Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Vote for me, I'm on a committee: Labour's car crash campaign in Pelaw and Heworth (no.2)

PH Labour letter Apr 19

I wrote earlier this month about Labour's local election campaign in Pelaw and Heworth where the Mayor of Gateshead, Cllr Jill Green, is defending her seat against a strong Lib Dem challenge. In that post, I suggested Jill would be well advised for her sake to replace Cllr Leigh Kirton as her campaign manager/agent given the car crash nature of her re-election campaign. Thankfully, Jill did not follow my advice and Leigh continues in her prized role as inadvertent helper of the Lib Dem cause in Pelaw and Heworth.

Leigh was the recent author of a highly transphobic motion to Gateshead Council which led to the Labour group winning gold medal in the 2019 Quickest U-turn of the Year Competition. (Her motion was dumped by Labour after a media backlash.) Telltale signs of Leigh's material includes producing text heavy leaflets stuffed full with turgid, dull lists few people will read. You can see the most recent one above.

Whether or not people will be motivated to vote for Jill due to her being a "long-standing member of ANEC (Association of North East Councils)" is one of the great unanswerable issues of the campaign. I can't quite bring myself to imagine people sitting down to dinner and discussing the reasons for voting for Jill, and then reaching the conclusion that Jill is the one for them because of her membership of an organisation few are aware of!

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