Printing for tomorrow

 

I was in the office this afternoon to print a calling leaflet for a canvass session in my ward tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to getting out onto the doorsteps again.

Light Up Whickham race night

 

Light Up Whickham held a fundraising race night on Saturday 24th May which raised a good sum of money that will pay towards Whickham's Christmas tree. A good time was had by all.

Sunniside Focus delivery completed

 

A few days ago I finished delivering our latest Focus in my ward. It covered the villages of Sunniside Streetgate, Marley Hill and Byermoor and the private rural estate of Ravensworth. The delivery patch for the latter has only 15 houses in it but it takes quite some time to do given the rural nature. Back home and I'm already writing the next Focus, though it's not for my ward.

Johnson's hurdles to power

 A comeback by Boris Johnson? Don't make me laugh! The suggestion that the disgraced former PM could come back as Conservative leader to save them from oblivion are doing the rounds at the moment. Such stories are a measure of how far the Conservatives have sunk but for Johnson to come back, he needs to overcome some very high hurdles.

Firstly, he needs to get back into Parliament. A current Conservative MP would have to step down to create a vacancy. It is impossible to imagine Badenoch willingly letting an MP go just so that a person gunning for her job could be returned to Parliament.

Secondly, Johnson would have to win the nomination. That is not a foregone conclusion though admittedly, given the febrile state of the Conservative membership, he would probably win selection were he to throw his hat in the ring.

Thirdly, Johnson would have to win the by-election. This is probably the biggest hurdle for him to leap. Given the paucity of safe Conservative seats, it is likely that any by-election in a Conservative constituency will see an opposition win.

But let's suppose these hurdles are overcome and Boris is back! His 4th hurdle would be to engineer a coup to get rid of Badenoch. I doubt she will be a pushover but it is possible to remove her as Leader.

Which brings me to the 5th hurdle - winning the leadership election. Would Conservative MPs really take a punt on Johnson when they are in the middle of an existential crisis?

Okay, so let's suppose the impossible has happened and Johnson has become Conservative Leader. Would he be an asset to the Conservatives or would he repel the voters? In 2019, he was arguably an asset and led his party to its biggest election win since 1987. The tide of public opinion however turned against him in 2022. Hurdle no. 6 is the general election due by 2029. If the Conservatives believe they can win an election led by Johnson, they must be living in cloud cuckoo land.

But stranger things have happened.....!

Beaten by Labour's one-party state

Earlier in May, the Lib Dem group decided to nominate me as deputy mayor for Gateshead. The council has been Labour run since its creation in 1974 and 100% of mayors and deputy mayors have been Labour despite their never having 100% of the vote or 100% of the seats. The days of Labour's one-party state in Gateshead may be numbered but they are fighting to the bitter end to prevent anyone other than Labour from taking on the ceremonial role of mayor or deputy.

A common practice of Labour is to appoint a mayor or deputy who has only recently been elected. The new deputy mayor falls into that category. Cllr Sharron Potts was first elected in 2022, so her wait from election to deputy mayoral appointment was just 3 years.

I always knew that being elected deputy mayor would be something of a longshot! Alas, despite lovely speeches by my 2 ward colleagues, Marilynn Ord and Jonathan Mohammed, and 38 years' experience of serving as a councillor, I was defeated.

The deputy mayor has lots to do so I have been saved from this additional workload. That leaves me more time, as one of Gateshead Lib Dems' leading campaigners, to take the battle to Labour throughout the borough. For that, I must thank Labour!

There's been a coup!

Gateshead's annual council meeting was held earlier this month and we saw at it the results of what could be a coup on the Labour benches. Deputy Leader Catherine Donovan was spotted sitting in the second row of the council chamber. This is the area for those who hold no office other than being on the cabinet. Her seat of the past 9 years on the front bench was occupied by Cllr Gary Haley. Well, isn't this a bit of a turn up for the books!?

Cllr Donovan is something of a leftwinger, more at home with socialism than capitalism. She was a fan of Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour Leader. Cllr Haley on the other hand had previously posed as the bloke who it was safe for Conservatives to vote for in my ward of Whickham South and Sunniside. 20 years ago he took on the challenge - and lost spectacularly - of being Labour candidate in my ward. He claimed that Conservatives could safely vote for him to beat those pesky leftwing Liberals! And though his claim of being safe for Tories may well be true, not many followed his suggestion of voting for him. His campaign crashed and he came nowhere near winning.

Tory Boy then ran away to another Lib Dem ward where his persuasive powers worked as well as they did in my ward. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he went on another rubber chicken run. Tory Boy eventually washed up in a ward which was strongly Labour and was elected in a byelection.

We all know that Starmer is moving Labour to the right as he tries to out-Reform Reform. I just didn't expect Labour in Gateshead to be moving so enthusiastically in that direction as well!

Closing the doors after the defector has bolted

 A few months ago, a rare event took place in Gateshead. A Labour Councillor, Jane McCoid left Labour to go independent. Changes of allegiances are few and far between in Gateshead so the local newspaper, The Chronicle, carried the story and included quotes direct from Jane herself.

Angry about the direction of Labour in government, she told The Chronicle, "Enough is enough", "all hope is gone" and the reduction in winter fuel allowance was "impossible to defend". Read the full article on this link.

At the time I thought Jane was quite brave. Defectors in Gateshead tend to disappear rapidly from view. In the meantime, Gateshead Lib Dems have worked hard to raise Jane's profile by including her resignation and her comments in our Focus leaflets.

Yesterday, Jane sent me the following email:

Hi Johnathon.

I am formally asking you respectfully not to use my resignation in your leaflets. This is disrespectful to me . 

I do not want to take further action but I will if you don't respect my wishes.

Kind regards 

Cllr Jane McCoid

Jane, if you don't want to be quoted as a defector saying lots of negative things about the party you have just left, I recommend not defecting in the first place but if you do defect, don't give your former colleagues a mauling by speaking to the media!

Gateshead Lib Dems will of course continue to exercise our democratic freedom to quote material that is in the public domain.

In the meantime Jane, closing the doors after you've already defected is probably not going to produce the results for which you are hoping.

How the war impacted on Ravensworth

 

Earlier this month I gave a talk to the Sunniside History Society about locations in the area which have a link to the 2nd World War. Included in the talk was a section about Ravensworth Castle in Gateshead. It wasn't not a real castle. Instead, it was a stately home built in the later Victorian period. By the later 1930s it was empty and suffering from mining subsidence. Lord Ravensworth had taken the decision in 1938 to have the house demolished. The stone and timber would be used to build a model village near the site of the castle. 3 houses were built by the time war was declared, at which point all house building was stopped. The foundations of the 4th house had been dug but after the war, the remaining houses were never built.

In this video which I produced for the History Society talk, I explain how the war stopped the demolition and building plans in their tracks while the partially demolished castle was taken over by the army for billeting soldiers.

Sunniside Focus

 

Hooray! I recently delivered my last patch but one for the current Focus on Sunniside. What is left to do is one very small bundle of 15 for Ravensworth. This is a large country estate so in terms of walking, it is the biggest patch. In terms of actual numbers to be delivered, it is the smallest. I will deliver the patch later this week.

Lead story in the Focus is the need to restore Kindred Wood, on the edge of Sunniside, which was damaged by diggers and spoil dumping in the autumn.