The dark arts of Green Party propaganda

 

Bridges ward was the Green Party's only target seat in Gateshead. In the local elections in May they abandoned their previous target (Crawcrook and Greenside) to pour their resources into Bridges. They didn't win (Labour held on in what is normally a stronghold for them) but the Greens narrowed the gap. So when a vacancy occurred in the ward in the summer, the Greens were rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of a winnable by-election.

To cut a long story short, they turned up at the count looking confident, believing they would emerge from the count as the victors. Instead, the glee turned to glum as the Lib Dem vote soared from 4th to 2nd place. Instead of coming 1st, the Greens dropped to 3rd place and their actual vote and share of the vote slumped (as did Labour's.)

Move on a few weeks and the shell-shocked Greens have managed to get out a leaflet which explained somehow that the by-election was some kind of triumph for them. And they did this by removing all references to the Lib Dems. Note the graph above. The leaflet claimed the Greens "gained" votes (they lost half the votes they got in May). And it implies they are in 2nd place in the by-election (they were 3rd by a slender 2 votes!)

So, just to ensure you have the results for ALL the parties that contested the by-election, here are the FULL results with no parties edited out.

Spiders in Saltwell

 

The next Focus on Saltwell is currently being delivered in the ward so I volunteered for 2 patches this morning. It didn't take too long as most streets are terraces with small front gardens. I delivered 450 in about an hour and a half.

As Halloween is almost upon us, some households have gone to great lengths to decorate their homes. This house, my favourite, has a spider theme!

Gateshead's worst historian

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 win. I would make the point that 20 years ago that was a Labour seat and I still think it is a seat Labour should win."

The figure of 20 years however is just plain wrong. The last time Labour won in Whickham North was 1991. That's 33 years ago Martin, not the 20 years you claimed. In 1992, (that's 32 years ago Martin in case you can't find your calculator), the Lib Dems won the ward for the first time when Chris Ord took the seat from Labour.

Perhaps Martin, you should ask yourself why Whickham North has never returned to Labour. An answer to that, sometime in the next 20 years, would be interesting!

The inevitable Lib Dem barchart

 

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!). Apparently, they aren't happy with my description of them! Last night the Greens turned up at the Whickham North count though I'm not sure whether they brought with them any hope that their sinking vote share could be turned around. In the end they suffered the humiliation of coming behind the Conservatives! Meanwhile, I had greens for breakfast this morning!

The Whickham North and Swalwell result

 

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, Labour's vote effectively halved in the by-election yesterday. The full result was:

Liberal Democrats            902 (65%)

Labour                              285 (20%)

Conservative                    137  (10%)

Green                                  72  (5%)

I'm pleased to report that the Lib Dem vote not only stood up but the share increased by 8%. Given the Lib Dem share was already well over 50%, an increase in the by-election yesterday was very welcome. The Lib Dems were the only party smiling when the count was over!

Bring together the result of the Bridges by-election last month with the Whickham North result yesterday and the picture is clear - the Lib Dems are mounting a serious challenge to Labour in Gateshead. No other party is a serious contender in this race.

Result in from Whickham North and Swalwell by-election

 

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.

It's polling day!

 

Today is polling day (24th October) in the Whickham North and Swalwell by-election. Yesterday I was helping in Whickham to deliver the next leaflet but, alas, I am tied up today until this evening on meetings. The ward has an interesting history. Once a Labour stronghold, it went Lib Dem in 1992. Labour made it their top target in the region in 2011 and were just 21 votes behind. Since then, it has moved more firmly into the Lib Dem camp.

Polls close at 10pm today. We should have a result by midnight.

Stripping the beds

 

Volunteers from Planting Up Whickham yesterday stripped clear all the flowerbeds on Church Green, despite the weather being against us. My job was to supply lots of empty animal feed sacks and then take away all the sacks, by then filled with garden waste, to my farm. It took two journeys to transport everything. The waste will remain in the sacks to let it rot down and convert into compost. Find out more in the video above.

4th Whickham North Action Day

The Whickham North by-election will be held on Thursday (24th October 2024). Yesterday we held our 3rd action day in the ward since the vacancy was announced on 13th September. It was embarrassingly successful! All the leaflet bundles were collected before 11am and everything was delivered by 12.30pm. We had to stand down a few people who were planning to do the mop up operation today (Sunday) when any remaining patches are done. Thanks go to Sunderland Lib Dems who sent in a team to shift a pile of leaflets.

In terms of the other parties, Reform aren't standing and the Conservatives and Greens have delivered no literature at all. Labour have had two leaflets but we had no sightings of them in the ward yesterday.

Where's the Labour candidate?

There are just under 2 weeks left before Whickham North and Swalwell ward goes to the polls in a by-election to Gateshead Council. Yesterday, 12 Lib Dems delivered the whole ward with our latest Focus. The ward was once a Labour stronghold but they have lost every local election here since 1992. Nevertheless, Labour made the ward their top target in the North East a decade ago and came within about 20 votes of retaking it from the Lib Dems. Since then the Labour vote has been melting gradually away. So it was interesting to see Labour out in the ward yesterday. It's a rare event so make a note of it in your diary!

We did notice that Labour were canvassing the even-numbered houses on Whaggs Lane. Sadly, for Labour, these houses are actually in Dunston Hill and Whickham East ward, not Whickham North and Swalwell! The other side of the street is where the by-election is being held.

Meanwhile, Chipping Barnet based Labour MP for Gateshead Central and Whickham, Mark Ferguson, took to Twitter (now X) to show the world he is backing the Labour candidate in the by-election. Yet the group shot he included in his post did not include the Labour candidate. You would have thought it was sensible to include him! But the mystery of Labour's campaign doesn't stop there. Take a close look at the leaflets they are holding and none of them include the Labour candidate's name, at least on the visible side. Instead, these are leaflets about Mark Ferguson MP. Perhaps there was a Labour cock-up and they failed to get a by-election leaflet ready to deliver yesterday. Or maybe there is just a dose of incompetence in Labour's ranks. Booze up and breweries spring to mind.

You can read Mark Ferguson's post on this link.

There are two other parties in this contest: Greens and Tories. There has been no literature from the Greens. Perhaps they are still licking their wounds after their disastrous performance in the Bridges by-election last month. They fell from 2nd place to third while the Lib Dems jumped from 4th to 2nd. The ward is the only target the Greens have in Gateshead. And there has been nothing from the Tories either though the last time they delivered a local election leaflet in the ward was way back in the 1980s!