Gateshead car park opens on " World car free day"

 

With a great fanfare (well a Facebook post actually) Gateshead Council have announced the opening of its brand new car park on the Gateshead Quays. At a cost of over £20 million, the multi-storey car park was meant mainly to serve the needs of people coming to the international convention centre. There's only one teeny weeny problem. After years of waiting, the convention centre is still just a cleared site with not a single brick laid. But at least the flashy new car park is now open, having spent a year closed to vehicles because of a dispute with the builder. 

Opening of the car park was impeccably timed. The day of the announcement of its opening was also "World car free day." Oooops.

Meanwhile, spare a thought for the pigeons which have now had to move out of the world's biggest pigeon cree.

RIP Menzies Campbell

 

I was saddened to learn of the passing of former Lib Dem Leader Menzies Campbell last week. He was a gentleman in politics. I first met him in 1991 when he came to Hexham (I was the Parliamentary Candidate) to support a Lib Dem social event. Around 1995 he visited Gateshead as part of our local election campaign and did the same again in 2006 (see photo above).

He became Leader in 2006 but for a variety of reasons, he wasn't cutting through to the electorate despite having dominated the airwaves during the Iraq war. He chose to step down rather than cling to power as so many politicians had done before him.

RIP Menzies Campbell

Full Council photos

 As usual, I had my camera at last week's full council meeting in Gateshead. Here is a selection of photos of the Lib Dem group.

It's still the Lib Dems' fault

Another council meeting in Gateshead (Thursday 25th September) and another opportunity for Labour to blame everything bad on the Lib Dems in Coalition. The Coalition was formed 15 years ago and came to an end 10 years ago. Now it seems, according to Labour claims, the wrongs of the world are still the fault of the Lib Dems, not the current Labour government. The more Labour use their "blame the Lib Dems" line of attack, the more and more absurd they look.

I am just a humble backbench councillor who used to be Leader of the Opposition (I retired as Leader nearly 3 years ago.) Nevertheless Cllr Catherine Donovan, former Labour Deputy Leader, attacks me in nearly every Council meeting, arguing that 15 years ago, I supported calls for us to "live within our means." She seems to think this is something terrible. Yet, she is part of the Council administration that "lives within its means", and is a Labour Councillor whose party is aiming to get the government's finances sorted out so that as a nation we are "living within our means". Behaving as if her needle is stuck, she keeps repeating the same line at meeting after meeting.

If as a nation we don't live within our means, we would end up in a state of bankruptcy. We came close in 2007-10. Before the credit crunch, Cllr Donovan was one of those shouting loudly that the boom was all down to Labour's "sound financial management of the economy." She is strangely quiet on this now.

Meanwhile, I can report that there was strong unity expressed across the Council chamber on a motion tackling racism head on, following the appearance of racist graffiti in Birtley. There were many speakers, all of whom spoke well. I spoke about how the people affected must have felt about being targeted and how violated they must have felt. I was able to illustrate this with my own experiences in the 1980s and 1990s when our home was vandalised by homophobic graffiti and we had to endure physical assaults. 

We can no longer be sure that our liberties can be protected. Given recent events, there is a danger progress could go into reverse.

Campaigning in Kibblesworth

 

Gateshead Lib Dems were out campaigning in Kibblesworth recently. We had 10 members knocking on doors and doing a survey. Alas, I wasn't able to get to the action day as I was writing other Focus newsletters.  My colleagues sent me photos instead!

Back to the Tynesider

 

Gateshead Lib Dems gathering at the Tynesider on Gateshead High Street is getting to be a regular event. Here are some pics I took last night of the most recent get-together.

Also at conference

 

I wasn't the only member from Gateshead to attend conference. Steve Kelly (Ryton) and Jamie Rickelton (Saltwell) also attended. Jamie attends as a steward (he is pictured above). Steve was attending for the first time. Alas, I didn't get round to getting a photo of him in Bournemouth.

Northumberland Reform Punch and Judy Show

There seems to be some significant entertainment value in the Reform group on Northumberland County Council. The party is the official opposition to the ruling Conservative group on the council and is led by Councillor Mark Peart. It appears however that Reform councillors are revolting. They recently passed a vote of no confidence in Cllr Peart. That however was not the career-stopping vote that would otherwise be the case as Cllr Peart remains in place as group leader.

Indeed, not only does Cllr Peart continue to cling to the leadership, he stripped the whip from four Reform councillors who opposed him, those aiming to stand in the hustings to replace Peart are not allowed to meet without permission, and two councillors have resigned the whip in protest. This is more like a Reform Punch and Judy Show than a properly functioning political group. Thank you Reform for entertaining us!

Not advancing far

Earlier this month I wrote a blog post about defections to Advance from Reform. The party set up by former Reform deputy leader Ben Habib is looking to be even more right wing than Reform. All was set for a big launch party in Newcastle on 27th September at a secret location. Alas for Advance, they are not advancing far, or indeed at all. Instead, their big launch has been cancelled for now. 

The Crowne Plaza Hotel, owned by Newcastle City Council (but operated by a third party) has pulled the plug on the event happening in their building on the grounds of health and safety. It has not been explained what the health and safety concerns are though with protesters expected, perhaps the fear of confrontation is enough to deny Advance the keys to the hotel.

One point that strikes me however is that if Advance do ever have their launch party, they could go on to split the right wing vote. Interesting times ahead.

A rerun of an old story

There is speculation that Keir Starmer is to be challenged for the Leadership of the Labour Party. This is something of a familiar story. In 2008 there was talk of Gordon Brown being challenged by Peter Mandelson. Yes you read that right! Quite how this would happen is difficult to explain as Mandelson was no longer eligible to stand for the leadership. Not only was he no longer an MP, he was also a member of the House of Lords, therefore ruling him out completely. Still, this did not stop the speculation.

Then there was the call to challenge Richi Sunak in the twilight months of his government. And the person who was to challenge him? None other than Boris Johnson, the scandal laden former PM who had just resigned as an MP.

So, move on to September 2025 and there is speculation that Starmer is to be challenged. And the challenger is? - Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham who, as with the previous 2 possibilities, is not an MP. To challenge Starmer, Burnham would have to find a seat and, even more challenging, hold it in a by-election. While there was talk of Andrew Gwynne MP stepping down to create a vacancy, we now understand he does not want to give up his Westminster job. Sorry Andy, but you are going to have to stick with the Manchester job instead.

With no one from within the Commons rushing to put themselves forward (at least for now), Starmer is safe. Attention however may shift to the Conservatives. Remember them? They are led by Kemi Badenoch but is she going to be there for much longer. Or, looking at it from another direction, is there going to be a Conservative Party left to lead anyway?

Rule Britannia - the movie!

 

So here it is! Rule Britannia as sung by Lib Dems at the rally on Saturday 20th September at Bournemouth conference.

Bournemouth Conference - more training on beating Labour

Today, I was late for a training session on how to squeeze the vote of opponents. With Labour's vote disintegrating, a few interesting ward results were flung around the meeting. In one ward in Cornwall, the winning candidate got only 19% of the vote. In another ward in Hull, Labour's vote crashed from its normal region of 1000 to 200. Could the same happen in Gateshead? We shall see.

The lunchtime fringe was interesting. Reform have taken up an anti net zero position and are threatening to end energy production from non-fossil fuel sources should they get into Downing Street. The fringe I attended was about the fightback against the anti-environment policies of the Right. I suspect we will hear more about this fightback in the future.

After the fringe I headed for yet another training session, this time about target mail. I'm already working on plans for a batch of target mailings so this session was well timed.

Bournemouth conference - Rule Britannia!

 

As you can see, I am in Bournemouth for the Lib Dem conference. I arrived on Friday evening having endured a seven hour journey by train to London and then picked up the connection at Waterloo. For me, the most important point about conference is the chance to get to training meetings (there must be dozens of them) and indeed, my first event yesterday was to go to a training session (campaigning in Labour leaning areas). There was an inevitable fringe on electoral reform to visit and then the party rally in the evening. This had an unexpected turn. We ended up waving union jacks while Tim Farron gave a speech about patriotism. It went down well and as a person who is fed up with the far right hijacking our national flag, I for one was backing the fight back. 

I keep an eye open at conferences for anything agricultural so after the rally I headed to the National Millers' Association for a reception. Here's a useful question for a pub quiz - what percentage of the wheat we consume is grown in the UK? The answer is 85%. It's a big business operation and we are all in some way dependent on it for one of our staple foods. Not even I grow wheat!

Will the Corbyn Sultana party ever be launched?

Serious questions have to be asked about whether the Your/You/Ewe party will ever be launched. Recent events look more like a political boxing match rather than the launch of a political party. It is not uncommon for there to be divisions and civil wars at the top of political parties. The Your Party however hasn't even launched and yet the "leaders" (Sultana and Corbyn) are already slugging it out with the lawyers waiting on the sidelines.

If I were a betting man (I'm not) I'd put my money of Corbyn and Sultana each launching their own party in their own image. Thoughts of "splitters" spring to mind. 

Congrats Vicky and Christee

Delighted to see fellow Councillor Vicky Anderson marry her girlfriend Christee Ord last week. Congratulations and have amazing lives together. Also well done in achieving Gateshead Council's first all female same sex marriage. Photo above - me with Vicky at her reception in the Cafe Under the Spire in Bensham.

On the run

 

Congratulations to Saltwell Lib Dem campaigner Jamie Rickelton. He ran the Great North Run on Sunday to raise money for the Leisure Centre. He was cheered on by Lib Dem members who took up strategic points along the route from Newcastle to South Shields. Note Jamie's choice of jogging top, showing that our nation's flag belongs to all of us.

Missing from Bridges action day

 

This was the scene at the home of Jamie Rickelton on Saturday morning. Jamie is our candidate in Saltwell but he was running the action day in Bridges ward which aimed to deliver the latest Focus newsletter. Alas, I was unable to make it to Bridges as I was running the volunteers' fair at Sunniside. Sorry colleagues!

The Focus itself is going out across 3 wards: Bridges, Saltwell and Lobley Hill and Bensham.

Mayor opens Sunniside volunteers' fair

 

On Saturday, the Mayor of Gateshead, Cllr Freda Geddes, officially opened the volunteers' fair at Sunniside Social Club. The fair was held because local organisations were having difficulties recruiting new members and volunteers. So Councillors Jonathan Mohammed, Marilynn Ord and myself set up the fair to give local groups the opportunity to reach out to people. 13 groups had stands at the fair. Its success means we are likely to run another fair, this time in Whickham.

In the video about, Cllr Geddes officially opens the fair and visits the stands.

Jumping ship when the ship has already sunk

This has to be one of the weirdest Reform defections. Amelia Randall is, or rather was, a Reform councillor in Kent. Now she has defected to UKIP. Yes, you read that correctly! UKIP! We all thought UKIP had disappeared down a plug hole. Whether the defection was because Cllr Randall felt Reform was too rightwing or not rightwing enough is the big unknown. Jumping ship is normally something to be done when the ship onto which you are jumping is still afloat. In Cllr Randall's case, the ship was holed, broke up on the surface and sank, Titanic style.

Mayor opens sports bar

 

On Saturday 6th September, I arranged for the Mayor of Gateshead, Cllr Freda Geddes, to open the new sports bar at Sunniside Social Club. She then had a game of darts with Cllr Marilynn Ord. Luke Liddler's title is safe! See the video above.

Leaving your greens

The Greens had only one target seat in the local elections in Gateshead last year. While they closed the gap on Labour in Bridges ward, where Labour normally comfortably win on a low turnout, the Greens did not quite make it to victory in the ward. Labour won with a significantly reduced majority of 290. In September, along came a by-election in the ward. The Greens lost their coveted 2nd place in Bridges to the Lib Dems and we came within 65 votes of taking the seat from Labour.

Months later, we discovered the Green candidate had put her house on the market. And in the past few days, I got my hands on the latest Green Party leaflet in the ward which makes no mention of the Green candidate. It appears she has given up the pursuit of election victory. Nevertheless, I wish her all the best for the future.

An abandoned target seat is not something new for the Greens in Gateshead. Not long ago they had targeted Crawcrook and Greenside where they gradually eroded Labour's lead. And then the candidate gave up and the Greens' hopes of victory went up in smoke.

I doubt the Greens will be storming to victory in Gateshead in the local elections next year.

Defections from Reform

 In this era of political party start ups, party splits and splits splintering further, an interesting piece of information came my way. Two of Reform's constituency chairmen in Gateshead constituencies have defected to Advance, the party that split from Reform and was created in the image of its founder Ben Habib.

According to an Advance news release, Damien Heslop, who was Reform's candidate in Gateshead Central and Whickham, as well as chair of Reform's constituency branch, has defected to Advance. He was the only Reform candidate in the local elections last year in Gateshead.

And in neighbouring Jarrow and Gateshead East constituency, the chairman Paul Milburn has upped sticks and defected to Advance as well.

So it's bye-bye Reform and hello Advance for Mr Heslop and Mr Milburn. They are not alone. The news release also lists three other Reform constituency chairmen in the North East who have jumped ship: Stephen Holt (South Shields), Gordon Fletcher (Cramlington and Killingworth) and Sam Woods-Brass (Houghton and Sunderland South).

The official launch of the Advance party is on 27th September somewhere in Newcastle. Given the near complete disappearance of the old telephone boxes, it looks as though Advance will have to book a slightly bigger venue.

The "Your Party" in Newcastle

It seems the Party With No Name met in Newcastle over the weekend to listen to a speech by Not Party Leader Zarah Sultana. I am still confused as to what the Corbyn Party is to be called. Your, You or Ewe or a combination of these are the front runners to be the name of the "I can't believe it's not the Corbyn Labour Party." A photo from the conference, held at the Discovery Museum, showed a Gateshead Councillor in the front row.

The Councillor in question is Jane McCoid, elected as Labour councillor for Lamesley ward in Gateshead but who went independent in September last year. She is on the right of the picture, dressed in blue. The question is: will more Labour councillors follow the same route to the as yet unnamed party? My guess is that it is very unlikely any Gateshead Labour councillors will follow her. Whether Labour councillors' loyalty will save them or not next year in the local election is a different matter altogether.

Blaydon survey

 

On Sunday we had an action day in Blaydon - or rather a half action day as in the afternoon many of us were attending Pride Picnic in the park in Saltwell. Having agreed to deliver a particular patch, I arrived to discover most of the houses were on a hill and were detached with long drives. Trust me to get that one!

Whinnies summer fair

 

The Whinnies Community Garden in Sunniside held their summer fair today. Lots of people there. Sadly, I didn't win anything on the raffle. Here's my video anyway.

Not going up in flames

I booked my hotel for Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth a few days ago. And then came the news that there had been a fire at the Bournemouth International Conference Centre. Had I just been hit by bad timing? Was the conference about to be cancelled? Did I need to try to stop my hotel payment?

The early indications from the bods who run conference was that any questions about whether conference was going ahead could not be answered. And then along came the news today that the fire occurred outside the building, rather than inside where the massive cost of a cup of tea and a sandwich was normally enough to cause smoke to be given off by me anyway.

So thankfully, it looks like conference will go ahead. I have 6 weeks left to read the papers.

The buffet is on!

I was at Sunniside Social Club last night to chair a meeting of the Sunniside History Society executive. Most of the business was about the AGM (which will be held in September) and about next year's speakers. Reports were agreed though one more is still to be written. The financial report showed we almost broke even. Almost but not quite. We had a deficit of £3.50. Last year we had a surplus of £0.50. Fortunately we run a tight ship and we have over £3,000 in the bank! The news that a donation has been offered to cover the cost of the Christmas buffet was greeted with general acclaim!

So far for next year we have 5 of the 12 speakers' slots filled. I will be doing two and my chosen subjects are "Flood" (about major floods over the millennia and how they impacted human society) and "Could Hitler have won?" Quite eclectic!

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.