Jonathan Wallace

I have been having some interesting correspondence with some residents of Blaydon constituency about the council budget and where the blame for the current economic and financial state of affairs rests. So, to explain where I believe the problems lies, I have posted below my budget speech to Gateshead Council from 27th Feb when I seconded our amendment. To summarise, my view is that as a nation we have been living beyond our means for decades. That was what caught up with us in 2008 when the financial meltdown happened. I therefore do not specifically blame Labour for the financial meltdown. What I did not say in the speech (it had to be time limited and relevant to the council budget), but which is my considered view, is that Labour messed up big style by allowing the economy to become too reliant on financial services. Ed Balls, then the Labour City Minister and guardian of "light touch" regulation, defended the financial sector as (in my words) the goose that lays the golden eggs. The problem was that the gold was of the fool's variety and the goose ended up crapping all over the place. Nevertheless, the Labour government fed the fool's-gold-laying goose extremely well in their time in office, a decision that has left the Coalition an enormous mess to clear up. Hopefully that will answer some of the points raised by local residents.

Meanwhile, here is my budget speech:

Thursday last week saw Gateshead Council's annual budget meeting which set the budget and council tax for the year ahead. There was a very visible public protest against the cuts in front of one of the main doors into the Civic Centre.  It was very difficult to avoid. After all, this was a public protest and people walking in and out of the building had to walk around the protest and the people snapping away with their cameras and phones. As I walked past, I spotted Labour councillors joining in the protest. You can see them in the photo above. They are the white haired lady towards the left of the picture, Helen Hughes in the red jacket, Lee Holmes (white shirt and Unison flag) and Malcolm Brain (standing by himself wearing a red tie). Having demonstrated their unity with the unions, publicly protested against the cuts and shown their ability to join in a photo op, the councillors headed back into the warmth of the Civic Centre for the big budget debate.

An interesting feature of this year's budget is that there is an underspend of £3.3 million. This is all the more surprising given that Labour last year protested that the cuts had gone too far. Yet here we have them cutting spending by a further £3.3 million on top of the cuts that were agreed last year. And their plan for the coming year's budget is to put all of that underspend into reserves rather than to spend any of it on the services they say they want to save from the axe.

Labour Councillors did have the opportunity on Thursday last week to put some of the underspend into services over the coming year which would otherwise be cut. Our budget amendment called for £1.5 million to scrap various cuts to children's services. Given the protest made by the likes of Cllr Brain just two hours before, it would be reasonable to assume Labour councillors would vote for our amendment. Don't assume anything of the sort! All Labour councillors present voted against our amendment.

During the debate, Cllr Brain called for the amendment to be defeated and claimed that we were only moving it to have the opportunity to write focus stories. This is somewhat rich given that it seems Cllr Brain's activities two hours earlier seemed to be more about having a photo taken (presumably for Labour election leaflets).

So, our amendment calling for some services to be saved went down to defeat at the hands of Labour councillors who just two hours earlier were calling for these services to be saved. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions.

By the way Cllr Brain, it was interesting that it was you who raised the issue of our Focus leaflets in the budget debate. Has this anything to do with the appearance of Focus leaflets in your ward? Feeling the heat?

On Saturday we had our latest Blaydon and Gateshead action day, this time in Whickham, Dunston and Lobley Hill. 24 people joined in. HQ for the day was Whickham Church Hall (see photo above - lunch time at HQ).



We were joined by Angelika Schneider, our prospective European candidate (2nd from right in the photo above).



I provided the lunchtime cake (homemade of course!)



I spent the morning delivering in Dunston but after lunch I headed down to Lobley Hill and Bensham ward with Angelika, our prospective council candidate Dave Fawcett, Susan Craig, (Councillor for Low Fell who cut her political teeth in Lobley Hill and Bensham ward in 2006 when she cut Labour's lead to less than 100 votes) and Owen Temple, number two on our Euro list, for some photos and campaigning. When I got back to HQ, I was just in time to be given the last bundle of leaflets for Whickham North ward. Delivery was completed by 4pm.

Tomorrow we will be having our next action day in Blaydon constituency (and a bit of Gateshead constituency). Members will be out campaigning in Dunston Hill, Lobley Hill and Whickham. Each ward has its own leaflets and letters to delivery and there will be some door knocking as well. Events kick off at 10am. As usual, there will be food provided for helpers. I was drafted in to provide cake. Lots of cake. David has just finished baking them!

Of the wards in the area, one is Whickham South and Sunniside (my ward) which has a strong Lib Dem majority. The 2nd is Whickham North which is Lib Dem held but where the majority over Labour is small. The 3rd is Dunston Hill and Whickham East which is split 2 Labour and 1 Lib Dem. We won there last time so it is one of the Labour councillors up for election in May. This will be the most closely fought of the 4 wards though Labour seem to be doing a superb imitation of the invisible man in the ward with no noticeable activity so far this year. We are not being complacent however - which is why we are out tomorrow campaigning in the ward.

The final ward is Lobley Hill and Bensham which is normally a rock solid Labour seat but which we nearly won after a 3 month campaign in 2006. More recently it reverted back to being strongly Labour but we have a history of campaigning there which we are not going to give up easily. As we won Dunston Hill ward last time, and retained Whickham North with an improved though still marginal majority, to some extend the pressure on us is less so we are putting much more into Lobley Hill. It will be interesting to see what happens in May.

My next email newsletter to people in Blaydon constituency went out last night. It covers Ryton, Crawcrook and Greenside, Winlaton and High Spen, Chopwell and Rowlands Gill and Blaydon wards. It leads with the story about Labour's plans to build on local greenbelt, but also includes material about landfill, improvements to the A1 and a bit about my appearance on BBC's Inside Out programme last autumn about self-sufficiency. You can view the newsletter on this link.

Yesterday morning I was working in my goat paddock and once I had dealt with the goat poo, I headed home to find the first ever non-election UKIP leaflet in my ward stuffed through my door. It was a national leaflet, not a local one. I was struck however about how negative the leaflet was. It was a call to join UKIP and the reasons for signing up said nothing at all about what UKIP are for. Indeed, a screaming headline shouts "UKIP'S FIGHTING FOR YOU AGAINST..." which was then followed by one negative for each of the 3 main parties and one for the Greens. On the back of the leaflet, the headline claimed, "THAT'S WHY THIS YEAR WE'RE ALL GOING UKIP." Whilst negative campaigning is a part of all parties' campaigning, it is reasonable to expect some explanation from any party what is is FOR. Founding a political party on the basis of being purely against whatever happens to irritate you strikes me as being an easy way to get a short term gain but provides no long term basis for the survival of a party. Alas, this leaflet had nothing whatsoever to say about UKIP policy.

Our contact work with voters in Gateshead suggests that UKIP are doing better in wards which are very strongly Labour and where turnouts tend to be lower. In other words, where political engagement with the people is poor, UKIP could fill the vacuum. Indeed, in one ward in particular, represented by a key member of the Labour group, UKIP could run Labour quite close if turnout is low in the local elections in May. The Euro-elections on the same day could add another complicating factor to that ward. In our held wards, and those wards in which we are regularly campaigning, UKIP vote is only just registering though they are level pegging with the Conservatives for a distant 3rd place.

Anyway, that's the politics done for this morning. I need to get back outside and this time deal with all the hen poo in our 4 henhouses. At least we're not being flooded out here in Gateshead. Presumably that means there's been no gay weddings on our patch recently.

Pelaw and Heworth action day was a success! Cllr Marilynn Ord and I were sent off to deliver letters to people with whom we are particularly keen to engage in 3 patches in Pelaw. I knew the main road through that area as it is on the way to Bill Quay Community Farm which I visit regularly to help look after the bees. When we got back to our temporary HQ after finishing the deliveries, we found that all the patches had been delivered. Surplus manpower had been sent to Low Fell and Chowdene to do a survey of residents. Alas, I couldn't join them there - I had henhouses to clean out back on the allotment instead.

The large pile of Focuses that had been staring at me has now been delivered. 400 for the Whickham part of my ward took me 2 hours to deliver this afternoon. Job done. It now clears the deck to go to Pelaw and Heworth ward in Gateshead tomorrow for our action day there. I think we have a load of letters to deliver. The ward used to be rock-solid Labour until 2000 when we won it. We then picked up the other two Labour seats in subsequent elections. Unfortunately, they have subsequently swung back to Labour though their majority last year was not so comfortable. We have no intention of standing back and letting Labour continue to hold on there. Hence the action day there tomorrow.

This is the latest edition of my monthly webcast from the world of self-sufficiency. Despite the weather, we have been raising ducklings, hatching hen eggs, making fruit liqueurs, using up the supply of pumpkins from the autumn and skinning rabbits. You can see more on my self-sufficiency blog.

Writing Focus newsletters does not mean I get off delivering them. At the end of last week, I delivered 370 in Dunston Hill and Whickham East ward here in Blaydon constituency. We are hoping to take the seat in May from the Labour who are not exactly high profile in the ward. The representation is currently split between 2 Labour and one Lib Dem councillors. With only one councillor up for election each year (and every 4th year we are election free), we occasionally get a scenario of a sitting councillor defending a seat from 2nd position. Our councillor, Peter Maughan, had to overturn a Labour majority of 600 in 2011 to hold on in 2012. He did, beating Labour by 200 votes. This year, the roles are reversed. Labour are defending from 200 behind. This ward is one of a number that will be fiercely contested in Gateshead, though few Labour councillors have been seen coming to the campaigning aid of their two Labour "comrades" in the ward.

Last week, I was also on home territory, delivering my village Focus in Sunniside. 400 done in one day. We were up against a deadline - we had an event on Sunday we were promoting. And today, I delivered 200 Focuses in Blaydon ward. This is development territory for us - we are looking to build up our strength in this ward despite not having held it before.

So that leaves me with a large pile of Focuses staring at me from across the table still to deliver. They are for the Whickham part of my ward. They will have to wait until tomorrow to be delivered however as tonight I am off to the monthly meeting of Sunniside History Society.