Labour has blamed the Conservatives for Birmingham’s bin strike.

Birmingham is run by a Labour city council and some Tories say the strike, which left city street’s strewn with rubbish, shows what will happen to the country as a whole if Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party ever forms a government.

They have also highlighted the role of the Unite union, which represents refuse workers and supports Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

But Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said the Tory-led administration that used to run the council, and the Conservative national government, are to blame for the industrial action.

Speaking to the Birmingham Mail at the party conference in Brighton, he said: “Labour took over under extremely difficult circumstances after the previous Conservative-led authority had effectively run Birmingham into the ground.”

Mr Gwynne also urged Birmingham to continue to run the bin service itself. Some local politicians such as Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell (Con Sutton Coldfield) have urged the council to privatise the service, which would mean employing a private firm to manage rubbish collection.

Birmingham had a Conservative-led council from 2004 to 2012. The bin strike began in May this year, but Mr Gwynne pointed out that the city had faced sever financial problems for many years previously.

He said: “I don’t accept that Labour has failed in Birmingham.

“Labour had to come in and deal with some pretty messy decision to get Birmingham on the up again.

“In terms of the bin dispute I understand the predicament Birmingham is in financially.

“Birmingham has got a massive financial headache that the Labour group inherited.”

He also blamed cuts in funding from the Conservative government at Westminster.

“The real issues facing Birmingham do not lie at the door of Birmingham City Council,they lie at the front door of the Department of Communities and Local Government, because it is precisely because Birmingham has faced the scale of cuts it has that they are having to take such difficult decisions.”

He called on the city council to run bin services itself, saying: “We want to support Birmingham to be able to keep the bin services in-house, keep those jobs in-house, and to make sure we drive the improvements that Birmingham residents need to see.”

He said a recent court case which led to a pause in the strike provided an opportunity to end it.

“I just hope that the pause that the court case generated allows all the parties to get back to the table, to negotiate a way forward.

“It’s not an insurmountable problem.

“That’s going to to take both sides, the union [Unite] and the Council, to sit down, have a robust discussion with ACAS and to get this issue resolved.”