I'll take your word for it on West Brom (!). My own experience is seeing the change to once bustling centres like Lye, Alum Rock Road, Washwood Heath Road and Balsall Heath. I doubt anyone could honestly believe that any of those areas have improved in any way over the last 30 years, unless Chicken shacks, illegal fags, Kurdish skin fades and new and exciting ways of illegal parking are your thing.
Agree about Halesowen & Stourbridge too, though at least there's still some life after dark in Stour.
I'm really torn on whether to "allow" boat arrivals to work. I worry most that they'll simply disappear into the informal economy - I was eating lunch at a restaurant raided by Immigration in sleepy Wiltshire Marlborough not long ago FFS. As a liberal I find it increasingly difficult to escape both the case for ID Cards, and also a huge reinterpretation of who ought to qualify for asylum. Without that I suspect politics as we have known it is a busted flush.
Agree about Halesowen & Stourbridge too, though at least there's still some life after dark in Stour.
I'm really torn on whether to "allow" boat arrivals to work. I worry most that they'll simply disappear into the informal economy - I was eating lunch at a restaurant raided by Immigration in sleepy Wiltshire Marlborough not long ago FFS. As a liberal I find it increasingly difficult to escape both the case for ID Cards, and also a huge reinterpretation of who ought to qualify for asylum. Without that I suspect politics as we have known it is a busted flush.