Lewis Goodall

what some people call the rise of a sectarian force in British politics.

And you've got all of that, basically a four, five, in some places even six-party contest, all being funnelled, as it will be in the general election to come, through the kind of weird machine

voting machine that is first past the post.

And you know what you get when you get four, five, six party contests in individual wards or individual consistencies?

You get that chaos.

And it's a good microcosm for another reason, which is this is a city which has been Labour run for a long time now, over 10 years, and it is widely perceived for lots of reasons you might be familiar with, bin strikes,

the city going bankrupt and all of that, Labour is considered to have done a bad job.

Unpopular, incumbent, with its coalition and new political actors gnawing away at its coalition at every edge.

Sound familiar?

I'm Councillor John Cotton, leader of the Labour group on Birmingham City Council.

It's Councillor Cotton.

These are going to be bloodbath elections for Labour nationally in this city, aren't they?

Why does Labour represent unity when other people don't represent unity?

I mean, the democratic election by definition is divisive.

Why do you represent unity?

Unity for what?

I suppose, John, I suppose if someone from the outside might look, and someone indeed on the inside, might look at what's happened in Birmingham and they see...

A Labour administration which has been in office for over a decade, during which time the council has gone bankrupt, during which time the city has been paralysed by bin strikes which were endless and have only recently latterly been resolved.

A city which frankly is being left in the dust and behind by comparison to what we're seeing in Manchester under people like Andy Burnham and so on.

and just think why on earth should we re-elect the people under whom this has all happened?