Charles getting out the vote in Erdington Ward with Gareth Compton and his team

Birmingham has always been a bell weather of moderate British opinion.

Yesterday in Birmingham the Conservatives had the best local election results since 1983. Council Leader Mike Whitby runs his "progressive partnership" with the LibDems with fiscal discipline and has delivered services that are independently acknowledged as much improved since they took power from Labour in 2004. The result has been Labour reduced to its lowest number of councillors in living memory. Birmingham has 44 Conservative councillors, with three gains, and notably a rise from just 13 in 1996. There are 32 Liberal Democrats, and just 41 Labour councillors.

Contrast that with 1984 when Labour last won control from the Conservatives. Then Labour had 61 councillors, the Conservatives had 52 and there were just 4 Liberals. Next year Labour will be defending even more seats, and particularly four that the Conservatives won well last night. The tide of moderate opinion in this city is moving firmly away from the Party that failed it so badly over twenty years.

The local election results showed a Labour Party in Birmingham in total decline. Conservatives won outright the parliamentary constituencies of Northfield, Edgbaston, Sutton Coldfield and Selly Oak. And council seats were won from Labour in Billesley, Kings Norton and Erdington. Great swathes of the city are now no-go areas for Labour. And the same is true across the Midlands too. In Tamworth, Malvern Hills, North Warwickshire, Herefordshire, and South Staffordshire, Labour has been all but wiped out. They cannot claim to be a Party of one nation now. The mantle is truly back where it belongs.

What yesterday also proved is that nothing beats good effective local campaigning. I went out getting out the vote with Gareth Compton in Erdington. People came out of their houses to shake his hand and thank him for sorting out a local footpath. Voters waved at us and put their thumbs up. Across the Ward they clearly recognised his hard work and the effectiveness of last years victor, Councillor Robert Alden.

Gareth won Erdington from Labour with a majority of almost 900, and a swing of an amazing 23.9% from when this seat was last fought in 2004. His commitment to the local people over the past twelve months, and good polling day organisation yesterday was an example of just how a local campaign should be run, and he was justly rewarded last night. It is a model tfrom which more candidates should learn. Good polling day organisation is invaluable, and it is an area of training need that I shall be focusing on over the next year.

So the Conservatives are now the largest party in Birmingham for the first time since Sir Neville Bosworth led the Council in 1984. It is a great achievement, and one that should be built on conclusively next year.

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