A night off from campaigning

Last night, instead of delivering Focus newsletters, Gateshead Lib Dems met up in the Tynesider bar/restaurant to eat, drink and be merry. Good to see some of our new candidates there as well. A great night had by all.

Another goat at the Whinnies Wanderers

 

Another week and another visit to the Whinnies Wanderers Parent and Toddler group in Sunniside where I take along a goat to be petted by the children. Yesterday it was the turn of Dandelion to make an appearance. I will be back again next Wednesday.

A surprise appearance by the Chancellor

 

I was rather surprised by a photo that popped up on my Facebook feed recently. The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves was pictured with the North East Mayor Kim McGuinness and Newcastle MP Catherine McKinnell walking along a street in South Jesmond where a council by-election to Newcastle Council is currently being held.

The surprise is not that the Mayor and the MP are out campaigning in Newcastle. They are after all local elected representatives. The surprise is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been shipped in to give a helping hand to a Labour candidate in a council by-election. So Labour now need cabinet members to shore up their local vote!

Labour are in an appalling mess in Newcastle. They have inflicted splits, walkouts and implosions on their own group. As a result they have now lost overall control of the Council and operate as a minority administration.

Whether or not the appearance of Rachel Reeves on the streets of South Jesmond will assist Labour's by-election campaign is the big unknown. There was a poll out today from Sky News that showed she has the lowest approval rating of any leading Labour member. We wait to see if bringing in the most unpopular Labour cabinet member to help shore up a Labour campaign to a council where Labour have self-detonated is a winning strategy.

We will know on 14th August.

Another weekend, another action day

 

Yesterday it was the turn of Pelaw, Heworth and Bill Quay to host a Lib Dem action day in Gateshead. 16 members turned up including some who have recently been approved as candidates and will be standing for the first time in the local elections next year. The aim of the day was to deliver the latest Focus. Most were done by lunchtime. Thanks to chairman Matt for providing lunch.

Ewe, you and your - the chaotic launch of the Corbyn Party

 

The Corbyn Party was launched last week. I say "Corbyn Party" because no one has actually given the new "party" a name. "It's Your Party" Corbyn told the media as he relived the old days of being a party leader. It could so easily accidentally be called the "You Party" or the "Ewe Party", hence the inclusion above of a photo of my sheep waiting to be sheared in May.

The absence of a name and the lack of any binding principles simply added to the impression that the "launch" was chaotic and thrown together at the last minute. Corbyn's claim of hundreds of thousands joining the Ewe Party turns out to be people applying via the Ewe Party website to received their newsletter. 

Think back to 2015-19 when many Labour MPs spent their time trying to kick Corbyn out of the Labour leadership. Labour had a surge in membership. Don't get me wrong: members, supporters and volunteers are essential to the future of any political party. However I had too many conversation with Labour members in Gateshead to be convinced that this surge of new members, brought in by Corbyn, were largely of no use to Labour whatsoever. 

The vast majority of this army of Corbynites were nothing more than leftwing moaners whose time was spent attacking Blair (who had given up the leadership a decade earlier) and Labour, not the Tories. This army of armchair class warriors weren't out delivering Labour leaflets or knocking on doors. They were at home on their ipads and laptops blaming everything wrong on Blair.

So the Ewe Party would be an ideal home for such people. They can follow the Corbyn Cult without any fear they will be thrown out of their party. And, of course, they can help Reform to win seats at the general election due in 2029 under this ludicrous first-past-the-post vosting system.

Where do Labour councillors stand on Corbyn's new party?

 

So, Jeremy Corbyn has announced, sort of, that he may be launching a new leftwing party. As a spectator of the Labour Party, I watched Labour in 2017 sing "Oh Jeremy Corbyn" and get carried away by the Leader's presence at Glastonbury. Oh what a wonderful time Labour members were having as they deluded themselves that Corbyn would lead them to victory and a socialist utopia, unencumbered by reality, would be created. And then in 2019, Labour imploded. The rest, as they say, is history.

This has set me thinking about where Labour members in Gateshead stand about the current state of Labour and the possibility of a new leftwing party appearing on the political landscape. Maybe some Labour members will conclude that a beneficiary of a Corbyn party would be Reform. Best not to give it any support as, by supporting Corbyn, they could be helping Farage to win seats. Others may want to relive 2017, confident that they could ride a tidal wave of socialism into power. They would have a warm feeling of socialist purity in their stomachs, a happy time to be had, whatever the consequences politically, just as was the case a few years ago.

I dispute the suggestion that a Corbyn party would only benefit Reform. In Gateshead the battle for the council is between Lib Dems and Labour and both sides tend, though not exclusively, to represent safe seats. Not many change hands. If Labour's vote were split, the hurdle to winning Labour-held seats would be lowered. The main beneficiary of that in Gateshead would be the Lib Dems.

But, would any Labour councillor be tempted to throw in their lot with the Corbyn Party? That's the big unknown. Nevertheless, in the video above, filmed in 2018 at a Gateshead cabinet meeting, you can hear the then deputy leader of the council, Cllr Catherine Donovan, ranting away about the wonders of Corbyn. There was an exchange with me in which I point out how deluded the Corbynites were. Events proved me right and Catherine wrong.

The question now is, are any of the Labour councillors in Gateshead ready to jump ship and rejoin Corbyn? Pragmatism or principles? I suspect pragmatism will prevail but I also expect quite a few Labour retirements next year.

Taking the kids to the toddler group

 

I was invited to bring along our most recent goat kids to the Whinnies Wanderers, the parent and toddler group based in the Whinnies Community Garden in Sunniside, in my council ward. They went down a treat. I've been invited to come back next week. By then we may have more goat kids. Florence, our boss nanny, is very pregnant and I expect her to give birth on Friday.

New attraction at Beamish Museum

 

On Friday last week, we took a day off to go to Beamish Museum, only a ten minute drive from our house. A new attraction was opened last year though only on weekends - the 1950s hill farm. Now it is open all year round so it was our first opportunity to see it.

Sent to Bridges

 

On Saturday I underestimated the number of people expected to turn up for the Gateshead Lib Dem action day in Ryton. I only printed 500 survey forms but fortunately, on the same print run on Friday, I also printed 1000 Focuses for Bridges ward, all about the flyover which is due to be demolished later this year. So, Councillors Ian Patterson (pictured above) and Ron Beadle, having turned up to deliver Ryton, instead took the Bridges Focuses and headed back to central Gateshead to start delivering a day early. There are lots more Focuses in the pipeline waiting to be printed and delivered.

Ryton action day

 

On Saturday 12th July, Gateshead Lib Dems held another action day, this time in Ryton. There was a positive response on the doorsteps. And it was also an opportunity to get a few more photos around the ward for Focus newsletters.

At midday we piled into Fed and Watered for lunch. Excellent food.

Friends of Sunniside meeting

 

On Thursday Friends of Sunnisde held their regular meeting. As the ward councillors, Jonathan Mohammed, Marilynn Ord and, I attend to give advice and support. This time we took along with us our neighbourhood officer Sam Laing from the Civic Centre so he could give further advice to the group. 

We are running a fair for local voluntary organisations on 6th September at Sunniside Club and I'm currently contacting groups to see if they will attend. I'm pleased that Friends of Sunniside will be there.