The battle for Birmingham Ladywood where poverty and prospects are bigger problems than Gaza

"Come inside and look at this," urges Nordia, a mum in Hockley, when MP candidate Shabana Mahmood knocks on her door while out canvassing for votes. At her side her four year old daughter coughs and snuffles, a legacy, says Nordia, of living with perpetual mould. She wants to show us a big damp patch marked out in a jagged brown line staining the kitchen ceiling.

Mahmood promises to do something to hurry up the city council to carry out a permanent repair, rather than the 'sticking plaster' job it's done three times already. Nordia is all smiles as we leave, and promises to vote Labour. But to Mahmood's retreating back, she says she doesn't hold out much hope of a lot changing. "The council's broke, and so am I. I don't expect anything from anybody these days."

Not far distant, a meeting of Ladywood Unite is taking place. Formed last year, residents are holding Birmingham City Council and developers Berkeley Homes to account over plans to transform the area they live in. The announcement of a £2.2 billion deal between the two parties to transform an area often referred to as 'neglected' should be a cause of joy, you'd think.

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But not everyone is happy. Some say they have no quibble with developers fixing poverty conditions inside crumbling concrete low rises and dishevelled tower blocks but are angry this will be funded by demolishing dozens of beautifully kept new-ish homes in quiet, prime real estate cul-de-sacs. Lib Dem election candidate Lee Dargue says the dispute highlights the disconnection felt by so many residents across Ladywood with the politicians meant to represent them.

"People feel unheard and overlooked, whether in desperate poverty or doing okay, they just don't feel seen. The whole constituency is a mass of contradictions - we've got the shiny Grand Central, Broad Street and Bullring, bright lights and shiny glass on one hand, and children without enough to eat in damp flats yards away. The Conservatives have worsened an already unequal society."

There's no sign of the much vaunted 'levelling up' here and, beyond the city centre, little trickle down from investors drawn in by HS2 or the Commonwealth Games legacy. And while the Tories are in Dargue's sights as the party of government, the Labour party's manifesto also makes uninspiring reading, he says. They have shown a lack of ideas and a failure to prioritise child poverty and social care in its manifesto and that is 'shameful', he says.

Too little has been said about unpaid carers, mental health and the impact of the cost of living and low wages on families, with little hope of quick fixes. He's also worried that a constituency that includes the Gay Village has wannabe representatives with uncertain views on LGBT issues generally, and trans issues in particular.

Throw in the failures of the Labour run council, responsible for driving the city's finances off a cliff and pushing up council taxes while shutting local services, and the area is ripe for someone to take advantage and offer a different vision to either Labour or Tory, he says. He means the Lib Dems of course - but something else is afoot.

On the campaign trail in Alum Rock

The Palestine flags are hanging limply from the lamp-posts at the approach to Alum Rock, where there's barely a breeze to cut through the afternoon heat. As I slow down behind a queue of cars, a man in a hi-vis rattles a blue bucket through my open window. 'It's for Gaza', he says.

'Vote Yakoob' posters are displayed in multiple shop windows in this bustling suburb. We have entered the mini kingdom of Akhmed Yakoob, an increasingly divisive figure as polling day approaches. He's a criminal defence lawyer, dad of four and George Galloway-endorsed Independent candidate who has stirred everything up in this election.

On course nationally for overall victory against a battered Conservative party, the Ladywood seat should have been a no-brainer for Labour. Close Starmer ally and likely the country's next Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood went into this campaign with a majority of 28,582. Her nearest rival, on paper, should have been Dargue, the campaigning local Lib Dem, who is the only candidate who actually lives in the constituency.

But a redrawn boundary map in 2023 which brought the Muslim-majority ward of Alum Rock into Ladywood constituency has been surprisingly problematic for Labour. The ward, previously inside Liam Byrne's Hodge Hill constituency, has around 28,000 people, and over 20,000 of them are Muslim. Twice as many people are out of work here compared to the city average; life expectancy is lower by at least two years to other parts of the city.

It's traditionally a staunch Labour stronghold - but against this backdrop Yakoob has emerged. He is one of a bunch of Independent candidates across the city championed by Rochdale MP Galloway, of the Workers Party. Disabled activist Jody McIntyre in Yardley, and Shakeel Afsar in Hall Green and Moseley, who led the 2019 school protests over LGBT equality, are in the same cohort. A cluster of left wing candidates who refer to Jeremy Corbyn as a leader are also standing, including Mohammad Hafeez in Hall Green and Moseley, Prof Kamel Hawwash in Selly Oak and Dr Ammar Waraich in Edgbaston.

All of them have put Gaza front and centre in their campaigns, triggered by Israel's response to the Hamas terror attack of October 7th. Anger towards mainstream politicians who they say are 'complicit in genocide' in Palestine is fuelling their campaigns. Their fury is aimed at the Labour opposition, not the ruling Conservatives.

Any Labour representative who hasn't quit the party over the Israel-Gaza war is complicit, in their eyes. As a result every seat is facing a Gaza-inspired Independent challenge - but Yakoob is the totem.

There is plenty about this 36-year-old to rattle and rile. Early in the campaign we reported how Yakoob had driven a social media pile-on against a young female teacher from Dudley; he later apologised. Another apology came when Yakoob was called out for engaging in offensive banter on podcasts joking about the role of women and domestic violence; we've also reported on more 'jokes' he was recorded making since around the trans debate. His feting of some of the messages of self confessed misogynist Andrew Tate, currently facing criminal trial, have also been held against him.

This would together likely be enough to trigger action by a mainstream party. Yakoob, however, answers to nobody but himself.

I wanted to meet up with Yakoob anywhere but Alum Rock, to see if his popularity extended beyond its borders, yet somehow here I am, trailing behind as he strolls along Alum Rock Road. He is handing out the odd flyer, greeting supporters and attaching Vote Yakoob stickers to the t-shirts of kids in pushchairs. They're too young to vote, obviously, but Yakoob's not daft - whether intentionally or not, those stickers might be the key to the heart of a reluctant voter.

We pass a group of teenage boys, who greet him like a pop star with fist bumps and pats on the back. He gets stopped by more young people wanting selfies as he casually swaggers down the street. Occasionally he pushes leaflets into the hands of passers-by.

One man says he's already voted for him - Yakoob patiently explains that was for the mayor election, he has to vote again on July 4th. A man approaches in a 'Vote Yakoob - The Voice of the Voiceless' t-shirt, smiling. His threads have been specially printed by a local shop.

Two young women stop him and ask if he knows who they are - turns out they are nieces to Yakoob, whose family connections in the area are extensive. Yakoob no longer lives in Birmingham - his family home is in the Aldridge Brownhills constituency - but he has a big local following.

He stops to chat to a group of local solicitors, who greet him like a champ. "Ultimately we need a voice to represent us and this area to put across our views fairly and with confidence. He has the personality to do that," they say.

The busy main thoroughfare, lined with specialist Asian shops, boutiques and restaurants, is heaving. On the pavements, bottlenecks are generated behind pushchairs or people in wheelchairs. Traffic wardens are out in force - the road has a bizarre system where short stay parking is allowed one side of the road during the morning, and the other side of the road in the afternoon. Suffice to say, both sides are lined with cars bumper to bumper, and the wardens are having a boom time. Yakoob has a plan.

"The congestion here is mad. We need to widen the pavements for pedestrians, make the whole road one way and build a multi storey car park at the end there to leave on road parking spaces for the disabled or people who can't walk far," he tells me. He's got plenty of other ideas too. He would lobby for universal free school meals, increase funding for schools and community programs and have more youth centres to help decrease knife crime and drug supply. He describes levels of poverty here as 'criminal'.

He doesn't approve of the fines that result for drivers of older cars inside the Clean Air Zone, and describes rubbish collections as 'completely unreliable'. He would put up CCTV cameras at hotspots, and create a taskforce to target flytippers. Restaurants and takeaways who don't have a commercial licence should be fined, he says.

A lack of jobs worries him, he says, in a constituency where youth unemployment is three times the national average, so he would bring in a localism criteria for major building projects. On election, he would also order an inquiry into the Trojan Horse affair, which he said 'drove good people out of education' and has left a lasting bitter taste among the city's Pakistani community in particular. The legacy and spending linked to the Commonwealth Games also needs investigation.

Those who are anti Yakoob say he is here just to stir up trouble and with little regard either for the children of Gaza, the impoverished of Ladywood or with a clear plan if he takes power other than to disrupt. By way of response, Yakoob says: "Haters are going to hate. A lot of people are jealous, and the mainstream candidates don't like to be held to account."

What happens next?

When the city wakes up on Friday July 5th, it's likely a new Labour government will be in place. The only question is how big a majority it will have.

Shabana Mahmood, despite the challenge, will survive. Since 1950, only three Independent candidates have won seats in Parliament without the backing of a major party; all have done so on the back of a positive campaign, not one rooted in negativity.

But for Ladywood the years ahead look sticky. The city council will still be broke, and the magnitude of cuts to libraries, day centres, youth services and housing services will become evident. Too many children will still not have enough to eat, or space to play. The queues for food outside Central Mosque and Ladywood health centre will persist.

The two child poverty cap that blights too many families in Ladywood will remain, despite its link to child poverty. Those who rallied behind Yakoob won't suddenly be stilled; nor will those backing McIntyre, Afsar, Hawwash and all the rest of the Independents who have put the city in the electoral spotlight.

Politically, their sights will move to the 2026 local city elections; emotionally, a collective fire has been lit that won't suddenly go out on July 5th. It's a day that will be a beginning for the independent movement, not an end.