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Birmingham Erdington Byelection Thread - 2022

Labour has set out its selection timetable for choosing a new parliamentary candidate in Birmingham Erdington ahead of a by-election triggered by the sad death of shadow minister Jack Dromey earlier this month.
The process sees applications close swiftly on Friday 21st January, longlisting of applicants take place on the 22nd, shortlisting interviews on the 23rd and the final hustings and vote in a meeting on the 26th.
Labour’s selection timetable:
Wednesday 19 January – Applications open
Friday 21 January, 23.59 – Applications close
Saturday 22 January – Selection panel longlisting
Sunday 23 January & Monday 24 January – Selection panel shortlisting interviews
Wednesday 26 January – Online meeting with hustings and selection vote
Dromey had been the Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington since 2010, when he had a majority of 3,601 votes, with a 50.3% share of the vote compared to the Tories on 40.1%. He secured 58% of the vote in 2017.

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The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) today announced that Dave Nellist is to contest the forthcoming Birmingham Erdington parliamentary by-election on behalf of the left-wing alliance. During his time as a Midlands Labour MP from 1983-1992, Dave was a backbench parliamentary colleague of Jeremy Corbyn.

Dave, who was the MP for Coventry South East for nine years and later, for 14 years, a Coventry city councillor for the Socialist Party from 1998 to 2012, was well-known during his time in parliament for only taking an ordinary worker's wage, giving away over half of an MP's bloated salary - currently £82,000 a year - to trade unionists and working class campaigners fighting to defend their livelihoods and communities.

Accepting the TUSC nomination for the Erdington contest, Dave said: "With Sir Keir Starmer's Labour welcoming a Tory MP into the parliamentary party last week - while confirming Jeremy Corbyn's exclusion from the PLP at its national executive committee meeting on January 25th - it couldn't be clearer that the interests of Britain's wealthy establishment will be in safe hands if and when they decide to move on from Boris Johnson's disintegrating premiership. Starmer is so obviously not on our side".

"In contrast, I and the rest of the TUSC coalition wholeheartedly supported Jeremy's leadership of the Labour Party as an opportunity to put someone in Number Ten who would challenge what he called the 'rigged system' - in other words, capitalism - that works in the interests of a rich and powerful minority".

"So the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, co-founded in 2010 by the late transport workers' leader Bob Crow, adjusted its electoral activity in response, not standing candidates in either the 2017 or 2019 general elections".

"But we also warned that the followers of Tony Blair within Labour - like Keir Starmer - didn't support the socialist policies of taxing the rich and public ownership that are needed to overturn the 'rigged system' and that they would drop the Labour manifesto policies of 2017 and 2019 as soon as they had the chance".

"And so it has come to pass, with Starmer, for example, explicitly ruling out public ownership of the big oil and gas companies even as they boost shareholder dividends from our hiked up energy bills".

"That is why I am proud to represent TUSC in the Birmingham Erdington by-election and would urge other trade unionists, socialists and community campaigners to also consider standing for TUSC in the forthcoming local council elections in May".
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PR1Berske said:
The Tories have chosen.


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Twas always going to be him, this is the local councillor that someone else says would win if labour floated in a non local candidate (apologies I can't remember who said it).

It doesn't need to be said because he's a tory but he's a dick, just in case anyone was wondering.

Paulette Hamilton should win this though as she is local.
 
BigTom said:
Twas always going to be him, this is the local councillor that someone else says would win if labour floated in a non local candidate (apologies I can't remember who said it).

It doesn't need to be said because he's a tory but he's a dick, just in case anyone was wondering.

Paulette Hamilton should win this though as she is local.
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All of this. Except in the last two weeks who has been doing lots for this area, very publicly, all over social media. And which party has been really very absent.

Whilst I agree Pauline is a great choice (the local Facebook group basically all went 'is she from here? Oh that's good then'), and whilst Alden is an absolute careerist Tory wanker*, it really isn't a clear cut thing and labour really need to be putting more work in. I get the feeling that there's a lot of 'but our great leader just died' from party members but that's not how the local area viewed him in the main. Despite doing good things.

*I did get to accidentally call him that when I didn't realise he was stood behind me. He walked off quickly. 🤣🤦‍♀️
 
aqua said:
All of this. Except in the last two weeks who has been doing lots for this area, very publicly, all over social media. And which party has been really very absent.

Whilst I agree Pauline is a great choice (the local Facebook group basically all went 'is she from here? Oh that's good then'), and whilst Alden is an absolute careerist Tory wanker*, it really isn't a clear cut thing and labour really need to be putting more work in. I get the feeling that there's a lot of 'but our great leader just died' from party members but that's not how the local area viewed him in the main. Despite doing good things.

*I did get to accidentally call him that when I didn't realise he was stood behind me. He walked off quickly. 🤣🤦‍♀️
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Yeah, Alden is well on it on social media, which I am now basically absent from and live the other side of the city so wouldn't be in those local groups too see it, but I remember. Hopefully labour pull their finger out. Have the tories been doing what andy street did and hiding their toryness behind green mastheads and stuff like that on leaflets?

Once sutton coldfield is open, Alden will be getting elected there anyway. I'm sure he'd love to steal Erdington but as long as he puts up a good showing he won't have any trouble getting one of the safe tory seats around the edges of birmignham or maybe taking a run at Edgbaston.
 
BigTom said:
Yeah, Alden is well on it on social media, which I am now basically absent from and live the other side of the city so wouldn't be in those local groups too see it, but I remember. Hopefully labour pull their finger out. Have the tories been doing what andy street did and hiding their toryness behind green mastheads and stuff like that on leaflets?

Once sutton coldfield is open, Alden will be getting elected there anyway. I'm sure he'd love to steal Erdington but as long as he puts up a good showing he won't have any trouble getting one of the safe tory seats around the edges of birmignham or maybe taking a run at Edgbaston.
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Andrew Mitchell's criticism of Johnson is a fairly cynical way of keeping the local (Sutton Coldfield) tory party onside after their recent Indian restaurant meeting where they voted 10-0 to withdraw support for Johnson. He may be fairly senior in years (65) but I don't see him going anywhere just yet, so Alden will have a wait if that's his ambition and I can't see him hanging around waiting for a further 7 years. I'd have thought a post-Dromey Erdington would have been a better bet, but with the national tide firmly against the Tories (for now) this should stay Labour.
 
Ballot Paper for Birmingham Erdington


Robert AIDEN (Conservative Party Candidate)
David BISHOP (Militant Bus-Pass Elvis Party)
Jack BROOKES (ReformUK)
Lee DARGUE (Liberal Democrats)
Paulette HAMILTON (Labour Party)
Siobhan HARPER-NUNES (Green Party)
Clifton HOLMES (Independent)
Michael LUTWYCHE (Independent)
Mel MBONDIAH (Christian People's Alliance)
Dave NELLIST (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition)
Thomas O'ROURKE (Independent)
The Good Knight SIR NOS DA (The Official Monster Raving Loony Party)
 
I live in her ward and she has generally been quite unimpressive and lacking in proactivity to issues that residents bring up, other than throwing her weight behind a frankly quite racist campaign to stop a historic pub turning into a Kurdish community centre.

She was also responsible for the proposal to cut the pay of home care workers in Birmingham, who went on strike a few years back.
 
It really doesn't matter how well (or badly) she does, it won't make sod all difference. The key thing to watch is the Tory vote, they came a respectable 2nd last time round. If it drops through the floor then it is more pressure on the Party Minister. If it holds up then the cunt will see it as validation of his position.
 
Briefly popping out of my urban hiatus to say my sister who lives in Erdington got canvassed by two of the parties; TUSC, and the christian anti-vax anti-trans family breakdown is destroying the economy crew. She's barely home so it's quite impressive anyone's managed to catch her. She also said the Conservative party have been pushing leaflets through disguised as looking like neutral community newspaper things, which they've done before, but labour seem to be doing something similar with facebook memes/comments that they've been caught out on. There's a lot of talk on one of the local Facebook groups about how Paulette has a link with one of the big HMO organisations in the area (these are a massive problem in Erdington and even made it into the guardian a while back). I'll see if I can get her to send me photos of some of the leaflets because the christian one was batshit.
 
PR1Berske said:
Ballot Paper for Birmingham Erdington


Robert AIDEN (Conservative Party Candidate)
David BISHOP (Militant Bus-Pass Elvis Party)
Jack BROOKES (ReformUK)
Lee DARGUE (Liberal Democrats)
Paulette HAMILTON (Labour Party)
Siobhan HARPER-NUNES (Green Party)
Clifton HOLMES (Independent)
Michael LUTWYCHE (Independent)
Mel MBONDIAH (Christian People's Alliance)
Dave NELLIST (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition)
Thomas O'ROURKE (Independent)
The Good Knight SIR NOS DA (The Official Monster Raving Loony Party)
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Brief overview of the candidates here
 
imo as much as I'm a Dave Nellist fan, TUSC have messed up putting him forward instead of an Erdington local. Erdington's trapped between Birmingham town centre and Sutton Coldfield and has spent the last decade or so getting further and further left behind as people have to commute one way or another to do increasingly basic things. Putting forward a Coventry based candidate instead of someone with strong links specifically to Erdington signals TUSC don't understand this dynamic (which is a shame because I'm quite sure they do).

(edited typo)
 
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