Letters and toasties

 

Today was my ward's turn to host a Gateshead Lib Dem action day. We had letters to deliver. We also had two surgeries. The first was at 10am outside Whickham Library. I didn't get to it as I was in Sunniside Club car park dishing out bundles of letters to the eight members who turned up to help.

But at 11.30am, by which time all the bundles had gone, we had our second surgery of the day, on Sunniside Front Street, outside Sun Hill. Those attending were myself, Cllr Marilynn Ord, Cllr Jonathan Mohammed, Cllr Susan Craig and Cllr Peter Craig. Two people passing in vehicles shouted abuse and made gestures with hands/fingers but these were outvoted by the 6 people who tooted their horns supporting us!

Meanwhile Peter headed up to the Potters Wheel to get a couple of takeaway coffees. Outside the building he discovered an army of two Reform party members who had met up to do some leafletting. I hope they enjoyed seeing our giant diamond corex posters!

Once the surgery was over, we headed to the warmth of Sunniside Social Club for toasties. Very enjoyable!

Some pics from Thursday's full council meeting

 

On Thursday 26th February 2026, Gateshead Council held their budget meeting to set the budget and council tax. As usual, I took my camera and got a few snaps of the Lib Dem opposition group in the opposition room and in the council chamber.

So Labour support Reform instead of the Lib Dems?

Gateshead Council's Labour Leader, Martin Gannon, constantly calls for Lib Dems to apologise or resign. Hardly a meeting goes by without his claims that Lib Dems are a "disgrace". Yet another incident took place at the Council Budget meeting on Thursday. The meeting also had an interesting exchange of words about whether or not the Lib Dems will take control of Gateshead Council in May. Cllr Gannon angrily shouted at the Lib Dems that we "will never run Gateshead Council."

This is an interesting claim from someone who is so closely part of the current Labour one-party state in Gateshead. But as we all know, a realistic outcome of the local elections is that Labour lose lots of seats and they have to kiss goodbye to control of the Council. Indeed, that is the most likely outcome. There is a possibility that Labour could end up in 3rd place in the number of seats they hold. The Lib Dems or Reform will hold the rest. In this scenario, neither of these parties have a majority. That means Labour will have to decide which party forms the administration as they will hold the balance. According to what Martin Gannon said on Thursday, there is no way that Labour will back the Lib Dems to form a minority administration. To keep to Gannon's claim, Labour would have to let Reform take over.

To use Gannon's favourite word, it would be a disgrace if Labour allowed Reform to take control when a Lib Dem alternative is available. Whether Gannon's colleagues on the Labour benches support their leader's anti Lib Dem posturing is not clear. Usually, Gannon is loudly applauded by his side in council meetings, no matter how good or bad his speech is. When he finished speaking on Thursday, only a handful of Labour councillors clapped their hands, and it lasted only a few seconds.

And the winner is.....tactical voting

I did not stay up for the result of the Gorton and Denton by-election on Thursday. Instead I woke up on Friday morning to learn of the Green Party's victory in the constituency. The good news is that Reform failed to take the constituency and this time it was not just a handful of votes in it. Labour's performance was an almost perfect match with local council by-elections. Labour are typically losing around half their vote share. This is exactly what happened in Gorton and Denton. If repeated in May's local, Welsh and Scottish elections, Labour will be hit by devastating losses.

The real winner of the by-election however was tactical voting. The Greens threw everything at the contest in its early stages and picked up momentum. Once it was clear in the public's mind that the Greens were the challengers to Reform, they could surf to victory on a wave of tactical votes and disappointment with the Labour government.

Absent from the Green campaign was anything about the environment and anything about their other policies. The downside of victory for the Greens however is that their policies are going to be put under the microscope. Election victories for them will therefore be much more challenging to achieve, given their hostility to NATO, their plans to abolish private rented housing and so on.

More Sunniside letters

It was a relatively early start with letter delivery this morning. 200 letters to deliver in to my constituents in Sunniside. It took me about an hour and a half. The letters were the same as those I delivered elsewhere in Sunniside yesterday. I would have liked to get more delivered today but I had Gateshead Council's budget setting meeting to attend instead.

At current rate of progress, delivery of the letters in Sunniside and the nearby villages should be largely completed tomorrow. Then comes delivery in Whickham...

Letters to Sunniside

 

Gateshead Lib Dems have been working on a major project to produce 25,000 letters - and then deliver them to residents. Today I delivered a few 100 in Sunniside. I'm pleased to report that they were positively received, at least by the handful of people who stopped to talk to me in the village. I will deliver more tomorrow morning and also take bundles of letters to people who deliver them on their home patch.

Alas, I can't deliver tomorrow afternoon. The Council is setting the budget and council tax for the year ahead.

Birtley delivery

 

Gateshead Lib Dems recently had an action day in Birtley but I was unable to attend. Instead, I agreed to take a couple of patches which I would deliver in my own time. The problem with that was that it took 2 weeks for me to take delivery of the Focuses. At the moment we have huge quantities of literature to produce and deliver so the handover of the Birtley patches to me kept getting delayed. On Saturday I received 2 bundles and maps. I delivered the first on Sunday and the second on Tuesday.

Birtley is currently the most marginal ward in Gateshead. In the last election, May 2024, we took the seat from Labour with a majority of 5. In May 2023, we won our first seat there from Labour. The majority was substantially higher than 5! I tend to be cautious nowadays when speculating on potential election results in wards in Gateshead but I will go as far as saying in Birtley that Labour appear to have given up. Labour needs to find 3 candidates to contest the ward. We are not aware of what the remaining Labour councillor in Birtley is planning to do. Will he retire at the election or contest it but with the ward now heavily weighted against Labour. Even if he does stand again, Labour need to find another two candidates but at the moment, it appears they have no one. No names are cropping up. No Labour activity has been detected. It is as if Labour have packed their bags and left.

I've never known Labour not to field a candidate in Gateshead for each vacancy. They've run the council for 52 years and have been the dominant party here since the 1930s. Could this be coming to an end?

Lobley Hill and Bensham action day

 

We had a good turnout on Saturday for our Lobley Hill and Bensham action day. 15 members turned out to help deliver the latest Focus. I was given 2 patches to do in Lobley Hill. I was raised there so for me it was a journey through my memories of the area.

Last week's byelections

There were three council byelections last week (I don't include town and parish councils). Things to note about these contests:

• Labour were defending all 3 seats. They lost all of them.
• The seats fell to Plaid Cymru, Greens and Lib Dems.
• Reform won nothing. I think this is the first time since the May 2025 elections in which Reform came away empty handed.
• In Caerphilly, PC's share of the vote was down a couple of percent but Labour's meltdown continues. PC's gain was due to collapsing Labour.
• In Leicester, the Greens were the victors though the majority was only 3%. Still, a win is a win. The Green's share of the vote at 30% is closer to the typical share of byelection winners generally - these days there are large numbers of political parties. The vote is fractured on both left and right.
• Meanwhile, the Lib Dems took half the votes cast in Redcar and Cleveland, a rise of 15%. 
• Reform had to chuck in the towel in Redcar and Cleveland after their candidate's vile social media attacks on the Jewish and Muslim communities were discovered. When they came to light, it was too late to withdraw the candidate.

For Labour the most worrying trend is the continued loss of vote share. Typically, they are losing half their share, often more. Though Labour's vote share fell in Leicester by a more modest 12%, in Caerphilly Labour fell from 55% to 27%. In Redcar and Cleveland, Labour dropped from 46% to 22%.

If this continues into the local elections in May, Labour's performance will be dismal. At the moment I cannot see any knights riding to Labour's rescue. However a lot can change in a few weeks in politics. Let's see what the Denton and Gorton Parliamentary by-election bring.

Tackling flooding in Sunniside

 

On Friday last week, I carried out a tour of Sunniside in my council ward to look at flood risk areas and solutions. I was accompanied by my ward colleague Marilynn Ord, and engineers from both Gateshead Council and Northumbrian Water. They are working on plans to tackle flooding. We are hoping that the plans will be completed and go out to public consultation in the coming months. I had originally expected the tour to take about half an hour. It took 2 hours but it was time well spent.

Group considers budget

Gateshead Council's budget will go before full council next week. On Monday the Lib Dem group had a meeting with the Chief Exec and Director of Finance to go through the proposals on which we will be voting a week tomorrow. After the officers left, the group had a discussion about our budget. The end result was an amendment which Cllr Ron Beadle, as Leader of the Opposition, will move. At this moment in time I am not at liberty to say what is in the amendment and what our view of the budget is. You will have to wait until next week for that.

Cancellation cancelled

I was chopping firewood yesterday when my phone pinged. I checked the message and initially came to the conclusion that someone had sent me a spoof. Apparently, the government have now carried out U-turn no 15: the cancelled elections were no longer cancelled. And Reform were £100K better off, paid for by the taxpayer. I thought someone had sent me by mistake a copy of a very bad script for a very bad political soap opera. But on checking out the story on Sky News, it turns out that the story was real.

Quite how a government led by an experienced lawyer can get a government legal case so badly wrong is beyond me. But somehow Labour under Starmer have achieved the near impossible: reversed a major policy at the last moment, heaped an almighty mess on local councils who now have to organise a major set of local elections with only 2 months to go before nominations open and, to add insult to injury, the taxpayers are paying Reform's legal bills. The one bright spark in all of this is that electoral offices are used to having short notice for organising elections. General elections often come as a surprise yet still they manage to run everything needed to elect the local MP.

Those I feel most sorry for are the campaigners of all political parties on the ground who had been under the impression that they were not going to the polls this May.  Elections are like icebergs. You can see the tip of them but most are out of view below the waterline. Candidates need to be identified, interviewed and selected, agents need to be trained and appointed, literature needs to be written to include material about the elections, data need to be up-to-date, manifestos need to be written and approved, key messages need to be agreed. Here in Gateshead we have been working towards the May local elections for two years and fortunately our council was not one of those due to have elections cancelled. I know that Lib Dem HQ have been pressing for months all the areas facing cancelled elections to continue as if the elections were going to take place anyway. Hopefully, local Lib Dem parties have heeded this advice but it would be so easy for some of the preparations to slip.

The decision to go ahead with the elections benefits Reform. Judging by how they fought elections last year, they are likely to have a centralised campaign with lots of nationally produced target literature mailed out via the postal service. Whatever they deliver locally is also likely to be national literature. They have little or no input from their candidates on the ground. The biggest losers are likely to be Labour, followed by the Conservatives. Some areas are vulnerable to the Lib Dems who are likely to pick up more seats. This however does not excuse the mess left by Labour. 15 u-turns and counting.

Bridges action day

 

Gateshead Lib Dems had yet another action day on Sunday. The aim was to deliver the latest Focus newsletters across a fair chunk of Bridges ward. This was achieved. I had only 2 conversations with residents while I was out delivering. The first was with someone who had voted Labour at the last general election, is not interested in Reform and was thinking of voting Lib Dem. Our task is to enthuse people like this to turn out for us. The 2nd person thought I was delivering takeaway leaflets and didn't want to take one. When I showed him I was delivering Focus leaflets, he still didn't want to take it because he never votes!

Meanwhile, we had an interesting discussion over lunch in Tesco cafe. Both Lib Dems and Labour will see some members retire in the local elections in May. However, the numbers of those retiring on the Labour side are significant. I have counted 15 so far - ie nearly a third of Labour councillors are retiring. This figure is just of those we are sure about. We think there are more in the pipeline. And as lunch breaks are good times to speculate further, we discussed what some Labour councillors may do in terms of moving from a ward under threat from the Lib Dems to one which could be a safer bet. Throw Reform into the situation and finding a safe Labour ward is quite a challenge!

Envelope stuffing

Gateshead Lib Dems recently held what could be called an envelope stuffing event. We had 25,000 letters to stuff into envelopes and then label them. We never expected to complete the task on the day so we arranged for our Gateshead West branch meeting last week in Winlaton to stuff another ward's envelopes. So Ryton had 3500 envelopes stuffed and labelled at the meeting. The task was not finished by 10pm so everything left to do was shipped down to another location where Team Ryton finished the job on Thursday. Delivery of the letters to people's homes in Ryton started on Saturday when we had an action day in the ward. There is still a fair quantity to get through doors but the good news is that we are a week ahead of schedule.

A village green for Sunniside

In our latest Focus newsletter we put forward a suggestion that we apply for village green status for the grassed area next to Sun Hill on Sunniside Front Street. The areas was home to the Sunniside Christmas tree in November and December. Go back further in time to the 1970s and there were plans for a library on the site. It never happened as austerity (under the Labour government) put an end to it. Plans for large scale house building also never happened as there would be insufficient residents to maintain a Library. The same problem ended plans for a school in the village as well. So the grassed area remained.

My hope is that if there is a successful bid for village green status, we can apply for funding to which we are currently blocked as the site is the responsibility of the Council. On Tuesday last week, I spoke at the Planting Up Sunniside meeting about the village green idea. This resulted in lots of questions about how it would be maintained and who would be responsible for it. At this point we don't have all the answers but we want to explore the options to see what benefits, if any, there are for residents of Sunniside.

And another Reform defection

Yesterday I wrote about two Reform defections in the North East. In Sunderland, the entire Reform group (consisting of one person) parted company from Reform. And Durham County Council saw a Reform Councillor go independent. Well, another day and another Reform defection. Councillor Nick Brown has cut his ties with Reform Ltd. and has gone independent.

Cllr Brown helpfully sent his views to the Reform Council Leader Andrew Husband in a letter which contained a few home truths about the operation of Reform in Durham. Apparently, the Reform Council leadership treat their councillors with "very serious disdain" and they "refuse to engage in any meaningful dialogue, instead choosing to insult and belittle them."

This two day saga of Reform defections is not the first time the Farage Ltd party has lost members. The tally for losses and resignations now stands at six in the nine months since Reform won control of the council last year. So approximately a tenth of the Reform Group has now been lost. Ferrets in a sack is a description that springs to mind.

Reform's plans to tax the childless

Reform's candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election, Matt Goodwin, has come up with a remarkable (and remarkably bad) policy to tax people if they have no children. So how could this work in practice?

• Would this be an income tax or some kind of poll tax?
• Perhaps it could be something like the BBC license fee?
• Who in a household would pay it?
• Would this tax apply to people who are infertile due to medical reasons?
• What happens if a household breaks up? If one of the parents takes the children as a result of divorce, does the other parent have to pay the childlessness tax.
• What about adoption - does this count as having babies?
• At what age does the tax kick in? Will it apply to teenagers age 16 plus (which includes people still in full time education)?
• Are gay and lesbian couples required to pay?
• At what age do you no longer have to pay the childlessness tax? Are you expected for example to pay up in your forties and fifties if you don't have children? Perhaps Reform will tax you for the rest of your life if you haven't had any children at any point during your life
• And what happens if there is a death of an only child? Does Reform really think it appropriate for the tax inspector to turn up to tax you more because your child has passed away?

This childlessness tax is utterly ludicrous and completely unworkable. It would impact badly on women who would be viewed as baby-producing machines under this ridiculous tax. Women's choices for their own lives would be massively reduced with many having to start child bearing instead of going to university or having a career. Lesbian and gay couples would also be unfairly taxed.

I think Mr Goodwin needs to go back to the drawing board and start again.

Another Labour meltdown

I'm not used to Tuesday elections but we've had a number of them in recent weeks. Anyway, there was a by-election in Wales yesterday, for Fishguard North East in Pembrokeshire. A high turnout of 49% (higher than many Parliamentary contests) delivered the ward to Plaid Cymru with 34%. Second were the Lib Dems on 18% and Reform were 3rd on 13%. None of these parties stood when the seat was last contested in 2022. Back then, only Labour and Conservatives stood. It had been a comfortable hold for Labour on 59%, with the Conservatives on 41%. This time their shares were 11% and 9% respectively. There were a couple of other minor candidates as well. 

This is another example of Labour's vote being in freefall. They crashed from 59% to 11%. I understand the previous Labour councillor whose departure caused the vacancy was hard working and a good ward representative who could pull in votes that Labour would not normally receive. Nevertheless, this does not explain why the meltdown was so complete.

Notice how there was no onward march for Reform. At 13% it is the lowest I have seen Reform since before the local elections in May 2025.

Labour's candidate in my ward announced

All 66 seats on Gateshead Council are up for election in May local elections, in place of the usual elections by thirds. Each of the 22 wards will therefore elect three councillors. The political parties will have to find three times the usual number of candidates. Even in normal years when only one councillor per ward  is elected, finding 22 candidates can be something of a challenge. So finding 66 is something of a highly challenging Olympic sport!

We know Labour are now having serious difficulties finding victims, sorry I meant volunteers, to be candidates. In my ward of Whickham South and Sunniside, we usually have the pleasure of a Labour candidate who is being tested out to see if he or she can make a bit of a splash, get noticed, deliver 4000 leaflets and then get selected for a better seat the following year! This year is different.

Alec Geddes is now Labour candidate in my ward. Alec is currently the Mayor's consort and Councillor for Ryton. He's a lovely bloke who always asks me about how my Mam is doing. (Mam used to be a councillor but retired in 2012, so they both know each other). Alec however has made it plain to everyone that he is retiring as a councillor at the May elections. He has many years to his credit and has earned his retirement. He made it clear some time ago that his time as councillor comes to an end on 7th May.

But Labour has a candidate crisis. To solve this, they are selecting people who want to leave the council, not continue as councillors. That says a great deal about the state of the Labour party.

Sunderland and Durham Reform Councillors quit

Sunderland's newest Councillor has today quit the Reform Party. Ian McKinley was only elected in November in a byelection that saw Labour lose Hetton to Reform. Cllr McKinley's time as a Reform Councillor was rather short. It seems he had differences with the various Reform branch chairmen. The resignation from Reform and his self-identification as an Independent means Reform no longer have any representation on Sunderland Council.

Meanwhile, the Northern Echo reports that another Reform Councillor in the North East has quit the party. Michael Ramage was first elected in May 2025. He did not attended any of the full council meetings in May, July, October and December last year. It seems Cllr Ramage was not interested in talking to the media. The Northern Echo went to the Council's website instead to find that Cllr Ramage is no longer a Reformer but sits as an Independent.

Training

 

This is the reason I wasn't at the Gateshead Lib Dem action day on Sunday. I was at a Lib Dem training session instead. It wasn't a long trip for me to get to the meeting. It was at Sunniside Social Club which is only a few minutes' walk from my house. A useful day for me to dust down some of my campaigning skills and learn new ones.

There were inevitable discussions about the political situation on our home patches. I was told about the Labour retreat in Newcastle where it appears Labour are seriously fighting only a handful of wards. "Seriously" could be described as an over exaggeration.  The situation in Gateshead is similar. There seems to be no central direction or organisation by Labour in Gateshead. Wards are left to get on with their own campaigning and in most wards Labour's campaigning is zilch.

Action days in Birtley South and Birtley North and Lamesley

Over the weekend, Gateshead Lib Dems held another two action days, this time in Birtley South and Birtley North and Lamesley wards. Sadly, I was unable to attend. Instead, on Saturday I was tied up printing 25,000 address labels for our next mailing to voters. On Sunday I was at a training event. The two Birtley wards are interesting as far as the May local elections are concerned. Birtley South is represented by two Lib Dem councillors - Paul Elliott and Joe Sowerby - and one Labour (Daniel Weatherley). Both of our seats are recent gains (2023 and 2024) from Labour. Joe's majority was an eye wateringly tight five votes.

Meanwhile, Birtley North and Lamesley has been Labour held for decades. Normally Labour are returned with a comfortable majority but there is a significant non-Labour vote which can line up behind a party that is doing well nationally. In recent years, the Conservatives got a good showing in the ward when Boris Johnson was popular. Before that, UKIP once received a good number of votes (but still lost) and even further back in time the independent "Liberals" were within 150 votes of winning. The ward has not been intensively campaigned until now. The Lib Dems are campaigning hard in the ward.

We are not yet aware of the intentions of Daniel Weatherley in Birtley South. Even if he does decide to stand again, Labour are faced with finding two other candidates as well. We are not hearing of anything happening on the ground with regards to Labour candidates in the ward. Over the border in Birtley North, Labour have suffered a defection by Jane McCoid to the Independents. At this point, we have no information on her intentions. One Labour councillor (Sheila Gallagher) is retiring. Labour however have found two new candidates and therefore will present a full slate in the ward to voters in the May local elections. It seems Labour's Birtley North branch went for an early selection in the ward as their candidates were chosen last autumn. In the shrinking pool of what's left of Labour members willing to stand for the Council, Birtley North Labour snaffled up the available candidates early, unlike their counterparts south of the border.

For all parties, the clock is ticking on candidate selection. 66 candidates are needed for a full slate. Lib Dems are over 60 as I write. The final selections will take place soon. We hear that Labour may not field candidates for every seat. I will believe that when it happens. My 40 year experience of Labour on Gateshead Council is that they have always stood in every seat. I can't believe they won't apply the drag nets to haul in a few "volunteers"....but there is always a first for everything.

Great talk at the history society

We had our monthly meeting of Sunniside History Society on Wednesday. The speaker was Liz Purcell who gave a talk about horses in warfare. It was a fascinating presentation. Numbers attending were up as well. The next meeting is on Wednesday 4th March when we will be looking at some of the slides and photos which the society received from Francis Newman, one of the founders of the organisation. Francis passed away a few years ago but he gave us his entire photo collection. For historians, it is a treasure trove.

Gateshead executive meeting

 

On Tuesday, Gateshead Lib Dem executive met in the Civic Centre. Final changes and additions to the manifesto for the local elections in May were considered and agreed. We also discussed the local election campaign (which is already well underway) and the timetable for action days during February. Lots to do!

The Sunniside Heron

 

Last week when I was delivering Focus in Sunniside I spotted a Heron in the pond next to Kingsway, opposite Riding Barns Way. Herons are not a common sight in the village and it's been a few years since I last saw one. Nevertheless, there are enough of them to cause people to net their garden ponds in Sunniside. I doubt however that the Heron I saw was going to have a successful day catching goldfish. This pond drains the neighbouring field and normally dries up in the summer. Nevertheless, seeing the heron in Sunniside was a pleasure.

Sunniside delivered

Hooray! Delivery of the Sunniside Focus was completed this morning. I had a bundle of 220 to do. All I have left to deliver now is Ravensworth Estate. Geographically it is the biggest patch in the ward as it is entirely rural. In terms of quantity it is the smallest. There are only 13 letterboxes on the estate.

Meanwhile, I finished writing another two Focuses today. Watch out for their being delivered soon in Birtley South and Birtley North and Lamesley wards.

Happy birthday Ron

 

Gateshead Lib Dem Leader, Councillor Ron Beadle, has turned 60. To celebrate, he had a birthday party at the Valley Farm restaurant on the Team Valley. A ridiculously large meal followed by birthday cake. Lots of people there. It was good to see Frank Hindle. He had been the leader of the Lib Dem group before me, a role from which he stepped down in 2015.  Yes, eleven years ago! How time flies.

And another!

Yesterday was Saturday. And that means it was another action day. This time it was in Saltwell. I was paired up with a member from Chowdene and the two of us together delivered 400 Focuses. She then went back to HQ to get another patch to deliver. Alas, I headed home. I had two more Focuses to write.