{"id":1901,"date":"2021-04-16T09:10:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T09:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eyeonmoseley.co.uk\/?p=1901"},"modified":"2022-04-20T08:38:35","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T08:38:35","slug":"west-midlands-mayoral-hustings-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeonmoseley.co.uk\/?p=1901","title":{"rendered":"West Midlands Mayoral Hustings – 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"After a year off from any sort of democratic activity <\/span>we\u2019re easing back into things with the West Midlands Metro Mayor election. The Mayoral election is an odd one. Nobody really understands what the Mayor does, not many people really know who the Mayor is, but it\u2019s the only vote we\u2019re getting this year so fill your boots.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the first hustings that I\u2019ve written about that has taken place over Zoom. I\u2019ve been writing these up for the last couple of decades so you don\u2019t have to go but as you now don\u2019t actually have to go this might have become a bit redundant. Steve Caudwell (Green) said he hopes we can get back to real hustings as soon as possible but I managed to watch this, drink beer and watch the football all at the same time so I\u2019m a fan. There is less booing with a Zoom hustings. I miss the booing.<\/p>\n

It was the usual format. A brief intro from each candidate and then some questions. The hustings were chaired by David from the Moseley Forum and he ably transferred his chaotic approach to a virtual world. With this being entirely run by Moseley Forum we didn\u2019t have to pretend we cared about what was happening in Kings Heath. Which was a relief.<\/p>\n

Liam Byrne (Labour)<\/strong> \u2013 Liam told us that we can\u2019t go back to the time before COVID because of foodbanks, knife crime and falling life expectancy. He seemed quite vexed that violent crime is spiralling out of control. Is that true? Liam promised that if we make him Mayor he will give us a people\u2019s plan, youth workers, greener things, cleaner things, pocket parks, festivals, more police, and more nature. It would have been quicker to list the things we\u2019re not going to get.<\/p>\n

Pete Durnell (Reform UK)<\/strong> \u2013 Pete started by hinting that he wasn\u2019t wearing any trousers and then launched into a baffling explanation about an old normal, a new normal and a normal normal. All of these normals seemed to be a dystopian future where we all have to wear masks, or not wear masks, or some combination of masks and not masks. If we make him Mayor he will fight for investment to get as back to the old normal normal. Which wasn\u2019t one of his options.<\/p>\n

Steve Caudwell (Green)<\/strong> \u2013 Steve told us about the jobs he\u2019s had. Selling TVs, installing air conditioning and running multi million-pound contracts for Jaguar. He reckons, probably correctly, that the climate emergency is the defining issue of our time. He also mentioned poverty in the \u201cseven boroughs\u201d. I\u2019ve never heard of the seven boroughs before. It\u2019s either a weird tribute to The Beastie Boys 2004 Album<\/a> or people are taking some municipal liberties. The WMCA is not made up of seven boroughs. Steve explained how the voting system works claiming that a first preference vote for him could be based on principle whereas a second preference vote for someone who is likely to win would be practical.<\/p>\n

Andy Street (Conservative)<\/strong> \u2013 Andy is running on how brilliant the West Midlands has become since he has been Mayor. Which is a bold choice. The booming economy, fantastic transport and end to rough sleeping were all news to me. Andy has an ambitious manifesto that will create 100,000 new jobs and he has a plan to fix the climate by 2041. We also now have a \u201cfully funded\u201d Moseley station. This means we are in a Shrodinger-esque situation where our station both doesn\u2019t exist and does exist at the same time.<\/p>\n

Jenny Wilkinson (Lib Dems)<\/strong> \u2013 Jenny wants to be a consultative Mayor. Which did sound a bit like she hadn\u2019t got a manifesto but would ask us what to do later if she got the job. But to be fair she has some ideas about Universal Basic Income (UBI), a real Living Wage and building houses for social rent. Which all sound good. Oh, and green stuff. green networks, a green heart of England. It isn\u2019t just Jenny, but everyone seems fixated on putting the word green in front of everything. I suppose it is Moseley.<\/p>\n

Questions. There are always questions. All of the questions were filtered, and sometimes edited by David. Equally because I didn\u2019t understand all of them, I\u2019ve had my best guess at what was asked.<\/p>\n

Would you re-regulate buses?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jenny<\/strong>  – Jenny said she is keen on re-regulating buses. She has just given up her car and has found public transport really difficult to use. Why on earth would you give up your car just before fighting a regional election? Give it up in May.<\/p>\n

Andy<\/strong> \u2013 Andy decided to tell us a story. A story about the Chief Executive of National Express who had, apparently, told him \u201cIt\u2019s not working Andy\u201d, and Andy had sat down and fixed the buses. He brought in new technology and fixed the 50 bus. The last time I was on the 50 it seemed fine so maybe this did happen. As he has fixed the buses he wouldn\u2019t re-regulate.<\/p>\n

Pete<\/strong> \u2013 Pete thinks re-regulating would cost too much and improving network connectivity is more of a priority.<\/p>\n

Steve<\/strong> \u2013 Steve would re-regulate buses but thinks that reducing the number of cars on the road is more important. Even an electric car can run you over. Steve said that, I\u2019m not adding that for the sake of it.<\/p>\n

Liam<\/strong> \u2013 Liam is not happy about National Express being a monopoly provider and he thinks we also need an active travel plan. He told a moving story about how he walks across Kings Health park and Highbury Park to get a coffee from Damascena. When he has his coffee he\u2019s always aware of how poor the air quality. As claims he carries an air quality machine thing around with him all the time it\u2019s probably not surprising he is aware of this. Full points for name checking local landmarks. He wouldn\u2019t take the nuclear option of re-regulation off the table.<\/p>\n

What do you think will happen to Moseley High Street post COVID?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pete<\/strong> \u2013 Pete thinks cities will change and many shops have now shut for good because people like Amazon.<\/p>\n

Steve<\/strong> \u2013 Steve is sick of working from home. He thinks we need to try things like UBI to give people space to take risks.<\/p>\n

Jenny<\/strong> \u2013 Jenny is excited about the opportunities for change. There are opportunities for mixed use residential, retail and leisure. Which sounds like an advert for an office development on Broad Street.<\/p>\n

Liam<\/strong> \u2013 Liam reckons the social capital that is evident in Moseley is a model for the rest of the region. He wants to invest in the soul of community through festivals, museums and community musical assets. I think this means he has just promised us a bandstand.<\/p>\n

Andy<\/strong> \u2013 Andy reckons Moseley will be all right. He said that it has been more resilient because it didn\u2019t have chains. I would call Boots and Pizza Express chains but there you go.<\/p>\n

There was also an extra little question about what candidates would do about shop rents. For some reason Pete wasn\u2019t allowed to answer this.<\/p>\n

The city has become a dumping ground for fly tipping, what would you do about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jenny<\/strong> \u2013 Jenny wants to encourage more community ownership and when we catch the people littering we should make them clean it up.<\/p>\n

Andy<\/strong> \u2013 Andy would like us to all have a bit of a tidy up before the Commonwealth Games, he also reckons Birmingham is dirtier than the other boroughs, or realms or whatever we\u2019re calling them. He learned in business that if you let standards slip people don\u2019t respect you.<\/p>\n

Pete<\/strong> \u2013 Pete wants to get rid of the booking system at the tips in Sandwell.<\/p>\n

Liam<\/strong> \u2013 Liam reckons everyone is furious about this. Correctly identifying that pro-fly tipping vote is minimal. He made the point that Birmingham has had the worst budget cuts in history and that has had an impact.<\/p>\n

Steve<\/strong> \u2013 Steve thinks the WMCA could play a role in active communications about littering and fly tipping. He also thinks people should be able to cross municipal boundaries to use tips. That seems fair.<\/p>\n

Has Andy Street failed young people?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Andy <\/strong>–  Andy said it is a fair challenge and he hadn\u2019t achieved all he had promised in his last manifesto. Though he did say he had made progress through the “good years” of 2017, 2018 and 2019. Which is bizarre. Who on earth looks back on 2017, 2018 and 2019 as \u201cgood years\u201d? They were awful. They only look good since thousands of people a day started dying.<\/p>\n

Liam<\/strong> \u2013 Liam ended up being quite passionate about this. Not whether Andy had failed but the catastrophe facing young people. He made a good case that we have an inspirational generation of young people and we shouldn\u2019t let them down.<\/p>\n

Jenny<\/strong> \u2013 Jenny believes that we can\u2019t have a lost generation and we need to look at the digital poverty that has exacerbated inequality.<\/p>\n

Steve <\/strong>– Steve made an interesting point about how some Academies are using their powers to off-roll pupils as they return to school. That\u2019s worrying.<\/p>\n

Pete<\/strong> \u2013 Pete believes that children haven\u2019t been harmed by COVID but by our reaction to COVID.<\/p>\n

How do you reverse the policy of successive Governments to stifle Birmingham\u2019s growth?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pete<\/strong> \u2013 Pete believes we should just \u201ckeep banging on about it\u201d. Honestly, we were all losing a lot of energy by this point.<\/p>\n

Steve<\/strong> \u2013 Steve thinks we need to be brave enough to go to Government and tell them we want to be trailblazers. He added \u201cWho knows, they might agree\u201d. Which seems optimistic. He said that one Council Chief Executive has told him that devolution to regions as a concept was dead. It\u2019s hard to argue with that.<\/p>\n

Jenny<\/strong> \u2013 Jenny would like to see the West Midlands have the sort of powers that Manchester has. This is always the unsaid thing about the West Midlands Mayor and it\u2019s good Jenny said it.<\/p>\n

Liam<\/strong> \u2013 Liam claimed that Labour Mayors are driving policy across the country and it\u2019s about time the West Midlands had some of that. Liam had three things he would do (Liam always has three things). 1) He would make the West Midlands the green workshop 2) He would build beautiful neighbourhoods. We didn\u2019t get to the third one.<\/p>\n

Andy<\/strong> \u2013 Andy repeated the question back in worrying detail and then said he had actually solved most of this in his first term. He has (or had, I got a bit lost with this) a 40 page plan that talked about Life Sciences, professional services and Digbeth. I did notice he didn\u2019t mention driverless cars at all. In the last election he was all over driverless cars.<\/p>\n

Would you commit to the Three Million Pledge<\/a> supporting EU citizens in the UK?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steve<\/strong> \u2013 Steve said he would sign it but it is also easy to sign pledges and not do anything.<\/p>\n

Jenny<\/strong> \u2013 Jenny would sign it and is worried about the looming deadline for EU citizens.<\/p>\n

Andy<\/strong> \u2013 Andy said he had to go because he had something else to do. He added that he had just looked up the pledge and wouldn\u2019t commit to it, especially the pledge to give EU citizens in the UK voting rights in local elections.<\/p>\n

Liam<\/strong>  – Liam said he would support it and that we need to build bridges with the EU. His kids want to study in EU so it isn\u2019t just bad for the EU it\u2019s also bad for \u201cThe Byrne\u201d. It wasn\u2019t clear if he was talking about himself as \u201cThe Byrne\u201d which would be odd, or the family unit of Byrnes.<\/p>\n

Pete<\/strong> \u2013 Pete said he doesn\u2019t sign pledges he hasn\u2019t read. I\u2019m not sure anyone was suggesting that he shouldn\u2019t read it. He also added that he\u2019d heard there were 5 million EU citizens in the UK so maybe the pledge organisers should change the name.<\/p>\n

That was the end. David wanted to carry on with questions because he had \u201ca funny one\u201d. Nobody looked enthusiastic about \u201ca funny one\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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