Across the finishing line.

Last night (or strictly speaking, this morning) was a great victory for Labour in Acocks Green and a personal triumph for me, after many years of trying to win the seat. I'm proud, honoured and genuinely humbled to have won the trust of the people of Acocks Green - on the night that Labour won the trust of the people of Birmingham and gained 20 seats in one night, as well as winning all those that we were defending.

However, these things are not the work of a single person - every candidate has a whole load of people working with him or her, without which the work would simply not be possible. Leading the way was Cllr Stewart Stacey, an experienced councillor who won the seat back last year and has led the campaign over the past few years, organising and planning. With him, I had Chris Dalton, my agent, and a small core of dedicated and hardworking campaigners who have worked absolutely tirelessly to deliver the result. We've had local members, supporters, friends, family and anybody else we could drag in to lend a hand.

Yesterday was a bit worrying - the rain failed to clear as forecast and stuck around throughout the afternoon and became very heavy in the evening. We were forced off the doorsteps and onto an assortment of hastily assembled landline and mobile phones to call supporters and voters to remind them that they only had a few hours to get out and vote. Historically, rain is supposed to affect the Labour vote more than any other party and  I suspect that this was the case in Acocks Green this year. Certainly, over the course of the late afternoon, I was not a good person to be around - we had done so much work that I knew that we were in contention, despite a very strong and well-funded Liberal Democrat fightback, and I feared that the rain might scupper my chances.

Even at the count, I don't think either us or the Liberal Democrats knew which way it was going to be resolved - our calculations veered between a 250 Labour majority and one of 50 for the Liberal Democrats. As each box was opened and we carried out our sampling, it was clear that it was very close and the outcome really wasn't clear until the last part of the process.

Spare a thought for the counting and polling staff, who do a vital job for all of us - it is an essential part of the democratic process and the deputy returning officer and his team did their usual, professional job last night.

I also want to spare a word for Roger Harmer and his team. Contrary to popular opinion, political opponents don't have to have personal emnity - it has always been one of the pleasures of Acocks Green that things aren't personal. I respect Roger for his skill and experience and I know that his departure leaves some big shoes to fill.

Thanks to the voters of Acocks Green for putting their trust in me. We will face some difficult times in Birmingham over the coming years, but we will tackle them with Labour principles guiding us. .

Here's the result in full:

John O'Shea (Labour) 2170
Roger Harmer (Liberal Democrat) 1993
Chris Whitehouse (UKIP) 269
Joe Edginton (Conservative) 247
Amanda Baker (Green Party) 168
Stella Taylor (BNP) 166
Ben Rubery (Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts) 58
Alan Ware (SDP) 15

Turnout was low - around the 25% mark, doubtless depressed by the weather.

The overall result for the City Council is

Labour - 77 seats (+20)
Conservative - 28 seats (-11)
Liberal Democrat - 15 seats (-9)

That puts Labour firmly in majority control of the council for the first time in eight years.

Bringing out the big guns in support

Sion SImon, John O'Shea, Waseem Zaffar and the team

Liam Byrne, John O'Shea, Lu O'Shea and Chris Dalton

I've been really lucky to have the support of a number of high profile campaigners and MPs over the course of this campaign. Today, we were out on the Gospel estate with Liam Byrne, MP for Hodge Hill, member of the shadow cabinet and potential candidate for Birmingham mayor (if the voters support the idea tomorrow. Last week, Sion Simon, who has run a fine campaign over the past couple of years to push the idea of an elected mayor for Birmingham, joined the fray on a very wet evening. And before that, Shabana Mahmood, MP for Ladywood, came down to help find more Labour voters.

John O'Shea and Shabana Mahmood

Thanks to all of them - and to those who have been on the campaign trail with me. I'll write up a fuller list of thanks later on (Cllr Stacey and Chris Dalton, my agent, are at the top of the list). Whatever happens tomorrow, it has been great working with all of you.

We've had a great time out on the doorstep and the phones, talking to voters - talking to real people about their problems and their worries and explaining what Labour want to do to make Birmingham better. Tomorrow, it will be over to those people to decide who represents Acocks Green - will it be the Liberal Democrat who has voted with the Tories since he was elected in 2008 or the local candidate who promises that Birmingham will be better with Labour?

Clegg's man or YOUR man - that's the choice.

What's happening at Acocks Green Station? We aren't allowed to know.

There's a nice picture of the Lib Dem candidate on his leaflet, standing outside Acocks Green Station with Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. He must be being shown the station that is at risk of having the ticket office opening hours cut. Apparently the Secretary of State for Transport - sits with Vince at the cabinet table - has agreed some changes requested by London Midland. While we know that the original plan cut the opening hours - and thus the staff - at our popular station, we aren't allowed to know the decision that has been pending for months, even though it has apparently been taken.

You may also have seen the headline in the Birmingham Post that Acocks Green booking office is at risk from complete closure as a result of government plans to 'rationalise' the rail network ticketing process. This will also result in staff cuts and could make our station less safe for travellers. This is a separate threat to the station service and we won't know if the office is to be closed for a while yet.

Given how well-used the station is, I find it hard to understand why the excellent staff who look after it and keep an eye on what happens there are being threatened with redundancy. Shouldn't we be keeping them on to encourage use of the station?

Not on my turf

Just a couple of examples of graffiti that has sprung up in Acocks Green recently - I can only guess at the words behind APL, but the swastika makes the meaning clear.

I reported it last week and it was cleared well within 24 hours. Top marks to the graffiti clearance team. Just another benefit of me living on the patch....

Also on the radar was a fallen branch from a street tree on Dolphin Lane, a result of Sunday's high winds. Cllr Stacey had that cleared quickly, allowing the homeowner to get out of their drive again. It looks like some work will be required to the tree to make it safe, but the immediate problem has been solved.

Never forget you have a choice.

Remember this from 2010? It proved sadly prescient. 

In the last 13 weeks of the Labour government, we added £15 billion to the economy, driving it to recovery. Since then, the recovery has flatlined. 

In the last 637 days of the Tory government, they have struggled to add £5 billion. 

In the seven quarters since Osborne took the helm of the economy, aided by the useful idiot Danny Alexander, the economy has gone backwards in four. The fantasy of an export-led recovery, as seen in Canada in the 1990s has been exposed as the pipe-dream it always was.

However, the problem isn't the technical recession - I can assure you that out there in the real world, it has felt like a recession for a long time. Perhaps even recession isn't the right word - we're just bouncing along the bottom. I'd expect a pickup over the summer, but not by much and ongoing sluggish growth and contraction.

As I noted here, the recovery - such as it is - has taken longer than in any recession on record, including that in the 1930s. A far better qualified economist than me, the Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, makes exactly this point - that this was a choice not enforced upon us by the bond markets or the European Central Bank and adds a warning:

The defense I hear from Cameron apologists is that the austerity mostly hasn’t even hit yet. But that’s really not much of a defense. Remember, the austerity was supposed to work by inspiring confidence; where’s the confidence? Basically, the expansionary aspect should already have kicked in; it’s all contraction from here. 

The private sector has not stepped up to the plate to replace the contracted state - and there are lots more cuts to come. 

The fact is, this is a depression manufactured in Downing Street by an utterly incompetent government. They try to shift the blame onto the Eurozone, ignoring the fact that up to 2010, the Eurozone and UK recoveries were tracking nicely together. After the May election, they diverged as the UK recovery stalled. 

The figures hide the fact that it is ordinary people and families that are suffering in this depression. I'm certainly not celebrating this awful news. 

However, we need to remember that in 2010, people had a choice about which road we would follow. 

You have a choice again on May 3. 


Time to change direction.

Where Labour leads...

Just a reminder that it isn't only on the campaign to save the police station in Yardley where Labour leads the way. You may recall that when the station was threatened, the Liberal Democrats ran a survey, but Labour took action and brought the key police authority finance chair down to the site to discuss it with him directly.

The same applies to the funding for Acocks Green station announced last year to improve access to the platforms for those relying on wheels. It was back in 2007 in an earlier campaign that I raised this with Roger Horton, then the vice chair of CENTRO and after that, Acocks Green was added to the list for work to be done under the scheme launched by Labour.

We may not see the fruits until 2014, but sometimes these things do take time.

Women and families hit hardest by Lib Dem/Tory cuts

Women are the heart of our family and society, but they have been hit hardest by savage cuts imposed by this Tory/Lib Dem government. And the Lib Dem MP for Yardley has supported the cuts all the way, calling them ‘necessary.’

Labour supported women and families – we doubled child care places, we doubled maternity pay, we toughened laws on domestic violence and removed discrimination from the pensions system. Labour showed that there is a different way – a better way.


With 96,000 more women out of work than in May 2010 - over 3000 of them in Birmingham, the figure is the highest in decades. Two thirds of public sector workers are women. They are the hardest hit by the 400,000 jobs cut from public services - jobs that often fitted in with families, school runs and term-time. 32,000 women have given up work as they can't afford childcare. The changes to tax credits have made over 1000 families poorer in Yardley alone - affecting over 2000 children, while the Liberal Democrats give £14,000 tax cuts to millionaires.

Labour thinks this is wrong. 

Estelle Morris back in Yardley

We had a really good day with a series of doorstep sessions across Yardley on Saturday and were delighted to have Estelle Morris join us. She's still held in very high esteem in the constituency, despite having stood down as the MP in 2005 - she is much missed by many and is always a popular figure on the doorsteps.

We're even picking up new members and helpers as a result of our campaigning in Acocks Green.

2300 West Midlands Police jobs face the axe

Under Labour, crime fell every year.

The Liberal Democrats promised 3000 new police officers. 

Instead, they are cutting 16,000 nationwide. 

West Midlands Police are being forced to make deep cuts by this government. A thousand jobs have already gone and more are at risk. These cuts cost us experienced officers with decades of vital crime-fighting knowledge.

Speaking for ordinary officers, the Police Federation said, 

“We have no doubt that cuts to police budgets will lead to more crime.”

In 2011, over a thousand years of police experience was forcibly retired. 


At the time, DC Tony Fisher said,

"I use the analogy, West Midlands Police are being a bit like the Villa, going down and very quickly... You can even see now the front-line policing is affected, burglary detection rates, robbery detection rates are down, robberies and burglaries are going up and to be honest it's been quite soul destroying to see these changes."

Does it seem fair that officers in the West Midlands are being forced out of work - and then asked to come back as volunteer Special Constables?

The Liberal Democrats and the Tories on the West Midlands Police Authority supported the moves towards privatising parts of the service - moves opposed by the Labour Group.

Some great photos of Acocks Green...

Can be found here.Some parts haven't changed in layout much in over half a century - others, more so!

Welcome to Acocks Green

This poster has appeared on the Yardley Road, just by the border into the ward.

There's only one party that cares. 

Campaigning Against the Granny Tax

Good to be out there, defending our pensioners against paying extra tax to allow the government to cut tax for millionaires.

Sadly, the elected member of parliament doesn't seem to mind hitting the pensioners in the pocket.

Runners and Riders

So we now know who will be the candidates on May 3....

Eight to watch:

Amanda Baker - Green
Joe Edginton - Conservative
Roger Harmer - Liberal Democrat
John O'Shea - Labour
Ben Rubery - Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts
Stella Taylor - British Nationalist Party
Alan Ware - Social Democratic Party
Chris Whitehouse - UKIP

I think that makes us the ward with the widest choice - although this really is down to a two horse race. If you want to see who else is nominated, there's the full 40 ward listing here.

Cameron's NHS Betrayal

An excellent party election broadcast from Robert Winston. Quietly devastating.

Planning Applications to 24 March 2012

2012/01418/PA - 28 Augusta Road
Change of use from a single dwelling to 2 no. self contained flats

2012/01950/PA - 13 Westfield Road
Retention of boundary wall and 2 no. pillars to front

2012/01942/PA - 8 Netley Grove
Erection of two storey side and rear and single storey rear extension

You can find out more details of each application on the council website here.

On the campaign trail

Last week, we took advantage of the good weather to get out and about and knock on some doors on the Stockfield estate. It was particularly good to have the excellent Steve Bassam (@stevethequip on Twitter), leader of the Labour Lords, along to lend a hand and he was certainly quick to dash up and down the paths, shaking hands and digging out the potential voters.

As is common, we found voters furious at the Lib Dems for their post-election behaviour - 'Never again' is a very common refrain.

We'll be out and about across the ward in the run up to election day, so do stop and say hello, even if we aren't knocking on your door.

Acocks Green Library

Let's be clear about the situation with Acocks Green Library. It is a key community facility and all those of us who live here are lucky to have such a well-used building - my family have always used it.

The Liberal Democrat/Conservative council in Birmingham have developed a 'revised operating model' for libraries in Birmingham that would see key sites like Acocks Green and South Yardley allocated enough money to open for 40 hours a week (usually 4 weekdays and a Saturday, with one late night). That would be reduction from the current 5 weekdays and Saturday model in Acocks Green, which requires 50 hours to service.

At last week's Constituency Committee, the Liberal Democrats forced through a decision to use Community Chest funding to pay for the additional ten hours required to make up the difference - but only for six months. Labour wanted this decision taken locally at the next ward committee meeting in May - just as the Liberal Democrats did in Sheldon this month, with a chance to consult with you, the electorate.

FACT: As things stand at the moment, in autumn 2012, Acocks Green library will face a cut of ten hours. 

This coming year, Yardley constituency faces other cuts of roughly £1 million, plus £312,000 of cuts that the Liberal Democrats failed to make this year, plus repaying an end of year overspend - currently forecast to be £454,000 - and also overspend from 2010-11, also under Liberal Democrat control.

They failed to identify any areas of spending that will face the axe after the elections, despite repeated attempts by me to get them to tell the electorate in advance where the cuts would be made. They don't want us to know - they just want to kick the can down the road past the elections.

All this comes against the background of unfair cuts imposed upon Birmingham by the Tories and their Liberal Democrat cronies - each of us faces cuts of £164 per person. Wokingham faces cuts of just £20 per person. The West Midlands are cutting police officers - Surrey are hiring more. Is that fair?

Why won't the Liberal Democrats stand up for Birmingham?

Labour promise to do so. Within days of winning power in Birmingham, Labour will ask all the political parties to support a demand for Birmingham's fair share.

You decide - Mayoral Referendum Booklet

With a hat tip to Neil Elkes, here's a link to the booklet shortly to be landing on doorsteps across Birmingham.

Diary Date - Yardley Constituency Committee

Tonight, we've got the final Constituency Committee before the elections and money figures large on the agenda. The main items are:

• 2011-12 Q3 Budget monitoring report (Oct-Dec 2011)
• 2012-13 Revenue Budget
• Surplus properties in Yardley and how they are to be disposed of
• Community Chest Applications - S Yardley; Stechford & Yardley North; All ward applications

At the end of December, the constituency was expecting to overspend by a whopping £454,000 this year and the only steps suggested to minimise that are that the officers and chair will stringently control budget expenditure and carefully manage vacancies, temporary staff and redeployment. Which you would rather think would be standard practice, rather than a last minute panic measure. Added to that is the constituency's failure to achieve £312,000 in savings, with no measures in place to achieve those figures. Part of the £1 million savings has already been achieved through a series of one-off measures - using up unspent Working Neighbourhoods Fund and deferring payments of deficits built up in earlier years are one-off methods that were tried at city level as well.

Should be an interesting meeting.

Acocks Green Police Station Open Day

As always, good to see around our local police station. The Fire Service from Hay Mills were there, along with the traffic bikes, a van from the Operational Support Unit and a dog handler. You could even have a go on the laser speed gun, tracking the cars moving along Yardley Road - fortunately, all within the limit.

The cuts continue to bite, however, as the dog section will lose 14% of its manpower and the traffic department has already lost 35% of the assigned officers.