Jonathan Wallace

Last year, the Labour councillors on the planning committee in Gateshead voted to reject an application to install a cash machine in our village post office in Sunniside. The argument adopted (paraphrased in my own style) was that putting such a facility onto a front street would bring traffic chaos and the entire ediface of western civilisation would collapse etc etc etc. I had handed in a petition of over 200 signatures in favour of the application. The rejection was met with stunned disbelief by residents of the village.

Well, I am pleased to say that Paul the postmaster phoned me this evening to say the appeal against the decision has been won.

The victory is all the more sweeter since the Labour party, in a fit of insanity, put a leaflet out in my ward in the run up to the election that never was, which laid into me and my colleagues for backing the application. It contained the usual drivel expected from Labour election leaflets in my ward. I shall be at full council on Friday and will be taking great pleasure in being magnanimous in victory over the person we knew wrote this leaflet.

Perhaps in the next leaflet he produces, in 2 years' time when the general election is likely to be held, he can explain why Labour took such an unreasonable position on our village post office. And perhaps an apology to residents, Paul the postmaster, and users of the branch would not go amiss. Don't hold your breath however.

---
Sent via BlackBerry

The remarkable scene yesterday of an emergency budget being introduced at a time when there was no financial or economic emergency took some believing. This stuff is stranger than fiction. The only emergency was in Downing Street where Labour were in a state of complete panic about their vote meltdown.

No doubt there will be a bunch of deadwood Labour backbenchers who will claim credit for this monumental uturn (the same ones last year who were praising or voting for the budget, and who earlier this year voted for the Budget resolutions). The reality is that this was simply the action of a shattered government desperately trying to bail out guy they crowned unopposed as leader.

The actions of this past day have now shot to pieces the position of the government and completely undermined what credibility was left of Labour on the economy and finances. They have constantly claimed that tackling poverty is best done through their vastly complicated tax credit system. They have just gone against their own system. They constantly claim that they are prudent with the nations finances. That claim is now shot to bits. And they constantly attack the opposition parties for uncosted and unsustainable spending plans. Their credibility on such claims, not great before hand, is now gone altogether (though don't expect Labour to stop making such claims.)

We all await however the small print of the government's uturn. With Labour, we all know the devil is in the detail. What will happen to allowances next year is anyone's guess. One likely effect of the emergency budget however is further cuts in interest rates are less likely.

Black Wednesday finally shot to pieces the last Conservative government's credibility on the economy and the nations finances. Whilst crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism was a solution to some of the problems caused by the preceding recession (though many of these problems were starting to be solved by a growing economy anyway), it was the decision by the government to reverse a major policy that completely undermined the Conservatives' credibility. Last year I felt the cancelled election had the equivalent effect on Labour in terms of credibility. So if last year saw Black Saturday for Labour, yesterday must be Black Tuesday. That leaves five days of the week for Labour to completely wreck everything else.

The rapid progression of Gordon Brown from Stalin, master of all he saw, to Mr Bean, (our never ending thanks to Vince Cable for this immaculately accurate but amusing comparison) is nearing completion. The story of Brown as Prime Minister is indeed stranger than fiction.
---
Sent via BlackBerry

I came across these interesting bits from a speech by David Cameron to the Council for the Protection of Rural England, made yesterday.

In it he makes the case for less regulation. And then he goes on to make the case for, errr....more regulation.

Here's what he said:

The third way in which our present regime has undermined social value is through over-regulation.

And then he went on to say:

But government is not only failing to impose sensible new regulations that would protect the countryside. They are even getting rid of existing ones.

You can see the full speech, if you really want to, at Cameron speech.

"War!? I must write my memoirs." So went the classic line from the Goon Show. The moment war was declared, there was a rush by the generals to go into print. It feels like we have had a similar experience over the weekend.

With Labour now falling apart at the seams, it appears to be first choice of the ancien regime to join the internal Labour war by lobbing a grenade at the embattled Prime Minister. Prescott, Levy and Mrs Blair are all on a roll with claims in their autobiographies about how bad Brown was under Blair. It all adds weight to the genuine belief that Brown is not up to the job of Prime Minister. Indeed, he is so bad that he has succeeded in making that fake, Cameron, look like PM material.

The battle of the autobiographies is just a sideshow carried out before these three reach the end of their shelf life. Who will be interested in them in a year's time? Get the cash rolling in now by getting their side of the story into print before people think they are very old news.

So it all adds to Brown's woes. But as I have said before, don't get carried away with the idea that Brown will be got rid of in coming months. To do that, Labour needs an alternative leader and at the moment such a person does not exist. And removing a prime minister after less than a year in office will make Labour look more of a laughing stock than they currently are.

---
Sent via BlackBerry

I have just arrived at Newcastle Central Station to find my train to London is, yet again, cancelled by National Excess. This has been caused by a "train failure". Should this be a National Express company failure? I have had more cancellations of my train since National Excess took over the East Coast line 6 months ago than I had in the whole of the 8 years before then.

It means there will be a battle on the next train to get a seat. It also means a much longer journey. The next service takes nearly half an hour longer to get to London.

I wouldn't put National Excess in charge of a Hornby trainset, never mind a real one.

The next train has now arrived. To make matters worse, we are being told that the train I have just got onto was actually my service but it is being converted to the much slower next service. And we are now being told that the reason for the cancellation of my service is a "set shortage" - that is technical, gobshite talk for not having enough trains. Quite how we are supposed to encourage more people to travel by train rather than by car with such a crap train operator running one of the main services is beyond me.

---
Sent via BlackBerry

I stumbled across this whilst looking for something else but I feel it should be shared more widely with the world.

These were the voted cast on 1st May in Bywell ward of Northumberland:

• Ind 599
• Lib Dem 506
• Con 463
• Lab 94

At first sight, you would think this was a no hope ward for Labour. Actually, you would be wrong to think that. This was a ward Labour were defending. The independent who won was actually the former Labour councillor who went Independent when Labour imposed an all women shortlist on his ward. Since he had testicles rather than ovaries, he got the chop. Labour imported a female candidate from 23 miles away. The independent won and the Labour candidate, as you can see from the result, barely registered.

Labour got only 6% in a ward they were defending. Is that a record?

Labour's suicide mission knows no bounds. Their National Executive Committee have just suspended 5 Durham County Councillors from the Easington area apparently in some spat over women candidates (Labour in Easington only put up 4 women candidates for 24 seats). But what has been missed by the BBC in reporting this is that the suspensions have now stripped Labour of their majority on Durham County. Previously with a lead of 8 over the opposition, they are now in a minority of 2.

Make a note of this everyone - for Labour had held Durham County Council since 1919.

Adding to their self-inflicted woes is the position of one of the suspended councillors, Alan Napier. He is Leader of Easington District Council. By the looks of it, not for much longer. As a suspendee (is there such a word?) he is no longer eligible to serve in a Labour administration, never mind as Leader. Mind you, his successor as Leader of Easington will be the equivalent of a new captain being appointed to the Titanic after the ship had struck the iceberg but before she finally went down - Easington Council has one year left before it is abolished. Councillor Napier was also thought of as a likely deputy leader of the new unitary Durham County. Not any more.

And then there is the case of Albert Nugent, leader of the County Council until yesterday. He is one of the suspended Gang of Five. The suspension of this Old Labour party boss was perfectly timed for his New Labour opponents. University lecturer Simon Henig, who my spies tell me is New Labour to the core, is now the new Leader - the election by the Labour group was yesterday and dear old Albert was, alas, no longer entitled to stand or even attend the group meeting.

So interesting times ahead in the former Labour fortress of Durham County. The outer walls of the defences have been breached (mainly by the Lib Dems) and the defending Labour guards have turned their weapons on each other. Thanks guys.

I am up in Morpeth, outside County Hall, having just done an interview for the next members' video newsletter in the North East with Jeff Reid. Jeff is the new Leader of the Northumberland County Council. We are now the largest group and Labour are now in third place. The elections gave the Lab Cons 17 seats each but a couple of indies have joined the Con group therefore making Labour the third party.

With 26 seats, we are 8 short of taking control. So discussions will need to take place as to who does what.

Anyway, the Labour group must have just finished a meeting as their councillors are just leaving County Hall. Jeff is off for a quick word.....

---
Sent via BlackBerry

Well, here I am, sitting on the National Excess service to Newcastle and as usual, the seat I booked is not the one reserved for me. Quite why they bother with the section on their website that allows you to book a particular type of seat is beyond me. It never seems to work.

And another thing. The journey time from Kings Cross to London has been increased by 20 min.

Okay, rant over!

The exciting news from back home is that our tomatoes, peppers, gherkins and various other seeds are now sprouting. Well, it just doesn't get more exciting than that! Trouble is, we now need to build a greenhouse. We do actually have one ready to put up. It's like a large Meccano set for adults (I wonder, do they still make Meccano?) Anyway getting the ground ready for it will be the key job for the weekend.

Mind you, it's not all fun playing with big boys' construction kits over the next two days. I am also heading up to Morpeth on Sunday to interview Jeff Reid, new leader of our vastly enlarged group on Northumberland County Council. There is a reasonable expectation he will become the new Council leader - we are the largest group and Labour carelessly lost half their councillors in the recent local elections. (For Labour it was a combination of meltdown, self detonation, suicide and having Comrade Brown as leader! Seems like a winning combination to me - certainly helped us to win plebty of seats!)

Jeff will be interviewed for the video newsletter I produce for members in the region. It's all very experimental at the moment. I will also interview Jeff for North East Democrat, which I edit. I am hoping to get the next edition emailed out to members this coming week. So at some point I had better get round to writing it!

I do of course have other things to do touching on other constituencies. No, I am not going to tell you which ones. I'll keep our opponents, many of whom are avid readers of this blog, guessing.


---
Sent via BlackBerry

Do you remember the Labour document "100 spending commitments the Liberal Democrats can't fund because their sums don't add up"?

It was popular reading for Labour hacks in 2005. It was packed full of barrel bottom scraping ideas on how Labour could incorrectly paint the Lib Dems as having spending commitments but no explanation as to how we would pay for them.

Number 94 was the one that got the most attention due to the stupidity of the claims Labour tried to hook onto it. Apparently, Labour suggested, the entire economic ediface of the country was at risk because Vince Cable had the following "spending commitment" on his personal website:

"Bees. Twickenham has one of the best bee keeping centres in the country. Many local people support it. Benefits from bees' natural pollination activities are enormous, worth billions of pounds. There is however negligible research into damaging diseases and I have pressed the ministry of agriculture for a bigger research commitment."

Yes, the nation's finances were going to be underminded by investing in bee research!

I have revived memories of this long forgotten Labour work of drivel because I spotted that Blaydon Labour MP David Anderson is making a fuss about the lack of research in, errrrr....bee research.

Here are his recent Parliamentary questions on the subject:

• To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what research his Department has (a) commissioned and (b) evaluated on the emergence of an Asian variation of the bee pathogen Nosema ceranae.
• To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps his Department has taken to investigate the reasons for unexplained losses of queens from bee hives.
• To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what funding his Department plans to provide for bee inspectors in (a) 2008-09, (b) 2009-10 and (c) 2010-11.

Rather helpfully, the minister replied with answers suggesting cash was being spent on research into the little honey makers. And presumably, the nation's finances are about to collapse as a result.

Interesting to note that New Labour Queen Bee Blair is no longer in the hive. Could this spell the end of them?

The Conservatives have made great claims about their decision to hold their spring conference in Gateshead. It was a sign, they suggested, of their revival at least of interest in the North East. This explanation was trotted out by Conservatives last week on tv whilst commenting on the local elections generally. The equivalent would be Labour claiming a revival in the South every time they hold a conference in Bournemouth.

I don't doubt for a moment that the Conservatives want to do well generally in the North East. And their decision to hold their conference here was welcome. After all, visitors to the region briing money and that means more cash circulating in our local economy. Indeed, Mr Cameron, come here again and keep spending your money.

But the political benefits for the Tories in Gateshead and Newcastle were zilch. The Conservatives made no progress at all on the two local authorities. In many places they struggled to get into third place ahead of the BNP. 1992 was the last time a Conservative topped the poll in any ward in Newcastle or Gateshead. The seats they won in that year can barely see the Conservative now, they are so far behind.

My own ward shows just how far the Conservatives have declined. Twenty five years ago it was very strongly Conservative. Last week, they achieved second place for the first time in 16 years but given we had 68% and a 1500 majority, their success was more a measure of Labour's meltdown (Labour got their worst vote ever in the ward last week). The Conservatives don't have a grassroots organisation that can even get out a leaflet, never mind the vote.

It is not all bad news for the Conservatives in the North East. As I have said previously, had I been in Sunderland or North Tyneside, I would have been pleased last week had I been a Conservative. North Tyneside contains Tynemouth constituency which was Conservative for nearly 40 years until the 1997 election when it went into the Labour fold. Labour's hold on the seat is looking decidedly butter-fingered at the moment.

In the North East outside those two areas, the Conservative story was one of very limited growth whilst it was the Lib Dems who made the surge forward on the big authorities of Northumberland, Newcastle and County Durham. In Northumberland, the Conservatives hold Hexham and once held Berwick (they have aspirations to win back Alan Beith's seat though their performance last week suggests they will need to keep dreaming.) Yet the Tories had a net gain of only three seats and lost their leader to the Lib Dems in the process.

Down in Durham, the Conservatives did grow from 2 to 10, though the figures are inflated as the authority was doubled in size. The Lib Dems had 5 members on the old, smaller authority. We have 27 on the new enlarged one. Clearly we were the beneficiaries.

Yet there may be straws in the wind that could be telling the story about where politics is going in Britain. In Sunderland and North Tyneside, the Tories did well but we were thin on the ground. In Newcastle and Gateshead, the Tories were thin on the ground but we did well. Cross one authority border to the next and the challengers to Labour are different.

Then go to South Tyneside where both Lib Dems and Conservatives are weak. The challengers there are independents.

Back in the 1990s at aconstituency level, the Conservatives were crushed by a huge pincer movement from tactical voting. This boosted Labour's majority to a far higher level than would otherwise be the case. On a constituency by constituency basis, the party seen as most likely to beat the Tories was the one that benefitted disproportionately in that constituency.

Could the same now be happening to Labour? Could it be that the tide that swept Labour into power with such a huge majority over the past decade or so is about to go into reverse? It is probably too early to tell but if it is the case, Labour are in deep, deep trouble.

---
Sent via BlackBerry

It was 21 years ago today, at the tender age of 23, that I was first elected as a councillor in Gateshead. I gained the seat from the Conservatives who have since all but disappeared from Gateshead. I was the 4th member of the group. Now we are 24.

It is amusing in a sense to look back on that campaign. All three parties turned up at the count thinking they had won. The remaining Tory councillor in the ward came over to me when I arrived at the count and told me he was wishing me a "good second place." I wished him the same. Labour were as arrogant as ever, believing they were the people's natural choice, though the people had different views on the matter.

In the end, I was elected with a majority of 850 over the Conservatives and 1100 over Labour. Last week, my colleague Councillor Alan Ord was elected with a majority of about 1500 and 70% of the vote.

After 21 years, however, I am still amongst the younger of the councillors on the authority!

---
Sent via BlackBerry

Former Iraqi propaganda chief Comical Ali has been signed up as spin doctor for the Labour party. Or so you would think if you read the unbelievable claims from Reading Labour party who, according to their website, gave the Tories a "bloody nose" in the local elections. For the uninitiated, Labour lost control of Reading council on Thursday last week, losing three seats to the Tories. And rather carelessly, they lost the seat held by their leader to the Lib Dems. (Meanwhile, as of today Labour have lost another seat there as one of their own band has decided to go independent.)

Spin doctor Comical Ali then goes on to claim, "Labour's results in Reading show our strength locally in that Reading Labour Party has once again bucked the national trend."

I've heard of triumphalism in success, but triumphalism in defeat is a new one on me.

You can imagine this spin doctor's other claims: "Livingstone triumphs over Johnson", "Labour landslide in local elections", "Brown voted best PM ever", ad nauseum etc.

For a bit of enjoyment, visit the site of Reading Labour and have a good chuckle: http://www.readinglabour.org.uk/