For now, he is Mr Nobody. Next week, he could be our mayor

Labour’s candidate is a lifelong management consultant who is taking heat from the Daily Mail. But who is Richard Parker?

Good morning Patchers — welcome to your Friday briefing.

Today’s story takes a look at Labour’s candidate for mayor Richard Parker — who is he and what does he want to do? Whether he can win or not is still up in the air, although the polls are on his side. All will be revealed next week at the ballot box.

Other than that, we’ve got a few choice stories for you including plans for a bonkers building on Broad Street that won’t see the light of day, George Galloway’s trip to second city, and news that the man who set fire to mosque worshippers has received a sentence.

Finally, the big read today does have a pay wall, so any free subscribers will only get to read the first few paragraphs. This is because we want to keep bringing you quality journalism, that isn’t plastered with ads. If you have the means, please consider signing up for full access to all of our work. Thank you!

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🏗️‘Bonkers’ building rejected: Remember the plan to build a skyscraper over a listed building and ex-shisha bar on Broad Street? We mentioned it a few weeks ago because many people thought it was nuts. Many others (commenting online) thought it was great — build more homes, they said, we need them. Well, they’ll be disappointed to learn Birmingham City Council has unanimously voted to quash the proposal. Conservative Councillor Gareth Moore said it was “utterly bonkers” and that to “stick a 42-storey tower block over a Georgian mansion is ridiculous”.

📱Galloway X Yakoob: Rochdale’s new MP George Galloway — ‘gorgeous George’ to his admirers — hit up Aston last night to rev up support for TikTok lawyer and independent candidate for mayor, Akhmed Yakoob. The local lawyer took the Workers Party leader on a “whistle stop” tour of the region before attending an evening rally at Roshon Banqueting Hall. Did any Dispatch readers go to the event? Please get in touch if you did, we’d love to know the details.

⚖️Sentence for worshipper attacker: Mohammed Abbkr has been given an indefinite hospital order after setting fire to two elderly worshippers who had left mosques in Birmingham and London. Abbkr, who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, approached Mohammed Rayaz, 70, outside Dudley Road Mosque last year. He sprayed him with petrol and set him alight resulting in serious injuries.

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For now, he is Mr Nobody. Next week, he could be our mayor

By Kate Knowles

“No one’s heard of you. Is that the best Labour can do?” an audience member put to Richard Parker at a debate in Hockley last week. It wasn’t a particularly charitable question, but it wasn’t entirely unfair either. The Labour candidate to run the West Midlands is — for now at least — a relative nobody. But if the chips fall his way, Parker could be our mayor this time next week. In fact, one poll suggests such an outcome is very likely. 

So who is Parker — and can he win? 

The cheat sheet goes like this: He’s 60, Bristol-born but has lived in the West Midlands for 29 years and raised his family here. He grew up on an estate to a dock worker father and a school secretary mother. He left school at 16 but went back into education before enrolling on a Birmingham City Council graduate programme. He worked as an accountant for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) between 1989 and 2017 before starting his own consultancy firm.

Yes, that’s right: the man tasked by Labour with unseating Andy Street, a two-term mayor who used to be managing director of John Lewis, is a lifelong management consultant. Fight fire with fire, I suppose.

Richard Parker out leafleting. Photo by: Joe Dundas.

That rather corporate CV — and Parker’s lack of name recognition even in Labour circles (he’s never even been a councillor, let alone a former cabinet minister like Andy Burnham up in Manchester) meant that his nomination was met with some scepticism.