Take a bow, heroes of 2017...
this year with seemingly insurmountable leads and managed to blow it. But Labour West Midlands mayoral candidate Sion Simon just about wins this one as Theresa May managed to cling on.
His suggestion following defeat that Corbyn would spell electoral disaster for Labour was also ill-timed given Labour’s big surge in the General Election a month later. The Miliband award for brotherly love: Kingstanding councillor Des Hughes who greeted the news that his brother Eddie had been elected Walsall North MP. He said he was ‘happy’ through gritted teeth. For those who don’t know – Des is Labour and Eddie is Tory. The bin and gone award: Cllr John Clancy who after securing a deal to end the bin strike then backpedalled in the face of opposition from council colleagues and then accused the union Unite of over hyping the deal to its refuse service members. A rare feat to alienate both sides in a polarised dispute. The Trotsky Award: Cllr Tahir Ali who told the planning committee that supermarket chain Aldi should not be allowed to back out of an affordable housing deal because they are ‘filthy rich capitalists’ and can afford it. Over-reaction of the year: When a community group, the Bearded Bros, decided to clean up their streets during the bin strike the Morning Star newspaper decided to call them a ‘scab army’. It’s easier to be ideologically pure when your streets aren’t piled high with rotting rubbish. Flower Power Award: Goes to the six West Midlands Mayoral candidates who seemed to find more in common and got along quite well - thus depriving us news hounds of headlines packed with ‘clashes’, ‘spats’. ‘tirades’ and ‘angry exchanges’. Image of the year: Featured the young Brummie Asian woman Saffiyah Khan who stared down the EDL at a far right rally in Centenary Square. Worrying image of the year: Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson was running around waving knives about for an anticrime campaign in a way which suggested he enjoyed it a little too much. Matt Le Tissier award: Like the gifted former Southampton footballer, mayoral candidate James Burn was a star performer in the campaign but for a Green Party team never likely to win anything. The UK Gold award: Everyone loves a nice repeat, especially at this time of year, so well done to the Harborne Labour Party who managed to hold their candidate selection vote no less than three times this year. (Runner-up: Theresa May who decided to follow in the footsteps of Jeremy Corbyn by visiting the same engineer training centre in Perry Barr.) Political stunt of the year: Whoever on Team Corbyn managed to arrange for the rainbow to appear over his pop concert-come-electionrally at Curzon Street in the city centre. Diversity award: The West Midlands Mayoral candidates. They might well have been all white and generally middle aged and almost all men. But I understand their tea and coffee preferences are quite varied. Banana Republic award: The Hall Green council by-election where not one, but two candidates found themselves in trouble for posting offensive material on social media. The Labour candidate was replaced and the Conservative dismissed from the party. Three-year-old with a crayon award: For whichever person at the Boundary Commission drew the bizarre zig-zag lines that make up the new proposed constituency boundaries.