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September 15, 2024 - 1:00pm
The Social Mobility Commission’s new “State of the Nation” report underscores a brutal reality: Birmingham, the UK’s second-largest city, is badly failing.
The SMC’s analysis of 203 upper-tier local authorities placed Birmingham in the “unfavourable” category for conditions of childhood — which incorporates child poverty and parental socio-economic status — and the “least favourable” grouping when it comes to labour market opportunities for young people. In both cases, the city is grouped with Redcar and Cleveland — a corner of North Yorkshire which suffered considerable economic trauma following the 2015 closure of its steelworks.
Birmingham was once considered to be among the world’s greatest cities, playing an integral role in the Industrial Revolution as the construction site of the first steam engine. In 1890, it was described by Harper’s Magazine as the “best-governed city in the world”. Between 1951 to 1961, Birmingham was second only to London in terms of job creation, with its household incomes 13% higher than the national average (exceeding the capital as well as South East England).
Then, not helped by the 1945 Distribution of Industry Act which sought to limit growth in so-called “Congested Areas” — including the Midlands — and push industry into designated “Development Areas” such as South West Scotland, Birmingham witnessed a disastrous collapse of its industrial base. The city’s 200,000 job losses between 1971 and 1981 — concentrated in manufacturing — meant that the West Midlands went from having the highest relative earnings in Britain in 1970 to the lowest in 1983, while unemployment ballooned to 20% in Birmingham.
Though Birmingham City Council has made noises about diversifying its economy — focusing on services, retail, and tourism (areas where London is now at a major advantage) — it has been guilty of gross mismanagement. Once a shining example of city-based governance, in September 2023 Labour-controlled Birmingham City Council issued a Section 114 notice declaring itself effectively bankrupt. Last year, it was reported that the council’s potential total liabilities of nearly £1 billion included equal pay claims of up to £760 million, as well as an £80 million overspend on the calamitous Oracle IT project. Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary at the time, blamed “under-performance, poor leadership, weak governance, woeful mismanagement of employee relations and ineffective service delivery”.
There is no doubt that Birmingham is fast approaching failed city status, if it hasn’t already reached that point. A jewel of the Industrial Revolution has been reduced to a symbol of disastrous governance. With its lack of labour market opportunities for young people, Birmingham risks losing its brightest and best to London, which will only entrench regional inequality in the UK — ironically, the very risk the 1945 Distribution of Industry Act was meant to address. The unfavourable conditions for its children — nearly half of whom now live in poverty — will only worsen with City Council cuts to early help, youth services, and funding for children’s services.
Birmingham, viewed by wartime Westminster as an internal threat to broad-based prosperity, has been left in dire financial straits thanks to its atrocious local governance. Once an economic powerhouse, it is now a city whose young face some of the country’s harshest conditions to make progress in life. Birmingham’s spectacular decline, further highlighted by the SMC report, is one of the saddest developments in modern British history.
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SubscribeWhat a shocking situation.
Tragic. And every Western nation is being put through this.
Yes, because the governments we think we elect are actually run by incompetents we never heard of and are unaccountable to us. And that’s just how they want to keep it.
The larger point is agreed to: they want to keep it exactly on this track. However it appears to take place by deliberate plan, not accidental incompetence.
Birmingham has the worst run council in the country yet should be one of the wealthiest.
Can we please stop repeating these lies about child poverty.
The BBC news article referenced here as showing that nearly 50% of children in Birmingham are in poverty actually says “relative poverty”.
As societies develop and grow more wealthy, it’s inevitable that the range of income will increase. In free societies anyway. This should be expected and normal.
Actual poverty was certainly higher in the time of the Chamberlains when Birnmingham was run properly. But at least they were doing something to actually reduce it and improve public health.
Yes exactly! However clearly Birmingham has been badly run by its Council, and the cure is apparently to be the usual “services and retail”! The former is now a rather crowded field and retail is being eroded by the internet, clicks and giant warehouses replacing the high street.
Further Cameron’s white elephant HS2 won’t make any difference to Birmingham’s prosperity and was never likely to.
The key to prosperity in any inner city area is a healthy small business sector. Unfortunately small businesses have little or no influence on left wing authorities who invariably treat them as cash cows. Giving carte blanche to shoplifters, as the police in Birmingham have been doing for some time now, doesn’t help either. It’s the same in the USA and many parts of Europe.
‘Relative poverty’ Compared to what the royal family, children living in mud huts in India?
Maybe relative to what you would expect in the UK.
Isn’t this a zero sum game though? You’d expect half the population to be in relative poverty to the other half.
That’s the point though. If child poverty is a relative measure, most children will be born into poverty, as people generally have children towards the beginning of their adult lives, when their incomes are lowest. If you lift children out of poverty, you have to push another group into it.
Thank you for this. For a moment there I thought child poverty was another sign of Britain’s decline, but in fact it just shows we’ve never had it so good. You’ve set my mind at rest.
If you want everyone to be rich you have to allow some people to become very rich. The problem in Britain is not that people get rich but the rent-seeking that makes the wrong people rich thanks to artificially inflated property prices, unfunded pensions, overpaid public sector non-jobs etc.
As you know, I agree with you in part. But I would add that as some become very rich they will use their wealth, position and power to ensure they remain so and that their privilege is passed on to their children whether they merit it or not. Unless specific political action is taken, the free market contains the seeds of its own destruction.
If the “wrong” people are rich in the U.K., in what country would you say the right people are rich?
It doesn’t have to be in another country. There are people who grow rich through hard work, developing a product, business or service, keeping their customers happy and contributing to society with job creation and taxes. Anyone who has accumulated wealth with any common sense would ensure that their children benefit from it. HB is referring to a specific group of people who we might call undeserving but probably more accurately as grifters.
I am pleased to hear it has nothing to do with being peopled by illiterate third world peasants.
They may arrive as illiterate peasants. That’s one thing. But if they stay illiterate, that’s another. There are some people of immigrant background who stay illiterate and/or have a poor grasp of English (mainly women I suspect – because that’s the way their menfolk like it.)
Children of all backgrounds get educated. That’s the law. So no. In general, we can’t blame immigrants for Birmingham’s plight.
No, I think the clue in this article is the phrase ‘Labour-controlled’.
Funny how over the centuries the English instinct for problems has remained the same: classifying people into categories and trying to ship undesirables away. This is all the more ironic seeing Australia and New Zealand today are more prosperous compared to the UK and furthermore the same people who are like this are also typically amongst the first to proudly declare UK is least racist, and fought against racism on the high seas etc etc.
Funny how little you know of the rest of the world, if you think the tendency to put people into categories is peculiarly English. In fact, by asserting that, aren’t you doing more or less the thing you’re complaining about?
Do you really think all the other countries in the world have been trying to ship away their “criminal classes” to far away colonies and islands?
Irrelevant to the point which was made
Which in turn was irrelevant to the point which was made if my response was indeed irrelevant.
From a very literate first generation child of an immigrant family whose parents are educated to both PhD and masters level and speak 5 languages between them, might I suggest you climb out of the cave you seem to have resided in since the Victorian era pop down your ethnically diverse high street straight to your GP and have them prescribe you something strong and anti inflammatory for your incessant bigotry and low brow humour. I assume the only positive I can take from your comment is that unfortunately for you you’re in the same boat as the lot of us, and not in Dubai cruising on a yacht living the high life. Oh how I laugh- get off your high horse.
You would think that the government would know that moving out all of Birmingham’s industries to development areas would decimate the city (this sounds wordy, sorry).
Maybe try voting for someone else? There needs to be actual consequences for doing a poor job election after election.
Let’s not forget all the massive grants that JLR and other manufacturers took from the EU in return for moving production to Eastern Europe.
….and £5.5Bn to EDF for their risk on Sizewell, £500m to Tata to sack 2500 and goodbye to steel at Pt Talbot, £5Bn failed NHS IT Spine , sale of ARM to Softbank/Saudi, Ultra Electronics, GKN, Cobham and all the rest…..now Geely send back MGs after it was sold for £1……sorrowful
Labour censorship is quite effective.
“the council’s potential total liabilities of nearly £1 billion included equal pay claims of up to £760 million”
Absolutely ridiculous equal pay claims – upheld by activist judges – will destroy other councils.
I don’t know why I felt the need to read about the Oracle disaster – I barely have any connection to Birmingham and never have cause to be there. But that Reddit rabbit hole was an eye-opener. Birmingham City Council just sounds like the epicentre of all incompetence & corruption.
One of the solutions which people kept suggesting was to break it up into several smaller authorities. Although if you are unable to roll out an IT project without it spinning completely out of control, then I have no hope that something as complicated as an authority split would work.
Imagine if the charities had decided to use the term “relatively less wealthy” rather than “relative poverty”.
Birmingham, similar to London and Manchester, is now over 50% non-white. It is a sign that multiculturalism is not the answer to economic growth, but in reality detracts from it. Aligned with this is the appalling work carried out by the Labour council that simply ran up debt. And a typical example of its incompetence was that the Council Leader was on a trip to New York when its bankruptcy was announced. A complete and utter disaster.
Absolutely nuts equal pay claim based on bonuses given to dustmen – but not to other less physically demanding roles. We have a failed state – not just a failed Birmingham…
It’s just a fact that in every corner you look, Britain is not a serious country.
I sat down to watch some TV last night on BBC1, some thriller about a hijacked train. But it was laughable garbage. It isn’t just that I wasted time on a bad TV show, it’s that the people at the tops of Britain’s industries and public bodies just don’t know how to create anything worthwhile nor do they know how to change that. There’s no ideas left.
They’re 3rd rate & clearly not ashamed about it. When they ought to be.
A true TV professional would be ashamed to schedule ‘Night Sleeper’ at 4am on the West Coast of Tasmania, let alone London at prime-time.
Pretty well any European drama on C4’s Walter Presents puts British TV to shame. You only have to watch the BAFTAs to understand why. These people are so far up themselves they’ve forgotten what daylight looks like.
I can’t help feeling that there was a point, coinciding with working class talent making it into the mainstream, when real possibilities opened up for Britain. But the British public turned its nose up and said – nah, we want America.
I think there’s some truth in that. The quality (or lack thereof) in TV output is largely attributable to giving the public what they seem to want – endless copies of mindless US soaps, game shows and ‘reality’ TV.
The days when the BBC’s remit was to elevate cultural and artistic standards are long gone.
I think that’s kind of right.
I believe Birmingham is also the UKs most dangerous city.
HS2 could help?