This might ruin my campaign, (Morning by the way!) but here goes...
I promise you slow, slow progress is being made on Station Street and Birmingham Culture Quarter. When you vote today know we're still working away hard on nudging the street in the right direction. So i'm going to ask you to do two things. One of them is uncomfortable.
1) Get out and vote in the local elections in Birmingham if you're a resident. Take your family. Badger your friends. Get out and vote.
2) Hold yr nose. Few of the local mainstream parties in Brum have covered themselves in glory over the last 30 yrs. But Birmingham is at a critical point right now. I promise you though; nothing good, for Station Street or Birmingham will come of giving any power to Reform or Yakoob's 'Independents'. Hold yr nose if you have to and vote for local candidates from Green / Lab / Tory / Lib Dem or non-Yakoob aligned independents that are best placed to keep extreme fringe groups out.
As a life-long Labour voter I can't in good conscience ask you to vote Labour based on their record over the last decade in Brum. So I'm asking you to vote for Brum and hyper locally. It might mean voting for a party you wouldn't usually in order to keep the extreme right or those on a con out. Hold yr nose.
Openly gay directors when being gay was illegal. Black men in punk bands. Half Italian guitarists with half a finger. Weird bat-eating stoners from Aston. Station Street’s always been an inclusive space at its best that welcomes the good-hearted outcasts and refugees of society. Please, don't let people who despise every wonderful part of Station Street's proud (and PROUD) Brummie past into the halls of power.
Gay, Black, Punk, Metal-Heads, Immigrants. You name it.
Station Street and Birmingham has been the home of weirdos and outcasts for 150 years.
Vote to keep Brum weird, open and diverse.
Vote to protect Brum from those who want to exploit our proud diversity and create division.
Then demand much, much better from whatever Lib Dem/Tory/Green/Lab coalition hopefully ends up in power.
Birmingham needs you.
Darren