‘David and Goliath’ — Shock Reform council by-election win in Wolverhampton
Plus, get your Dispatch reader discount for the English Whisky Festival
Dear Patchers — Welcome to another week. It was a weekend of cake and party poppers at Dispatch HQ as we celebrated our first birthday. While we don’t have time to send handwritten Thank You cards to every single one of you (that would be 20,754 Thank You cards, after all) we do massively appreciate your support over the last year.
There were no doubt festivities in Bilston North over the weekend too, as Reform UK took its first-ever seat on the City of Wolverhampton Council in a surprise victory over Labour. The debrief from that contest is today’s Big Story. Before that though, a look back over the weekend.
Catch up: Distracted by the Tory leadership election results and the looming U.S. presidential polls? We don’t blame you. Here are some stories you may have missed over the weekend:
Read Jon Neale’s deep dive into Steve Winwood and Birmingham’s 1960s musical lore: “[a] great article about Birmingham’s finest,” one reader said.
Catch up on Mill Media dating gossip, with Moya Lothian-McLean’s The Londoner article on why everyone under 45 is seemingly single in the capital.
The Dispatch’s coverage of Khalistan and Preet Gill, MP has been featured in Politico and we’ve received support from Green Party peer and ex-leader Natalie Bennett. She tweeted, “#MediaFreedom demands an end to #LawFare…the rise of new independent media like @brumdispatch is crucial to building #democracy in the UK.” Gill apologised to The Dispatch last week after baselessly accusing us of taking donations to write stories.
Do you have any information about HS2’s closed National College for High-Speed Rail (also known as the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure)? Get in touch with our staff writer at sam@birminghamdispatch.co.uk.
Editor’s note: The Dispatch’s first year has flown by and we can’t wait to meet those of you who have purchased tickets for our first-ever meetup next week. The event is now sold out but if you want to make sure you can come to future Dispatch dos, become a member by hitting the button below. For £8 a month — or £80 for the whole year — you’ll get access to all of our articles (an additional eight editions every month). Most importantly, you’ll be a part of the movement for quality local journalism in the West Midlands.
English whisky mania comes to town
From today’s sponsor: Brummie whisky fans rejoice: the English Whisky Festival is coming to The Bond in Digbeth on Saturday, 23rd November. English whisky is very much on the rise, led by some excellent West Midlands distilleries, and at the festival, you can sample dozens of varieties from single malt to rye and corn. There are also masterclasses, a food court to line your stomach and an on-site bottle shop. Dispatch readers can save £6 on the ticket price by using the code DI6PATCH. Find out more and book your ticket here.
There’s a mist rolling in…
🌥️ Tuesday: Light cloud and light winds. Max 13°C.
🍃 Wednesday: Misty and windy — wear your woolly hat. Max 14°C.
🍃 Thursday: More mist and a gentle breeze. Max 13°C.
🌤️ Friday: Sunny patches and light winds. Max 12°C.
☔ Weekend: Return of the mist, accompanied by drizzle. Max 15°C.
We get our weather from the Met Office.
Big story: ‘David and Goliath’ — Shock Reform council by-election win in Wolverhampton
Top line: Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has found joy in the Midlands, winning its first-ever seat on the City of Wolverhampton Council. Anita Stanley wrestled the seat away from Labour, who plunged 38 percentage points from 2023 when all three seats in the ward were contested. Stanley won 34.8% of the vote.
Context: Bilston North comprises Bilston town centre and areas of suburban housing. It is socio-economically mixed — less deprived on average than Bilston South or wards north-east of the city centre, but with two localities in the top 10% most deprived in England. It is also ethnically mixed — more than a third of residents are non-white, with significant Sikh and Hindu communities.
Who is Anita Stanley? Stanley described herself, previously, as a floating voter (though she supported her husband Imre when he was a Conservative activist.) The Tettenhall resident, and former Bilston College lecturer, was prompted to get involved with Reform when she became “despondent about the options” at the general election.
“We are absolutely fed up of being lied to,” she tells The Dispatch. A key motivation, she says, is feeling the Tories weren’t acting in British people’s interests, in terms of immigration (“they didn’t stop the boats”) and public services. She says her definition of British is multi-ethnic. “We can't cope with any more illegal migration; we are OK with managed migration.”
The campaign: Stanley tells us Reform knocked on or dropped leaflets at 5,000 doors (nearly the whole ward), ran a marketplace stall, and engaged closely with places of worship. “Some supporters came from all ethnic communities,” she says. Key issues included the desire for more resources directed at the area, people feeling unsafe and small businesses under pressure. “We spoke to individuals whose disposable incomes were wiped [out] by energy bills and cost of living — two of them were facing bailiff action. Bilston is a proud, friendly, place, but our community has been badly affected by consistent local and national Government betrayals,” she adds. There was also frustration about the poor maintenance of streets, parks, ponds and trees in the area.
‘David and Goliath’: Stanley’s campaign manager was the independent councillor for Penn ward, Celia Hibbert. She was a Labour councillor and parliamentary candidate before her suspension from the party in 2023 for unspecified reasons, amid rumours she had tried to join the Lib Dems. However, Hibbert maintains Labour withdrew the whip because she kept voting against the party. Stanley and Hibbert emphasise the “David and Goliath” clash with Labour, which dispatched most city councillors and several local and wider West Mids region MPs to support their candidate.
Reform moon-shot: The by-election comes as Reform massively ramps up its organisation. Stanley became involved after attending the party’s NEC conference in September, with a day dedicated to “[taking] the creation of our grassroots infrastructure to warp speed”. (The Dispatch covered it at the time.) A Walsall & Bloxwich branch was set up last month, following local organiser Elaine Williams’ third place at the general election with almost 20% of the vote.
The national picture: The Bilston North result has got national attention. Associate Editor of UnHerd Peter Franklin, has written that both major parties should be paying attention to the result in Bilston North. He writes that for Starmer, a swing to Reform in a ward in the middle of a Labour constituency will be concerning. For the Tories:
“This presents [Kemi Badenoch] with a crucial strategic decision: whether to fight Reform for every ex-Tory voter or to give Nigel Farage a free run wherever his party is best placed to beat Labour.”
Labour’s loss: One reason for Labour’s defeat was the energetic Green campaign. Hardev Singh stood and won 23.4% of the vote. The ex-teacher-turned-business manager who runs cricket tournaments is well known in Bilston. Indeed, shops on the high street gladly put up his poster.
Red response: The Dispatch has approached Wolverhampton Labour for an official reaction, but so far we’ve had no response. We did speak to a veteran Labour campaigner who used to live in Bilston and spent time there during the by-election. He suggests several reasons for Reform’s win, including “election fatigue”, the poll clashing with Diwali and unreasonable cynicism about the new government “propelled by social media and the mainstream press”. He noted that turnout was just 19%, and the winning candidate only took 652 votes. As for Reform, he is undeterred: “They are going to need a bit more than five MPs to win the next election,” he laughs.
Bottom line: The new Labour government’s honeymoon period has been brutally short. But many people remain angry at the Conservatives. This shock result will cut deep for Labour — and is another sign that voters are increasingly willing to look beyond the two main parties.
Reporting by Josh Neicho.
Photo of the week
This M.C, Escher-Esq view, taken by Jessica Parker (@jessemilyparker on Instagram), looks down three floors of interlocking escalators at the Bullring Shopping Centre.
🐂 If you have any information about the Bullring’s slated redevelopment contact us at editor@birminghamdispatch.co.uk
Brum in brief
🎄 The Birmingham Christmas Craft Market will return to Cathedral Square (or Pigeon Park to most people) next Wednesday until 22 December. Over 60 indie businesses, selling a unique array of arts and crafts, street food and festive drinks, will set up stalls over the six weeks. Just be sure to indulge in the mulled wine after your spin down the helter-skelter.
🕯️ A vigil was held in Birmingham’s Centenary Square on Saturday to commemorate the victims of anti-Sikh violence in India in 1984. Thousands of Sikhs were killed and tortured after the assassination of India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. The killing was in response to the Indian government’s devastating attack on the Golden Temple earlier that year. Gandhi had ordered the attack after Sikh groups attempted to use the spot as a staging ground for their secessionist Khalistan project. Vigil organiser and GNG, Smethwick president Kuldeep Singh said: “It was a very emotional sombre gathering, we didn’t just have Sikhs we had all kinds of communities attend the event." The Dispatch previously covered the Khalistan movement and anti-Sikh repression in Birmingham here.
🚲 Birmingham City Council (BCC) are still considering banning cycling within select city centre areas. BCC has now launched an initial consultation on the ban, citing the potential for delivery riders crashing into pedestrians, especially in areas with high foot traffic, as an important concern. However, many see the proposed ban as directly contradictory to preexisting local government transport strategies aiming at reducing pollution, increasing safety and cutting traffic. Professor David Cox, leader of Bike West Midlands Network has claimed that the council has “totally neglected” cycling infrastructure: causing more crashes.
🛫 Back in late October, Birmingham airport applied to increase its ‘night flight’ allocation from 5% to 7.3% of flights per year. This application for a night flight increase comes as the airport aims to handle 18 million passengers a year by 2033. If the request is approved it will result in around 21 night flights a day by 2026. The airport puts the need to increase its night flight capacity down to the growth of budget airlines and cheaper flights at unsociable hours. Solihull council will have to approve the application from the airport for more night flights and potentially a large amount of new jobs to meet demand. However, residents are concerned: “In the daytime, it's not so bad, but now they're more frequent it certainly does make a difference,” Luke Page said.
Home of the week
This two-bedroom Victorian terrace in Selly Oak is close to three train stations and features the kind of chunky wooden kitchen surfaces the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain probably dreamed about. It’s available for £280,000.
Media picks
🎧 Continue your nostalgic Steve Winwood binge with this mix: featuring songs written by the Birmingham musician between the 1960s and 1980s. Thanks to Nick from Grapevine Birmingham, who mixed the tracks, for sending it in.
🎧 Catch The Guardian’s John Harris, from the long-running, ‘Anywhere But Westminster’ series cover Birmingham City Council’s bankruptcy and the need for the new Labour government to provide more funding for local government. Harris makes the case that: “Birmingham’s situation is really, really, awful.” Good to know!
📰 The Financial Times profiles the new West Midlands combined authority mayor Richard Parker. Parker tells the FT that: “it’s not necessarily about having more money. It’s about having more freedom to use it.”
🚲 In a Guardian opinion piece, deputy political editor Peter Walker makes the case that Birmingham City Council are targeting the wrong problem by proposing to ban cycling in the centre: “What the councillors of Birmingham have failed to realise is that this is not a ‘cycling problem’. It is a law enforcement problem.” Walker cites illegal motorised electric bikes, not cyclists in general, as the real problem behind pedestrian injuries in the city.
Things to do
Tuesday
💥 End the day with a bang at Vipers Rugby Football Club’s Annual bonfire and fireworks night. With the bonfire lit at 7 pm, the evening promises fireworks, a bar, food and fairground rides. Tickets from £3.
🦅 Or escape the fireworks at 1000 Trades for an evening of U.S. election coverage with expert analysis, live updates, and big-screen viewing. Tickets are £10.
Wednesday
💭 Why not hang out with Roary (the Allosaurus skeleton) as you test your general knowledge in a quiz hosted at the Lapworth Museum on the University of Birmingham campus? Starting at 6.30 pm, the quiz has multiple rounds and offers a relaxed atmosphere. Tickets from £3.96.
📖 Catch author Irenosen Okojie read from her newly published novel Curandera at Digbeth’s Voce Books. Curandera has been described as a highly experimental piece of literary fiction: recommended for fans of magical realism, historical fiction and postmodern prose. Tickets from £3. Doors at 7 pm.
Thursday
📖 Head to Waterstones for an evening with bestselling Brummie author Jonathan Coe as he launches The Proof of My Innocence. Tickets from £4.
🎞️ Birmingham Film Festival showcases professional and indie films from around the world. Its ninth edition launches this week with the first screening taking place on Thursday at the Mockingbird Cinema. Catch the feature-length film Midas Man, a biopic of Brian Epstein, the manager behind the Beatles, from 7.30 pm. Tickets are free, but you’ll need to hurry — there are only a few left.
I’m enjoying having the full length edition, but can you remind me what days you send it out, please? I realise you have reduced the days recently thank you
i always wonder with every exspansion of Birmingham airport what the benefits are in the west midland? yes a few low paid service jobs will be created working nights it would appear. Meanwhile air pollution increases and so does noise pollution across the city and countryside... green avaiation doesnt exsist. Does anyone go back and challenge the airport as to what benefits acrrued from the last exspanision. Given its appauling customer experience this year...