Street in Birmingham City Centre
Credit: Stephen Burke
As metro mayor for the West Midlands, Andy Street – a slight, wiry, hyper-energetic man – has responsibility for an area of three million people and a budget of around £900 million a year. His remit includes economic growth, housing, transport and skills. It does not, strictly speaking, include having an encyclopaedic knowledge of bus routes in the region, but Street – who does not have a mayoral car, preferring to take public transport or walk, in his case at a brisk, military clip – is a man with a painstaking attention to fine detail. ‘I believe we’ll be taking the 126,’ he says, as we hurry towards Dudley bus station, to the accompaniment of the keening cries of animals carrying on a stiff breeze from the nearby zoo.
iPolitics By Michael Coren. Published on Feb 22, 2021 5:06pm What Cheryl Gallant has done in her dark crudity is to plant seeds of anger and hatred in people who may already be unstable and prone to violence. Conservative Party Leader Erin O Toole (via Twitter)
One has to admire Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole. Whenever he has the opportunity, he tells us he’s intent on making his party modern and progressive, and that he simply will not tolerate any form of extremism or fanaticism in its ranks. Problem is, the Conservative base in Canada contains a number of extremists and fanatics, and some have achieved fairly high office.