Labour’s billion pound betrayal
So, the long‑awaited equal pay deal is finally here. And how do Birmingham City Council and the unions mark the moment?
Not with humility. Not with a frank admission of catastrophic failure. But with a carefully manicured statement, full of self‑congratulation and empty platitudes.
Those not in the know would be forgiven for thinking the council had just won a significant award. Far from it.
Let’s remind ourselves: this isn’t a celebration. It’s the aftermath of one of the biggest financial scandals in local government history. Over a billion pounds in compensation, maybe?
Not because of bad luck, not because of economic headwinds, but because for years, successive administrations at Birmingham City Council allowed discriminatory pay practices to fester.
And now, rather than hang their heads in shame, they want applause.
You can’t trust the numbers
Cllr Paul Tilsley, the Father of the Chamber and one of the few grown‑ups left in the room, has been ringing alarm bells for months. His warning? You can’t trust the council staff to estimate the cost of the equal pay claim.
And he’s right.
The infamous £760 million figure that triggered the Section 114 notice was never verified by external auditors. It was simply waved about by council officers and repeated by then‑Tory minister Michael Gove as if it were carved on tablets of stone.
Now, fast forward to the settlement itself, and here’s the real scandal: we don’t know how much it’s actually costing.
According to their own press release, the full terms of the agreement are “confidential.” So we, the taxpayers, are expected to fund a historic payout, but not know the price.
Let that sink in.
They declare financial ruin publicly.
They negotiate behind closed doors.
And then they tell us to mind our own business if we ask the cost.
So while we speculate about a £760 million, a billion deal, the truth is: we simply don’t know what they’ve agreed to spend. It could be more. It could be less. But the point is, they’re refusing to tell us how much of our money they have spent.
Cotton’s crown jewel catastrophe
And here’s where the whole thing goes from foolish to farcical.
When Cllr John Cotton the council leader and his cabinet agreed to that figure, they didn’t just accept it, they announced it. Publicly. Loudly. Repeatedly.
From that moment, the city was effectively bankrupted by its own press release. Because once you’ve told the world you owe three‑quarters of a billion pounds, even if it’s only an estimate you pulled from thin air, you’ve surrendered the high ground. And now, despite finalising the deal, they won’t even tell us how much public money has actually gone.
Naked and afraid: Cotton’s negotiation farce
Then came the talks with the trade unions. And Cotton, for reasons that defy belief, grotesquely walked into those negotiations stark naked – politically, strategically, and intellectually. No fig leaf, no cover story, no bargaining position. Just his bare, Caucasian flesh on full display, every bit exposed, nothing held back, the embodiment of vulnerability masquerading as leadership.
The unions didn’t need to press. He’d already given them everything. You could almost hear the champagne corks pop as they realised the scale of the payday being laid at their feet.
Yes, Labour is the party of the trade unions. But that doesn’t mean you betray the public purse. That doesn’t mean you roll over and hand out a windfall of this magnitude without a proper fight.
You can’t blame the unions, they did their job. You can only blame the naivety of Cotton and the Labour administration. No wonder they’re backslapping each other. They’re the only ones in the city who can afford to.
A tale of naivety and neglect
This isn’t the triumph the spin‑doctors want you to think it is.
It’s the consequence of panic, political vanity and stunning incompetence.
Cotton may talk about “historic wrongs” being “put right,” but in doing so he’s created a new wrong: a city on its knees, selling off its assets, cutting its services, and haemorrhaging trust.
We needed clear‑eyed leadership; we got a spectacle.
Final word: The bill comes in
Birmingham’s equal pay saga should have ended in justice and closure. Instead, it’s ended in bankruptcy and betrayal.
The women, and all the workers, deserve their due. But the city didn’t deserve this scale of damage, nor the smug tone of those who caused it.
When history looks back, it won’t see heroes of equality. It will see a council that panicked, a leadership that capitulated and a city that paid the price.
