Labour hits panic button in Sunderland by-election

Yesterday I wrote about the possibility that Labour's dominance of Sunderland politics could be cracking. Their performance in the Sandhill by-election was somewhat lacklustre and I was hoping that the Lib Dem performance would show an improvement on the distant 4th place we got in the ward last year. I wasn't quite expecting any political earthquakes, but a few political earth tremors was a reasonable expectation.

I did say to other Lib Dem campaigners in the ward yesterday when I was helping to deliver election letters that what we needed was for Labour to slag us off in their last minute leaflet. That would give the voters the impression that the by-election was a battle between Labour and the Lib Dems with other parties simply playing the role of spectators. Always useful for squeezing the other parties and picking up soft Labour supporters.

Labour have very kindly done what I hoped and, indeed, have gone one step further.  They have hit the panic button by producing a fake Focus full of all sorts of attacks on the Lib Dems, done in such a way that it is so utterly obvious that it is produced by Labour and not by us. It means they have laid their cards on the table regarding who they believe are the challengers (in a ward which last year saw Labour on 1200 votes and the Lib Dems on 90).

Labour need something positive to appeal to their own voters. Their previous election leaflets lack that in this by-election. They simply attack opposition candidates generally for not supporting their cuts. That doesn't strike me as the way to win, and it rather contradicts the contents of the fake Focus. So, Labour's manpower in the ward today has not been used to tell voters why they should vote Labour, it's been used to tell voters that the Lib Dems are a credible threat to them.

And that's going to make this an interesting battle tomorrow. I'll be there is give our candidate Stephen O'Brien a helping hand.

Wind power beats coal for electricity generation

There is some interesting material on the Carbon Brief website about electricity generation in the UK in 2016. During that year, wind generated 11.5% of the country's electricity and for the first time ever, it beat coal which produced 9%. Solar also generated more power than coal from April to September.

This is good news for the renewable energy sector and I am especially pleased that this milestone has been passed at a time when Donald Trump is getting ready to trash international agreements on climate change and emissions. I wonder what coal-loving Labour MPs make of Trumps call to burn more (American) coal. Perhaps they could enlighten us.

Is Labour's hold cracking in Sunderland?

I spent today in Sunderland helping Stephen O'Brien, the Lib Dem candidate in the Sandhill by-election.  We delivered letters to target voters (and had a pub lunch at the Hastings Hill).

The ward has returned Labour councillors for decades. We were 4th here in May 2016 when it was last contested. The result was:

Lab 1,229

UKIP 579

Con 277

Lib Dem 90

Green 59 

So at first sight, it looks like Mission Impossible for the Lib Dems. But I would hazard a guess that we will make some progress when the result is declared on Thursday. I suspect cracks are showing in Labour's hold on the area. Given the poor state of the roads, including the San Andreas style crack along one road in the ward that I snapped while delivering letters, it wouldn't surprise me if people were a bit fed up with the poor rate of return from Labour run Sunderland. Whether there is enough discontent to cause a political earthquake is yet to be seen.

We bumped into a group of ukippers outside the Hastings Hill. They said their postal vote was "so so" and hoped "not to be wiped out". It was hardly the talk of a party confident of success. Remember - this is Sunderland, the Capital of Brexit.

There may not be a political earthquake on Thursday in Sunderland, but expect a few more tremors and a few more cracks in Labour's dominance.

A positive front page about Lib Dems in a Labour supporting paper

This was a bit of a surprise - the Journal, Tyneside and Northumberland's morning newspaper, carried a positive front page lead story about the Lib Dems and the A&E crisis at Cramlington Hospital. The Journal, owned by Trinity Mirror, is usually a slavish supporter of Labour. Is their commitment to them beginning to crack? The Journal backed the Remain campaign and with Corbyn today trying to turn the Labour Party into UKIP Lite, are we going to see a less Labour-supporting tone from this newspaper? Let's hope so.

Dunston Hill housing consultation

House-builder Persimmon held a consultation this evening in Lobley Hill Community Centre about their plans for 550 executive houses on land to the south of Whickham Highway. I attended the event with Lib Dem campaigner Kevin McClurey and Cllr Peter Maughan. We fought the battle to keep the area in the greenbelt but Labour used their majority on Gateshead Council in 2015 to push through the change. With the protection against development stripped away, it was only a matter of time before the application for housing was submitted. The planning application is expected by the end of January. The consultation today was part of the build up to the application's submission.

The Charles Church division of Persimmon deals with the expensive end of the house-building market and they are handling this application. Labour's plan for this site was for expensive executive housing and it is noticeable that there was no mention of affordable homes here at the consultation. We hear much from Labour about the need for affordable housing. But that's not what we are going to get here.

Winning at the History Society

My first meeting of 2017 was on Tuesday evening. Sunniside History Society is held on the first Tuesday of the month. We had a speaker from Durham Cathedral to talk about the Open Treasure exhibition. It looks interesting and as I have a trip to Durham to do later this month, I will pop in and have a look.

Meanwhile, rather embarrassingly my ticket was the first to be drawn in the raffle. I won a bottle of beer. As the prize winner, I had to draw the next ticket, which, even more embarrassingly, was also mine! I suggested another ticket be drawn instead. But if winning first prize is a sign of the year ahead, it could be an interesting 2017.

Sunset over Sunniside

I snapped this a couple of nights ago. My village of Sunniside is well named! A brilliant red sunset as I was returning home from feeding my goats. Whether the sun is setting on the red socialists of the Labour party in 2017 is still to be seen, though the initial evidence would suggest it is.

Loathsome Leadsom and the crop failure of Brexit extremists

Environment Secretary Angela Loathsome Leadsom is great at planting crops of grass-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence. In this instance, her claims are that the farming industry is set to flourish in the sunny uplands once Brexit has taken place. Those of us with even a limited understanding of agriculture know that the uplands are tough and challenging places for crop production and what can be produced there is limited.

I spotted the claims made by Angela Leadsom in the Journal this morning. What caught my eye was the claim that cutting EU regulations will "free our farmers". What she failed to say was that many regulations come not from Europe but from Whitehall. I keep goats and have lots of DEFRA regulations to follow. The author of some of these regulations is London, some of them are from Brussels. They exist for good reason. Animal welfare, disease control and environmental protection regulations come at a cost but are necessary. Leadsom's suggestion that there could be a bonfire of regulations, "freeing farmers to produce food" may sound great but without an explanation of which regulations are to be incinerated, farmers are in the dark as to just how realistic her rather vague vision is. Given that many DEFRA regulations are additions to European regulations, if the latter are scrapped, we would lose the former as well.

The Single Market is where 75% of UK agriculture exports are sold. Brexit extremists dismiss this with a shrug of the shoulders and make a simplistic suggestion that we can "sell to China instead" (we already can do that). Removing ourselves from our biggest market could seriously undermine the health of the agricultural sector. And far from "taking control" of our country as the Brexit extremist claim, our food security could be put into the hands of nations such as China and India. Fruit growing areas could relocate to Europe if businesses aren't able to recruit European fruit pickers. The Brits simply don't want to do that job and despite efforts to recruit in the UK, fruit growing businesses have been forced to recruit in eastern Europe or face leaving the fruit to rot on the bushes and trees. Many extremist Brexiteers want us to import large quantities of cheap food from Asia where there are cheap labour and poorer environmental standards. That's not "taking back control" - instead it's handing over control to the Chinese Communist Party and to Putin's Russia while damaging the environment at the same time.

This Brexit extremists' vision of Britain dependent on cheap food imports from the other side of the planet could result in the bankruptcy of significant parts of the UK agricultural industry. Farms will lose the £3 billion of European subsidies (much of which pays for environmental protection schemes) and be unable to compete against the flood of cheap imports. Animal welfare standards (the UK arguably has some of the strongest in the world) would have to be significantly lowered to allow the industry to survive against foreign suppliers where such regulations barely exist.

According to Leadsom, farms will flourish once they no longer have to abide by the regulation that they must display signs that they are getting funding from Europe. This rather sums up Brexit: a small gain (in this instance no longer having to display a sign about European funding) which comes with a tremendous cost (losing the £3 billion European funding)! What a mad state of affairs.

Asking for a devolution update

Full Council in Gateshead last week: I asked Martin Gannon, leader of the Council, for an update on devolution to the North East. Our region entered negotiations through the all-Labour North East Combined Authority with the Government for a devolution package. Labour mishandled the whole issue and frankly they have been a shambles. The plans collapsed and Labour in the region are split over the issue with the three authorities north of the Tyne threatening to go their own way. In Gateshead, I moved a Lib Dem motion in September calling for a constitutional convention to be set up to take forward proposals that would be acceptable to the region and the Government. The Labour group accepted the proposals. Martin has raised the convention proposal with other Labour council leaders in the NECA area but we are awaiting news on responses. Hence my question at Council on 15th December.

There wasn't much light thrown on the issue but Martin did reveal that the business community is pressing for a meeting to move ahead with devolution.

This issue is now quite pressing as many other regions are going ahead with devolution. Thanks to the shambolic North East Labour Party, our region has been left, not in the slow lane, but the no lane.

Gateshead Lib Dem pint (and buffet)

Gateshead Lib Dems had another Lib Dem pint event last night. This one was held in the Old Fox pub in Felling and also had a buffet. A good time had by all. I rather liked the pub - it had a real fire, not one of those fake gas things.

Printing Birtley Focus

I had a trip to the Lib Dem office in Consett on Tuesday to print the back of our next Birtley Focus. This morning I returned to print the front and fold it, just in time to get home and get changed to go to the full Council meeting at Gateshead Civic Centre.

The Focus leads on proposals to improve the A1 between the Coalhouse junction and Birtley. Also included is a bit about the council budget and my selection as candidate for Blaydon. The constituency currently includes Birtley though that looks set to change if the proposed boundary changes go ahead.

Paul Elliott, who is leading the Lib Dem team in Birtley, collected the Focuses from me this evening. Circulation will be underway shortly.

Challenging Gateshead Council on equality

This morning at Gateshead Council Cabinet I raised concerns about the equality implications on changes to terms and conditions for essential car user allowance. The report to cabinet showed that 75% of the staff affected are women but the equalities impact assessment said no groups would be impacted. In this video. I raise my concerns. I've also included the responses of the officer and leader of the council, Martin Gannon.

Gateshead Lib Dem Christmas Dinner

On Saturday, Gateshead Lib Dems held their Christmas dinner at the Stone Trough in Low Fell. A good time had by all. Sadly for Cllr Peter Maughan, he was unable to attend so I was forced to have 2 dinners! Waste not, want not.

Sunniside History Society's Christmas buffet

Last Tuesday, Sunniside History Society held its Christmas buffet. I have attended most of the society's meetings this year and was closely involved with the Fugar/Washingwell Hidden History project. So there was plenty to celebrate last week. Alas, though I won one of the raffle prizes, it was a box of Liquorice Allsorts, which I hate! I gave them to David.

Dunston lights switch on

On Wednesday, another local Christmas lights switch-on took place, this time in Dunston. I was there to snap a few photos (with Councillors Peter Maughan and Sonya Hawkins). Well done to all involved.

Swalwell lights switch on

New, improved, modern Santa visited Swalwell on Tuesday by trailer towed by a Volvo rather than in that old-fashioned sleigh. Congratulations to everyone who helped arrange the Christmas lights switch-on or helped at the event. This is the video I made. And below, a few photos.

Local economies and local currencies: self-sufficiency in Gateshead

I'm just back from a meeting of Gateshead Council's advisory committee looking at commissioning and procurement. The video is of my contribution in which I talked about how a local currency could keep more wealth in Gateshead and avoid it seeping out to centres of power and finance. I used my knowledge of history and my experience of self-sufficiency to illustrate how a local currency could work. I suspect the Council may return to this issue at some point.

Jack Charlton in Sunniside

On Saturday, my home village of Sunniside had a famous visitor. Jack Charlton of England's 1966 World Cup winning team, was a guest at the Christmas market at the Simply Local shop. Great to meet an English footballer who was a member of a team that actually won something, and did so without the fat cat football salaries of the 21st century.



Also at the fair was Alistair Lawrence who runs the Firebrick Brewery in Blaydon. Alistair and I went to Whickham School together over 30 years ago.



Meanwhile, Andy Singh, who runs Simply Local, was keen to have a visit from one of my goats. So we took round Spotless, our billy, who feasted on carrots kindly provided by Andy's mum!

There's still a long way to go

I didn't expect to stay up into the early hours of Friday morning to watch the Richmond by-election result live. I decided to watch a bit of the coverage at midnight to get an indication of how things were going and then go to bed. But then I saw Sky News interview Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael who wasn't giving too much away verbally but whose smile suggested we were doing well. I decided to stay up until 1am. By then, the indications were that we could win. I decided therefore to stay up for the final result. The rest, as they say, is history.

It was a fantastic result and it has been a great boost to the party in terms of profile and morale. We also won on a clear platform of being pro-Europe. In that sense, we have a result that is arguably different to previous Lib Dem by-election gains (it's a decade since we have had one). The key formula then was to hoover up protest votes in by-elections. (And before my legions of local Labour readers start sneering about that, let me just remind them that their own party employs exactly the same technique.) This time we are fighting on a clear, positive policy position. It may not be the policy supported by the majority of people and our message to hardline Brexiteers will be rejected by them, but the 48% who voted to remain now have a voice that will put the case for soft Brexit and continued cooperation with Europe.

One of the interesting suggestions from the Richmond result is that the Conservative Remain vote had collapsed. Without a strong Lib Dem presence on the political landscape, that vote has no home. Our job now is to rebuild that presence and win over the Soft Brexit voters from the Conservatives and Labour (who now seem to be totally at a loss on the Brexit issue). It is still a long road ahead of us, but the Richmond result has put a spring in our steps.

On Friday morning I went down to Whickham for a slap up celebratory breakfast at Wetherspoons. Walking along Whickham Front Street, I was stopped by 4 different people who wanted to chat to me. I got questioned about my Dad's recent operation, comments were made about my elder brother moving back to Whickham, I discovered a tv presenter friend had split up with his long time partner and, inevitably, I was quizzed about how the world of self-sufficiency is going. Alas, no one mentioned Richmond. As I said earlier, there is still a long road ahead of us.

(Photo: large, traditional breakfast from the Harry Clasper in Whickham.)

Whickham Christmas lights switch-on

The Christmas lights were switched on in Whickham by the Metro Gnomes. The event was organised by Lighting Up Whickham. Hundreds turned up for the event.

Museums at Cabinet

The title is not a reference to Labour! While Labour may be doing everything under Comrade Corbyn to consign themselves to being an exhibit in the Museum of the Self-Destructed and Deluded, this post is actually about the museums service in Tyne and Wear. I am one of Gateshead's three representatives on the joint committee that runs Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums. The committee is now to be abolished and the functions will be transferred to a board which will have no opposition members on it. Instead, there will be one representative from each council who will be the relevant cabinet portfolio holder. I've raised my concerns about this at a previous TWAM meeting but yesterday, at Cabinet, the report on the change over was considered.

I actually have no objections to the change to an executive board. TWAM need to increase their income from non-council sources and rely less on contributions from local councils. The new board will help to achieve that. The problem comes with the elimination of non-Labour voices. There are many of us who are not in the Labour party who can and do make a contribution to the running of the service. For example, I have advised officers on how to produce video material and gain an income from it (I am a YouTube partner and earn a modest income from advertising revenue). I warned at cabinet yesterday that the new arrangements will mean a reduced gene pool of  experience and expertise that could be brought to TWAM by restricting the political input to Labour only. I also said there needs to be a role for scrutiny that seems to be missing from the proposals. I suggested the council's corporate resources scrutiny committee takes on that function. I also suggested that the reports on the various establishments managed by TWAM which currently are reported to the joint committee are sent to all councillors.

To be fair to Gateshead Labour leader Martin Gannon, he was open to the proposals I had put forward and said that there would be a review in a year that could consider the issue of opposition representation. Sadly however I will have to cut my ties with TWAM in May next year when the joint committee is abolished.

Swalwell Quiz NIght

I went to the pub quiz at the Poacher's Pocket in Swalwell on Monday night. The event was to raise funds for the memorial bench in Swalwell Park to Kaitlin Tremlett and Jennifer Fradgley who died in a road accident in August. Our team was called Pinkies, after one of my goats, and by the last round we were in 1st place....until the marks for the picture round came in. Alas, we finished 3rd though we did win various bonus prizes. David won the Christmas round.



This was the picture round that sank us.

Lifting the lid on Sunderland

Gateshead East branch had their AGM and annual lunch on Saturday. I'm not a member of the branch but I went along as Lib Dem leader of the opposition in Gateshead to give a report. The guest speaker was Niall Hodson who was elected as our first councillor in Sunderland since 2012. Niall had a barnstorming campaign in the run up to May and I visited the ward he won, Millfield, to help push him past the winning post. He won with over 60% of the vote.

Labour were not pleased and it seems, from Niall's speech, that the worst one-party state, authoritarian, bullying, silence-the-opposition traits have been to the fore in the Labour party since Niall's victory. Anyone who considers Labour a "progressive" party should pause for thought and take a look at Labour in Sunderland. They have a huge majority on the council and that control is not currently under threat though individual Labour held seats are. This is a council that needs a strong opposition. That doesn't come from the Conservatives in Sunderland but it is a good possibility that the role of opposition can be claimed by the Lib Dems in the borough over the next few years. It is clearly the case that Niall's team are not expecting to stop with just one seat in Millfield. They are clearly interested in expanding further.

Swalwell Christmas Fayre

Saturday morning was tightly packed with events for me to attend. After the red kite coffee morning in Whickham, I headed down to Swalwell Community Centre for the Christmas Fayre. Cake purchasing is a requirement, as is buying tombola tickets. This turned out to be a lucky purchase - I won 2 prizes - all chocolate!

Red kite coffee morning

A constituent called at my house last week to invite me to the red kite coffee morning on Saturday at Fellside Methodist Hall. The red kites were reintroduced into the Derwent Valley over a decade ago and have now become established in the area. I sometimes see them flying over Sunniside. So I decided to call in to the coffee morning. It was packed. And the quantity of cakes would easily put Greggs to shame.

This was a useful visit. I got a useful briefing on the population of red kites in the area. Alas, I couldn't stay long. I was due in Swalwell for the community centre's Christmas fayre.

Whickham lights switch-on

I am just about to head down to Whickham for the switching on of the Christmas tree lights at Church Green. The event has been organised by Lighting Up Whickham who raised the funds for the tree and lights. Joining us for the switch-on are the Metro Gnomes - see photo below (taken at the Swalwell Community Centre Christmas Fayre on Saturday).

Honorary aldermen

As leader of the opposition in Gateshead, it fell to me to second the appointment of six honorary aldermen last Friday. The 6 were Brian Coates, John Hamilton, Yvonne McNicol, Ian Mearns MP, Joe Mitchinson and Pat Ronan. I calculated that between them they had jointly served 114 years as councillors. The honorary role is for former members of the council who have served 2 full terms and have given outstanding service to the authority. So, congratulations to the 6 new aldermen, and thank you for the 114 years of service you gave Gateshead.

Having my cake

Sunniside Social Club held a Christmas Fayre yesterday. I decided to call in to have a look around but also to buy cakes. I found the cake stall, parted with my cash and ate the cakes when I got home (with help from David!)

Jam today (again)

On Saturday morning, Lighting Up Whickham held a coffee morning to raise money towards the village's Christmas tree. I was invited to have a table to sell my homemade jams. There was a reasonable flow of people into the library where we were holding the event. For me it was more like my councillor surgery as people spotted me and used the opportunity to raise local issues with me!

Hopefully, the coffee morning will become a regular event.

Whickham eFocus 103

The latest edition of our email newsletter for the Whickham area, eFocus, was finished this evening and I sent it out to the 1500 people on the circulation list. It leads with the video of Sunday's Remembrance Day parade. Also included is the proposal to sell part of Chase Park, the Council budget, Derwentside in Swalwell to be converted to flats, deep clean at local swimming pools and various local events.

You can read it on this link.

Rained on in Ryton

On Sunday afternoon, after attending the Remembrance Day Parade in Whickham, I headed down to Ryton to do a bit of campaigning. Alas, the rain came with me. I got rather wet on the new Riverside estate but at least I was able to have a look around one of the biggest recent new housing developments in Blaydon constituency.

Jam today

My self-sufficiency activities led to an interesting invitation last week: would I like to have a stall at Lib Dem regional conference on Saturday to sell my homemade jams? I took up the offer. A quite pleasing number of sales took place. Alas, the income was somewhat dwarfed by the vet bill I had on Friday when I had to call out a livestock vet for one of my goats, Pinkie. She had eaten something that disagreed with her. Fortunately she recovered quickly, unlike my bank balance!

Tim Farron's speech to North East Conference

Tim Farron MP was the guest speaker at the North East Lib Dem conference on Saturday in Gateshead. Most of the speech is covered in this video though annoyingly, the final few minutes were not captured as my camera decided the memory card was full (despite 800MB space left to use up).