The man who runs our police – and his bitter row with the mayor who wants his job

Plus: the West Midlands tops poverty league table

Hello, Dispatch community. Welcome to your Wednesday briefing.

This time you’re back with me, Dan Cave. As Kate laid out yesterday, having more hands on the tiller was always the intended plan as The Dispatch grows. It means more journalists working in tandem to give the West Midlands the insight and analysis it deserves. As such: you can expect me in your inbox from the middle of the week till Friday going forward.

So, what have we been focusing on this week? You will have read in Monday’s big story that Kate has been keeping tabs on the numbers associated with the worst measles outbreak since the 1990s. As we get more information on case numbers, and what medical experts are saying, we’ll be keeping you regularly updated in the Brum in Brief. Both Kate and I have spoken to health professionals to try and get a clearer picture of how cases are reported, and what this might mean for Birmingham. So keep your eyes peeled for that. 

Before I get to other orders of business, a request from Kate: Do you have an opinion on the Ringway Centre building on Smallbrook Queensway? Love it, hate it, or indifferent? Want to see it demolished and replaced, or renovated? Kate wants to hear from you for an article if so. Please send her an email. Indeed, the Dispatch relies on your eyes and ears as much as ours. We appreciate you sending us leads and opinions. Keep those coming in. 

Right, onto the numbers: there are 291 of us now paying for Dispatch journalism. From reading about Birmingham’s ghost patients to why celebrated novelist George Eliot’s home is now a Premier Inn to a radical bookshop hidden away in Digbeth, you’re all proving that we Midlanders have an appetite for high-quality journalism and are willing to pay for it. If you’re reading for free, you can help us reach our 300-subscriber end-of-January target by joining up. Please go ahead and click the big button below. Thanks for your support.

---

Brum in Brief

💉 Measles outbreak: As per yesterday’s Dispatch update, on 18 January the British Medical Journal reported 216 confirmed cases and 103 probable cases of measles in the West Midlands since October. The Dispatch is currently chasing to get the latest figures. Until then, we ask: what next for Birmingham? With the NHS focussing on a vaccine-uptake campaign, one health expert told The Dispatch low vaccination rates are an ongoing concern and the spread could be wider than initially thought. “It’s the potential of what could happen that is concerning,” they said. Reporting on a measles outbreak in 2019 suggests that only one in ten measles cases were reported at that time. 

💰 Cash-poor council: New reporting reveals that Birmingham City Council has recently used bailiffs more than any other council to try and claw back cash, chasing council tax, parking fines and non-payment of business rates and housing arrears. Full reporting here. Elsewhere, Jane Haynes has reported on the 25 libraries under threat as the Council looks to cut its budget. These are the latest updates as the Council attempts to save money. 

📉 Poverty-stricken West Midlands: A new report on UK Poverty by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that the West Midlands has the highest rate of poverty of any UK region, at 27% of its population, between 2019/20 and 2021/22. This was driven by its labour market, housing market, rates of benefit receipt, and wider demographic factors. 

🦁 ‘Golden’ news for Dispatch readers: Cannon Hill’s Grade II-listed Golden Lion, originally a guildhall, and until 1911 a pub, has been awarded part of Architectural Heritage Fund’s pot to explore plans to bring the building back as a useful resource for the community. Speaking to The Dispatch, Louise Brennan, Historic England Regional Director (Midlands) said it was good news for Brummies who want to step back inside this building. “If Dispatch readers have ideas for how we might use the space, we’re keen to hear them,” she says.

🌳 Climate debt tree-planting: In just four hours, local activists will plant a ginkgo tree in Birmingham City Centre gardens to mark the location of the largest human chain to have ever taken place in the UK in the last 30 years. 70,000 people took part in that chain during the G8 meeting in the city in 1998, influencing global leaders to cancel $130 billion of global debt to lower-income countries. 

🍽️ Nothing but taste: Orelle, a 24th-floor Colmore Row restaurant with unique views of Birmingham, is hosting a blackout dinner on Thursday 25 January. Once attendees are seated, lights will be turned off with only candles remaining as diners make their way through seven courses. I had dinner with your editor Kate (as well as a well-known Birmingham food critic) on Sunday but we used the traditional method of lighting. That said, I am intrigued. 

---

The man who runs our police – and his bitter row with the mayor who wants his job

‘You're either a Conservative candidate, and you stand on the Conservative ticket, or you're not,’ Simon Foster tells us.

By Kate Knowles

Simon Foster is angry. This is the most animated I have ever seen the ordinarily genial policing boss, in fact. We are sitting in his office at West Midlands Police HQ in Birmingham city centre. Thick files of meticulously labelled documents are fanned on the desk beside him. But for now, Foster’s focus is on one thing: He wants to set the record straight. He wants residents of the West Midlands to know their democratic rights are being threatened.

To bring you briefly up to speed, the region’s mayor and its Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) are engaged in a tug of war, one that was brewing for over a year and finally came to a head on 2 November. That was the day mayor Andy Street (a Conservative, of course) wrote to the home secretary to formally request that the PCC role, previously an elected position, come under the responsibility of whoever wins the next mayoral race in May. 

Street was making use of new powers which had come in just a week earlier, in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. This is why Foster (a Labour man) is angry. Labour has won all four previous PCC elections in the West Midlands but now Street, Foster says, is circumventing democracy to gain power by the back door.