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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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?
So here it is! Rule Britannia as sung by Lib Dems at the rally on Saturday 20th September at Bournemouth conference.
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.
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.
The Focus itself is going out across 3 wards: Bridges, Saltwell and Lobley Hill and Bensham.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.