So nobody's watching, but best I can tell Labour's theoretically entirely winnable campaign for the West Midlands mayoralty is utterly imploding: half the staff have quit in a flurry of unpaid bills, flyers absolutely riddled with typos because there's nobody to proof etc

In 2017, Andy Street beat Sion Simon in the second round 50.4% to 49.6% - there were less than 4,000 votes in it. And that was a terrible electoral cycle for Labour. This should have been an easy pick up!

Inevitably people are trying to put a factional gloss on this, but I don't think the blame lies with Starmer or the Labour right, any more than Sion SImon's being rubbish was the fault of Jeremy Corbyn. The problem isn't the Labour right. The problem is Liam Byrne.

I keep thinking of the 2008 "working with Liam Byrne" memo, and how it suggests a man who is unselfconsciously rude to retail staff.

Also - he's 38 here! 38! https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/nov/17/liam-byrne-minister-diva-news

This is a fair point, and also I am not sure I have ever called an election right in my life, so Rob may be onto something https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1381579073848233990

anyway if you are someone who is close to Labour's West Midlands mayoral campaign and you want to bitch about it my DMs are open