this, how the policies are delivered, and
14:49how we address the issues.
14:51The issues, by and large, are to do with not the bourgeoisie who determine in the Labour Party the policy,
14:58but the working people who are actually trapped by it and suffer the consequences of that.
15:05So what we have to do is look at how we actually embolden and support the working people,
15:11the people who have to actually go out.
15:13And there are obviously a lot of people that can work from home.
15:17But, of course, it's those people that can't work from home that have to go in whatever jobs they have.
15:23And also the big thing in terms of engineering and manufacturing,
15:26we need to revive that because that is your wealth creator.
15:30And if you do that, people are going to have to go into work to be able to deliver that.
15:34And we need to change those policies.
15:36How does that process start?
15:39Because there's a lot of work there in terms of engaging with the public,
15:44you know, restoring that confidence.
15:46We've spoken about that in the first part of the show.
15:48What would you say are the first two or three areas that perhaps the coalition needs to focus on?
15:56Well, what we need to do in Birmingham is provide the skills.
16:00There are so many people that are not in employment education training needs, as it's known as.
16:06There are people who are on long-term unemployment who can't be bought out.
16:11And we need to look at how we can bring those people and support those people back into employment.
16:17We have a huge possibility in Birmingham.
16:19We've got a quarter of our city, which is like an empty desert at the moment, for development and reconstruction.
16:27We need to do that.
16:28There's a huge target in terms of social housing needs to be met.
16:32And above all, I think issues in defence, there could be a huge industry in supporting that.
16:39So there are ways for us to start moving forward.
16:41But we have to put training and education at the heart of that.
16:45Yeah, thank you.
16:46Any thoughts on that?
16:47Well, I agree with that.
16:48I mean, that's probably sort of medium or a bit long-term.
16:51I think in the short term, the residents will be overjoyed if they've just got their bins collected,
16:55if they've just got the grass cut and the potholes in the road repaired.
16:59I think people feel a lot better about the neighbourhoods that they lived in and feel a lot more positive.
17:04And I think whoever delivers that, the electorate will remember that come the next election, I think.
17:10So if you strip away the party labels, you think that's basically what people are asking for?
17:14Yeah, I think people just want an area they can be proud of, that looks tidy, it's been well looked
17:19after.
17:20And they want politicians who listen to them.
17:22The politicians haven't listed them.
17:24People don't win elections.
17:26The ruling groups lose them.
17:28And that's what's happened here.
17:29So it's fair to say, I mean, there's people in Birmingham who literally haven't had bins emptied for more than
17:34a year now,
17:35recycling bins, garden waste bins.
17:37And it's, we know the council was bankrupt.
17:41And in fact, we know the council was bankrupt whilst the leader of the council was on holiday.
17:46So his officers bankrupted the council, not the politicians.
17:49We know that there's a turnip of an accounting system called Oracle, which has never worked.
17:55And it looks like it's not going to work in the near future.
17:58I mean, there's so much being done to Birmingham, and it would appear that the politicians didn't quite have control.
18:06I would say that what you've said there is accurate.
18:10But the main reason that the council went bankrupt is for 14 years, it was spending more money going out
18:16than was coming in.
18:17That they were using reserves every year, and you just go bankrupt.
18:23You can then add in Oracle, something that was supposed to cost $19 million, cost over $120 million.
18:29You've then got the equal pay disaster, which was basically because the 2017 bin dispute was solved in an illegal
18:38way.
18:39Unlawful, I'm sorry, I think is the phrase.
18:41But that's where, so that doesn't help.
18:47But the fundamental is, every budget was never implemented.
18:53A council only has to do two things.
18:55Come up with a balanced budget and implement it.
18:58And in 14 years, the Labour administration never did that.
19:02And that's why it went bust.
19:03Do you think that perhaps the internal auditing system had broken down?
19:09Because the things that you've mentioned, it's all about good governance, good practice.
19:15Is there a way forward?
19:17Have we learnt from what's gone wrong?
19:19And can this be redeemed?
19:21Well, yeah.
19:22I mean, first of all, we were promised an inquiry into what went on in Birmingham.
19:28And being a bit party political, the Labour group asked for one until the Labour government came in.
19:35And then suddenly there was going to be no inquiry.
19:38The phrase lessons learned is something that Councillor Cotten and his cabinet trotted out every time.
19:46But I think this is why the commissioners are there at the moment to make sure that those snaffies, as
19:52I lightheartedly called them earlier, have happened.
19:55But I think that if Birmingham is going to have to have a future, as in the council, this is
20:00to Birmingham, the city is absolutely fine.
20:02But if the council itself is going to have the future, it is going to have to get its house
20:06in order.
20:07Because I think that it doesn't matter what flavour of government you are, if Birmingham City Council carries on failing,
20:14it will be broken up.
20:16Has the size of it been to its detriment?
20:20I think what we need to do is get our administration right.
20:24We can, within that, devolve to the regions without breaking the council up.
20:29And that's really our issue, how we do that.
20:32You know, to your earlier question, where there should have been accountability, there was none.
20:36And that's the real issue, where the council and the commissioners, for almost five years of being here,
20:43why did Birmingham go bankrupt under their watch?
20:46What was the officials doing?
20:48What were the commissioners doing?
20:50What was the commissioners here for, if that continued to happen?
20:53So these are the serious answers that we need from the commissioners themselves.
20:57So those are the things that Birmingham was supposed to have had control of, didn't.
21:01The things that we did have control of, we made a big mess of, is the clean air zone, the
21:07anti-car policies.
21:08And then lately, the speed restrictions, which turned the inner rink into a standing car park.
21:16Any time after, from about 3.30 to 6.30, it was very difficult to get around.
21:21And people even felt even more frustrated by the things that were happening to them without a choice that they
21:28had.
21:29Just to put some sort of size around Birmingham, we're twice as big as Leeds, I think, aren't we?
21:37No, just not quite twice as big.
21:38Is it six-tenths the size of Birmingham, whereas Manchester, what, three-tenths the size of Birmingham?
21:43Manchester, if you could, in Greater Manchester, which is what they try to hang on to.
21:49But the fact is that Manchester is about a third side of Birmingham, in actual fact, that it is.
21:56And it's not the size that matters.
21:58We used to have constituency-devolved government some time ago.
22:03That worked reasonably to a large extent.
22:05But it's about devolved issues.
22:07Breaking the whole council up and having four councils in Birmingham, I don't think, is going to make much difference.
22:13I think what we need to do is have a central management structure, and we need to work at that
22:17point.
22:17You and your views on this.
22:19Should we break up Birmingham?
22:21No.
22:22I mean, I think, basically, size has got nothing to do with having a balanced budget and implementing it.
22:27You know, to me, it doesn't matter what size you are.
22:29I think there can be improvements.
22:31I think there are, when it's large, decisions are made, and you can have councillors and officers who have no
22:40idea about the different communities that are within Birmingham.
22:44And so far, things can be handled insensitively, shall we say.
22:49And so, therefore, you know, yeah, the size is not a problem.
22:54Special thanks to you guys.
22:55Thanks to Khalid Mahmood, former MP.
22:58Thanks to Ewan, former councillor in Birmingham.
23:01Thank you very much indeed.
23:03And to you at home.
23:04And we'll all see you next week.
23:06See you next week.
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