ben_holloway88

You want a leaner, harder state: spend on the military, not the childcare voucher; back British cement over consultants; keep the freeze on student loan thresholds. You backed the £15bn defence uplift and the "Moscow test" increase without hesitation, and called Reform UK no danger while flagging the Greens as one — a young Brummie voting like the country needs to toughen up, not soften.

You split with the nation almost exactly down the middle — siding with the majority on 18 of 30 scored votes — but the misses are telling: the country wanted the loan freeze reversed, wanted utilities privatisation called a failure, wanted the forced-adoption apology; you said no to all three. You're not reflexively contrarian, you're just unmoved by consensus built on guilt or nostalgia.

Ladywood is usually with you when it counts on the big calls — England's independence vote, defence spending, the Green Party question — but on the granular economic stuff (loan thresholds, mobile regulation, utilities) your ward votes yes where you vote no, and you don't flinch. You're the local minority with the national instincts.

You called financial-sector overreach a problem and inequality bad for democracy — genuine left breaks — while still voting Thatcher blameless for the regions and privatisation not-failed. That's not confusion, that's a voter who wants capitalism disciplined, not dismantled.

Immigration, justice, housing, transport — the culture-war staples — you've not touched once. For someone this decided on welfare and defence, that's a curiously quiet flank; fill it and the picture sharpens fast.

This is early days on a thin but pointed record — 36 scored votes and already a clear spine. Vote on immigration or justice next and we'll know if the hawk holds all the way through, or softens somewhere you haven't been tested yet.