Sion Simon has been playing up to a certain stereotype in his campaign for West Midlands mayor, adorning his campaign literature with England flags and even using the slogan “This is England”. So he probably won’t want voters to know his campaign chief Waseem Zaffar has just been forced to resign his position on Birmingham council after he intervened in a local primary school to insist that a four-year old girl should wear a hijab. The unsavoury story has been an explosive local issue in recent weeks and Zaffar has now been forced to resign his Cabinet position in disgrace. Zaffar’s name is all over Simon’s website as a contact for his campaign.

The pair are close friends, Simon once said of Zaffar:

“Waseem Zaffar is an outstanding grassroots political representative… You couldn’t have a better representative.”

Doesn’t quite fit with Simon’s campaign message…