{"id":573772,"date":"2026-05-08T23:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T23:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573772\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T23:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T23:41:08","slug":"labour-loses-control-of-birmingham-city-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573772\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour loses control of Birmingham City Council"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Many Labour candidates in Birmingham cited the bin strike as the reason people were telling them they would not be voting for the party while canvassing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Speaking to the BBC on Friday, an emotional Cotton said he would have liked to have solved the year-long dispute sooner, but there were &#8220;complicated issues&#8221; including around equal pay for men and women.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m sorry we weren&#8217;t able to find a way to do that earlier,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, Majid Mahmood, the council&#8217;s cabinet member for environment and transport, managed to hold on to his seat in Bromford &amp; Hodge Hill.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As the council&#8217;s cabinet member responsible for waste services, he has faced a turbulent 16 months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cotton added the day was &#8220;not a time for personal sadness&#8221;, saying: &#8220;This has to be about jobs and growth and the future of our communities and whoever comes next, I hope they focus on that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Asked about Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and if he could keep his job, Cotton said: &#8220;I think the Labour party&#8217;s challenges are wider than one particular office holder or individual. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s clear we haven&#8217;t communicated our message and our story clearly enough to the voters.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many Labour candidates in Birmingham cited the bin strike as the reason people were telling them they would&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-573772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}