Pelaw and Heworth ward in Gateshead is a marginal ward. Once a Labour stronghold, it went Lib Dem in the Blair years, back to Labour in the Coalition years and since then Labour lost one seat to the Lib Dems Ian Patterson) by 20 votes but held on by about 100 votes last year. So it is a ward with an interesting history. To add to this, defending Labour councillor Jill Green is the mayor. I have a lot of time personally for Jill but I fear that her campaign is being run in the manner of a slow motion Labour car crash.
Her agent is Labour Councillor Leigh Kirton, agent to Ian Mearns MP (an opponent of a confirmatory referendum). She emerged from obscurity recently to hit the headlines as the author of a council motion widely regarded as Transphobic. After Labour got a battering, her motion was dropped like a hot potato. Having therefore become the queen of the political car crash, Cllr Kirton is exactly the person Lib Dems want in charge of Labour's campaign in marginal Pelaw and Heworth.
Labour's activity in the ward this weekend has been the delivery of the above letter. If anyone has a spare half hour to read this voluminous essay, please go ahead. Sadly, I did read it to the end (I need to get a life!) and decided that if anyone managed to do the same, this excessively long diatribe about the Lib Dems is likely to ensure they vote Lib Dem.
Much of the Labour letter is a personal attack on Lib Dem candidate Paul Diston, even going to the extent of naming him. Jill then reminds people of the letters Paul has sent to people. (We know the letters were well received by residents!) Topping the list of car-crash-things-not-to-mention however was the number of Focus editions we have produced. Referring to Focus edition 87 simply reminds everyone of the long history of Lib Dem activity in the ward.
The Labour letter attacked Paul for having changed ward - Paul had previously stood in Wardley and Leam Lane. But the comments by Labour are somewhat rich. Last year their sitting Councillor in Pelaw and Heworth switched to the neighbouring Labour stronghold of, none other than, Wardley and Leam Lane!
Meanwhile, Labour's attack on us for opposing something 21 years ago suggests an element of barrel bottom scraping!
To add to the car crash scenario, Labour have made the classic blunder of delivering another text heavy leaflet with the letter. The number of people likely to read both through to the end will probably be less than the majority Ian Patterson got when he won the seat back from Labour in 2016.
So Jill, I suggest for your sake that you sack your campaign organiser (I assume it is Cllr Kirton), though for the sake of the Lib Dems, stick with her!
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