Tom Knowles for Cradley Heath and Old Hill

30/05/2026

I mean it’s not brilliant is it? I’m obviously hopeful that there wasn’t a significant medical or family reason to be away, but full council dates were published well ahead of the election. We all need a holiday - I’m on holiday now, posting while my son naps - but that needs to balanced with service to a community you were elected by.

Not attending the first full council is disappointing enough aside from doing so while nominated for the civic role of deputy mayor. It betrays a profound unseriousness I had hoped not to see and I’m hopeful that it isn’t reflected of a wider attitude to public service.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/sandwell-s-new-reform-deputy-mayor-elected-despite-absence-from-meeting/ar-AA24lCoV

One councillor said: 'It seems very, very unusual to not have the candidate for this particular position, given the level of responsibility, not present in the room'

27/05/2026

I think this is really important from my friend and colleague, Cllr Luke John Davies for Smethwick Ward. Many of us have our motives for public service and our social conscience shaped by the course of our lives, and like him many of my basic perspectives come from the knowledge that much of what I have today was only made possible by the existence of a robust social safety net, functional education system and parents who while poor understood the importance of learning for its own sake, books, and looking after one another.

For significant parts of my childhood we were living in relative poverty and dependent upon the welfare state for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless my siblings and I were fed. We had access to libraries, and decent schools, and extracurricular opportunities made possible by the hard work of volunteers. Those things made it possible for me to build a life of public service, first as a healthcare assistant in critical care, then as a paramedic and now as a medical doctor. That safety net has supported me in obtaining three degrees to date, and I am now studying a master’s degree while working. Its existence meant I was well placed to meet my wife, with whom I was able to have children including one we have adopted, because social safety nets only work if people participate in them.

In the course of my career I have worked in the community, with the police, in hospitals, and in hospices. I am one of the few men who has walked through the hallways of women’s shelters, and one of the few people who has been allowed to wear my boots in a mosque. I have met looked after children and adults, including those who the systems we currently have didn’t help. I have told children that their parents are dead and told parents that their children are. I have seen how the very most vulnerable and desperate among us live, and I am absolutely committed to easing that burden. More than anything else I am opposed to anything which makes the lives of the people in the very margins harder. Refugees are deserving of protection. Children are deserving of an education which treats them as complex people in their own right. Disabled people deserve to know that they are safe.

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/index_en.htmhttps://www.facebook.com/EUenlargement Under the slogan 'So similar, so different, so European' this clip shows j...

27/05/2026

Eid Mubarak friends :)

22/05/2026

It was lovely to catch up with a few people who’d asked for help with a few things during the campaign today. At least a couple had assumed they’d not be seeing my face again, but I felt it was important to see through the things which were solvable by signposting people to services and avenues of support.

19/05/2026

Hi all, I'm not yet back entirely from sorting out some life admin but just to note that I've had a few people contacting me for bits and pieces of support since the election. While I'm more than happy to help where I can, I have a somewhat less influence than the three councillors who were elected recently. You might be better off seeking them out in the first instance just because they're set up within the council now and there are some mechanisms in place to make it easier for councillors to help you out. The resident I spoke to most recently was asking about councillor surgeries which I'm afraid I don't have any information about either. There are certainly none listed on the council website

https://sandwell.moderngov.co.uk/mgMemberIndex.aspx?FN=WARD&VW=LIST&PIC=0

Of course, I am still perfectly happy to offer some informal support if you feel you're not getting anywhere, are struggling for responses or if for whatever reason you simply feel more comfortable speaking with me.

Local Councillors are elected by the community to decide how the council should carry out its various activities. They represent public interest as well as individuals living within the ward in which he or she has been elected to serve a term of office.

14/05/2026

Just a little personal update to say that I’ve accepted a new post as a hospice doctor today starting just over a month from now. I’ll do a small profile update in due course :)

08/05/2026

Hi everyone, I am of course disappointed by the local election results for the ward, particularly because of the extremely hard work of Sheraz Khan over the last months.

As I said to the one Reform candidate who stayed until the end of the count, I genuinely hope that they do a good job. I genuinely hope that they take service to the people of Cradley Heath and Old Hill as seriously as I intended to and that they aren’t just taking advantage of national discontent.

I suspect that in office Reform more widely will quickly find that the powers of individual councillors and indeed of councils are not what they expected them to be.

Sandwell Labour have left the council in extremely good condition given the levels of deprivation and the challenges of Tory austerity over the last several years. Many of our most vulnerable residents have been shielded from those excesses, though the nature of that vulnerability means it might not have been felt as keenly.

I am immensely grateful that 908 of you trusted me with your votes, and even moreso that some of you reached out with commiserations at the result. I’m going to be quiet for a few weeks while I evaluate what’s happening next and focus on some things in my personal life, but I am still keen to see some things through that I’ve started. For a few people whom I promised I would look into things - I’ll be in touch with you in the next few weeks to let you know what I found for you.

I am typing this as I rock my son to sleep. My two children growing up in a Sandwell we could be proud of was a significant motivator for me to stand in the first place. I do expect our Councillors to take this responsibility seriously, and if they don’t we should not forgive them.