Our local newspaper, The Chronicle, interviewed Gateshead Council Labour Leader Martin Gannon at the Whickham North by-election count last night. Nothing unusual in that. Perhaps he needed to be distracted from the table where the Labour vote was being counted. Labour weren't doing well. Indeed, their vote was melting away. Martin said to the Chronicle:"It is obviously disappointing not to
Ten years ago this blog often explored Northampton - and often ended up at the former Bridge Street level crossing. This video from the 1990s shows a couple of workings using thT crossing. When I explored the land to the east of Bridge Street in 2014, I wrote: South of the power station and the Avon building, the footpath that was once Nunn Mills Road takes you thorough a derelict industrial area. The Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership calls it "one of the largest brown field development opportunities in the UK". I was puzzled. It all seemed very derelict, but if I ...
Fri 25th
13:15
"The number 72 was enunciated with something like reverence": An outside view of this year's Lib Dem...
Greg Taylor has written about his impressions of the three main political parties' conferences this autumn on the LSE British Politics and Policy blog. Here's what he made of the Liberal Democrats: The Lib Dems, up first as usual, were so full of zest that their hair practically stood on end from the moment they piled out of Brighton Station (those that had some, anyway). In debates, in speeches, and in casual conversation the number 72 was enunciated with something like reverence, something like disbelief. 72, the number of Lib Dem MPs elected in July, the party's most ever and ...
Here's the result of the Whickham North by-election as graphs. The more interesting one is below;I can't finish this post without a reference to the Greens! In the Bridges by-election last month they turned up at the count confident they had won. When they came third (dropping from their previous 2nd position) they left looking like "deflated whoopie cushions" (according to my blog!).
Winner of the Whickham North and Swalwell by-election, Susan Craig, pictured above with Cllrs Chris Ord, me, Peter Craig and Ron Beadle and Andy Coleman, chair of Gateshead Lib Dems, told the press last night after the count that the result shows that the only was to beat Labour in Gateshead is by voting Lib Dem.In what was once Labour's top target in the whole of the North East of England,
With less than a week to go to the first Labour budget since 2009, speculation is rife as to what exactly Rachel Reeeves plans to do to raise the £40billion she says is needed to fill the black hole inherited from the Tories, while shoring up our long-neglected public services. One route is to tax wealth, an area long-neglected by government, with the result that those holding substantial assets are paying proportionally less tax than somebody on the basic rate. The Mirror reports on new research that has found that a 2% tax on the fortunes of the super-rich over ...
Another bumper set of principal authority council by-elections this week: 13 seats up for election, with 11 Lib Dem candidates for them. Although not a full slate for the party, that is up 5 on the last time these wards were up. Let's start with an eye-catching Lib Dem gain, and in a ward previously without a Lib Dem candidate: Whoop! @ALDC @LibDems LD Gain off the Tories in Surrey Heath this evening: Dave Hough (LD) 394 Con 278 Reform 109 Lab 96 Ind 4 Congratulations Cllr Dave Hough! pic.twitter.com/YcvIg0RiPz — Mrwilsunshine (@mrwilsunshine) October 24, 2024
From Sheena Wellington of Friends of Wighton : Tomorrow - Saturday 26th October - at 11am, Friends of Wighton is having a Cappuccino Concert - Chloe Matharu, song and harp. Chloe Matharu is an award-winning Scottish Indian singer songwriter and harpist from Wemyss Bay on the West Coast of Scotland. Many of her songs draw on her time as a Navigational Officer in the Merchant Navy, inspired by the natural world as experienced at sea. On tour she performs solo with her harp in English, Scots and Welsh. She has performed at impressive venues such as Celtic Connections, Cambridge Folk ...
Declaration of the result of the Whickham North and Swalwell by-election, Gateshead this evening. A comfortable hold for the Lib Dems with about two thirds of the votes cast. It was another bad night for Labour and the Greens.
