Blog blog…Thank you Deputy Lord Mayor…
At yesterday’s full council meeting a motion about knife crime was put forward by the Conservative Group. Councillor Cotton and I were due to be moving an amendment to the motion but unfortunately we were only given the opportunity to do so formerly which meant we could not provide a challenge to what had already been said.
I have a lot of respect for Cllr Yip’s passion for young people and…
Baverstock Academy shoes fracas!
This is not the first time young people have been sent home from schools because they do not meet the required uniform policy in some way and I am sure it will not be the last but is it the right course of action to take? Although a school uniform policy can be beneficial to schools pupils and parents this is only when it is correctly implemented. If it is not, and where changes are made part way…
Birmingham City Council is the first council in the region to use a public space protection order (PSPO) in a crackdown on anti-social behaviour in Sheldon, Shard End, Gospel Farm in Acocks Green, and Bankside near Springfield. The order bans: the riding a motorcycle or quad bike “antisocially” Groups of three or more people from ‘engaging in activities which are likely to cause nuisance,…
I’ve only been a councillor for little over 18 months, but already this is my third chance to cast a vote for who I want to be leader of my group and of the council.
They walk on air, for now. This government can say and do whatever it damn well pleases, with Labour awol until it has a leader. And George Osborne has just pulled off an outrageous betrayal of the cohorts of over-65s who gave the Tories their victory, yet nothing has happened. Barely 10 weeks since a manifesto pledge to cap the care costs of elderly homeowners, Osborne has abandoned it. This…
Almost half all Birmingham children live in England’s poorest areas, commission report shows |
Almost half all Birmingham children live in England’s poorest areas, commission report shows. Families are being urged to join the fight against child poverty in Birmingham as a report today revealed that nearly half of all under-18s in the city live in the country’s poorest areas. A Child Poverty Needs Assessment published by the new Birmingham Child Poverty Commission shows that 49 per cent of…
I was going to write about the devastating impact that Osborne’s budget will have on young people but instead urge you to read Polly’s take on it all as she expresses far better exactly what I wanted to say. Why are the young caught in the cross-hairs of this government? That will mystify future social historians. Most societies talk of them as “our future”, to be nurtured and encouraged, but in…
If Labour MPs deny the party and the country a genuine debate, it will reflect disastrously on them. It will do whoever emerges victorious no good, either. Labour has just suffered one of the worst defeats in its history. If the party doesn’t have the good sense to have a meaningful debate now, you might wonder why it doesn’t just pack up. So come on, Labour MPs. Put your future careers aside for…
There’s been a lot of self-serving nonsense talked about why Labour lost the election and what it has to do to win in the future. We’ve just witnessed a well-planned media blitz of failed New Labour ex-ministers and their new-wave proteges blaming Ed Miliband with all the old Blairite mantras that Labour has failed to be a party of aspiration, to occupy the middle ground and appeal to middle…
It’s a moment many of us who oppose this government have had: something that powerfully crystallises just what is at stake. For me, it was on 17 July 2014. Sue Jones tweeted me: her disabled daughter had died; thus she had a spare room; thus she had to pay the bedroom tax. “It’s been an epic nightmare,” she wrote. “Shameful and cruel.”