Who's top dog in Birmingham? Our day at the city's weirdest — and cutest — event

Dear readers — if, like us, you have been gawping at photos from Crufts all week, today’s photo essay is for you. The camp and somewhat controversial pedigree dog show draws canine competitors from around the world to Birmingham every year. We sent the talented photographer and reporter team, Harry Mitchell and Fonie Mitsopoulou along with one brief: capture the weird world of Crufts 2026. The result is a glimpse into the preening and breeding, the cash-splashing and money-making, and the occasionally cut-throat tactics required to compete for the coveted title of Best in Show.

But before that, your Brum in Brief — including the latest on the bin strike and news of another housing provider going under.

Brum in Brief

📆 This week marks a year since the beginning of the all-out bin strike in Birmingham and journalists have been busy pulling together their copy to mark this sombre anniversary. The situation, however, remains largely the same as it has been for six months. Talks between Birmingham city council and Unite the Union collapsed in July last year after the council walked out of negotiations. The bitter dispute began after the council proposed to cut 170 waste recycling and collection officer (WRCO) positions, followed by scrapping 144 further team leader roles. The council says all WRCO employees have been “redeployed” or have taken voluntary redundancy, while the team leaders have accepted other roles, or taken voluntary redundancy. Meanwhile, the union insists the council’s changes have slashed incomes for dozens of workers while residents are fed-up with the ongoing impact of missed collections and over-flowing bins. (ITV).

💰 Now, Unite has made its biggest move yet: to withdraw 40% of its funding to the Labour Party over the strikes. The union said the £580,000 decrease from £1.45m was unprecedented. (BBC).

🏚️ Saif but not sound — another key player in Birmingham’s supported exempt accommodation (SEA) sector has gone bust. On 23 December the High Court granted a petition to wind up a company called Saif Social and Health Care Homes Ltd. Since then the company, which as of February 2024 had 80 employees, has been in liquidation.

Saif’s failure has gone unreported until now — but the company’s founders, Saira Butt and Faisal Saeed, are known names. You might recall another organisation of theirs called Midland Livings, which went under in March last year and hit the headlines just before Christmas. An eyebrow-raising report by insolvency administrators detailed “threatening behaviour and intimidation tactics” and singled out the way Butt and Saeed, as directors of the company, had behaved, referring to a “lack of cooperation” and noting that “some of the information [they] provided and statements made have been found to be inaccurate and misleading”. The directors have not publicly responded to the allegations.

SEA is the term for a national scheme in which taxpayers fund higher than normal rents for vulnerable people to pay for extra levels of personal support. When that support is genuinely provided, the initiative meets an important social need. But loose definitions and gaps in the regulatory framework mean this sector has also attracted bad actors who see the chance to exploit taxpayers by charging the higher rates while not providing the higher levels of care and support.  Birmingham is widely recognised as a hotspot for this kind of exploitation. An estimated 30,000 beds in the city are now being paid for as SEA.

The inside story of Saif’s demise has yet to emerge but The Dispatch reached out to Butt over LinkedIn to get her view on what went wrong. Her response was surprising — she appeared to be oblivious to the fact that both organisations had flopped. “Both companies are ok,” she wrote. “What’s wrong with them”. After we produced the relevant company numbers and reports, she conceded that she had resigned from working for Saif in September and had stepped down as a director in December. On Midland Livings, she claimed its downfall was due to the failure of a fund called Home REIT. REIT stands for Real Estate Investment Trust, a stock market vehicle for investing in property. Between 2020 and 2022 Home REIT raised and spent about £1 billion nationally on residential properties for use in SEA. Its subsequent implosion has generated an ongoing investigation by the Serious Fraud Office that saw six people arrested in January. “I don’t have time for these things honestly,” Butt added. “I have much better stuff to do. I hate politics”.

But we have evidence to suggest Butt does have time for “these things”. The Dispatch has seen an email exchange from 12 and 13 February, between Butt and a representative of the owner of around ten properties that Saif had been managing, in tandem with a housing association called Ash Shahada, one of Birmingham’s biggest players in SEA. During 2025, however, another organisation appears to have swooped in and replaced Saif as the manager of these properties. In her email, Butt argues that the homes remain under the control of another of her companies, Saia Housing, and of Ash Shahada. Saeed was also contacted for comment but did not reply.

SEA in Birmingham is a murky world that involves vulnerable people and large amounts of taxpayer money. If you have details that would help us report on this complex topic, please reach out to editor@birminghamdispatch.co.uk.

For one weekend every year, 20,000 dogs and 150,000 visitors descend onto the stale conference halls of Birmingham's NEC. Crufts, the world’s biggest dog show, has taken place since 1891; it relocated to here when the event outgrew all London venues. Entering the air hangar-like environs of the recently rebranded “Nation’s Experience Capital”, everything is grey — grey lighting, grey walls, grey industrial ceilings. Except for the dogs — and their owners.

As far as the eye can see, pups are being preened. As for the humans, they have arrived pre-preened. They have donned olive gameskeeper breaches, resembling a Barbour ad, or Jeremy Clarkson. Others are in full, showstopping extravaganza; ice skating-uniform, sequins and sparkles, ready for “the green carpet”. The rest are in tweed skirts and suits, part Rachel Reeves-chic, part 1980s teased coiffures. Two girls wear a tandem Dachshund inflatable costume. Anything that can be bedecked with canine ornamentation, is. 

There are three activities on offer at Crufts: showing, sports, and shopping. The first of these is the most important: owners spend months preparing their pooches, hoping to walk away with the coveted Best in Show title. The categories of dog for Best in Show — Gundog, Hound, Pastoral, Terrier, Toy, Utility, and Working — refer to the purpose the dogs were bred for long ago, such as locating and mauling prey. Within these, there are denuded dogs, protruding dogs, dogs that look like medieval impressions of dogs. Some dogs are imperious, others are taut and spry. Some are photogenic, but require their owners to resort to cartoonish bell and whistle sound effects to get their attention for the camera.

Success in showing is predetermined; you submit to a Daedelian system that prizes breeding to a certain “standard”. Showing is not a feat in athleticism — that is where the sport category comes in. Here, breeds like border collies or cocker spaniels, dance or launch themselves into a wall, bouncing off like a shuttlecock. Then there is the shopping — punters who have paid the £30 entry fee can buy antlers and yak for canine consumption, or bassinets and even little cars to scoot their dogs around in. Owners have the opportunity to get their hair and eyebrows done, or relax with a massage as thousands of people walk by.