A delivery without me

A delivery with which I couldn't help. We had a team out in Dunston Hill this afternoon, led by Kevin McClurey. They were delivering a letter about Labour's decision to raise council tax in Gateshead. I was at home, dealing with print deadlines. Kevin helpfully sent me this photo of himself near the bottom of Dunston Bank. No doubt I'll have him more leaflets to delivery shortly.

Stuffed on a Friday night

What would you normally be doing on a Friday night? Sitting at home relaxing? Out with friends? Alas for us, we had 2000 envelopes to stuff.  A group of us invaded the conservatory at Cllr John McClurey's house tonight to get the letters into envelopes. And we have another 1000 to do on Monday, when we have finished printing them.

The letters are from me and are for constituents in my own ward of Whickham South and Sunniside. We are writing to a variety of people about a variety of issues. We then have to deliver them. It's so much easier sending them by email. Alas, in my ward, we only have 900 email addresses. I could do with having a few thousand more.

The eclipse viewed from Sunniside

Here are a few photos I took of the eclipse this morning in Sunniside from my front garden and from Laburnum Grove.







The last photo didn't manage to catch the eclipse but it shows how the crows took to the air when the eclipse was happening.

A few recent photos from the campaign trail

Out and about in the constituency recently on the campaign trail. Above - over the A1 near the Coalhouse Roundabout to see the work on upgrading the A1. The Coalition are investing over £60 million in the improvement.



Outside the new Morrisons store in Blaydon. The council can claim some of the credit for the regeneration but at the end of the day, companies such as Morrisons will only invest in new stores if they are confident the economy is growing. And at the moment, the UK under the coalition has the fastest growing economy in the western world.



On the Team Valley - the Trading Estate is just outside of Blaydon constituency but is one of the great success stories, employing thousands of local people.



Outside my former school, Whickham. It was announced recently by Nick Clegg that the school is in the second wave of the school rebuilding programme.

Visiting Kibblesworth and Lamesley

Following on from my visit to Birtley last Friday, I returned again to the south of the constituency today. This time it was to visit Kibblesworth and Lamesley. The main reason for the trip was to get some photos for our forthcoming Birtley eFocus but also to chat to a few people as well.



While passing Lamesley Church, I called in to check on my grandfather and great grandfather's grave. They are both buried in the same plot, at the top northern corner. Having looked at press cuttings some years ago of my great grandfather Henry's funeral in 1901, I discovered that his was the first grave in what was then a new extension of the graveyard.



My grandfather John died in 1960 but at the time no inscription was made on the gravestone. Since then, the base of the gravestone had broken and the stone itself had fallen over. I had it turned over in 2002 so that the inscription face was showing and had added John's inscription.

My CV

Democracy Club has been in touch. I think it is run by the people who operate theyworkforyou.com. They have set up a site for candidate CVs so I've posted mine up. You can view it on this link. Sadly I am the only one of the 5 candidates in Blaydon so far to post up my CV. So come on Dave, Ali, Paul and Mark, get your stuff up there and let everyone in the constituency know what makes you tick.

Spot the animals at conference

There were various animals sighted at the Lib Dem Conference over the weekend. Here are some that I snapped on camera. Above - dog for the blind. Very cute.



Not very aerodynamic parrots - still alive and kicking.



Teddies - very cuddly.



Reptile - best avoided.



Goldfish at the Spice Island restaurant in Albert Dock. Not available with chips.

Tabloid out in Whickham South

Progress continues with the delivery of our tabloid. As of Saturday, when I had escaped to conference, most of the remaining patches in the Whickham part of my ward, had been delivered. A team came in to finish off those areas where we don't already have a regular deliverer. I understand one patch is left to do. This is a much cheaper way to deliver leaflets than that employed by Labour. They have privatised leaflet delivery by buying in the service.

A few photos from Liverpool Conference

The Liberal Democrats'spring conference was held over the weekend and for the first time in two years I was attending for the whole of it. I did have an editorial meeting of Parliamentary Campaigner to attend and photos to take for candidates to use in their literature but I wasn't running photo ops. That activity has now been passed on to others and instead, I was one of the people having my photo taken  as above with Vince Cable.

So here are a few of the photos I've taken.

Our volunteering Focus

One of the unique selling points of the Lib Dems in the Whickham area is our involvement with voluntary organisations, some of which have been set up by local Lib Dem councillors to carry out work formally done by the council but which Gateshead no longer does. Examples include Lighting Up Whickham which raises funds for Christmas decorations in the village and Planting Up Whickham, which takes on the role of planting up flower beds to keep Whickham Village looking great.

We have produced a Focus entirely about the local voluntary organisations and in Whickham East, our local team was out last Thursday delivering them. Sadly, they delivered over one thousand houses without me. I was tied up on other things, including delivering our tabloid in our own ward.

Kevin McClurey, who organised the delivery, tells me that most of the leaflets were delivered in the one day.

The best question so far in the campaign

I went to Lord Lawson School on Friday at the invitation of some of the teachers to talk to year 7 pupils about the general election. Two classes came together to listen to what I had to say and quiz me on various issues. The questions were quite thought provoking. My short speech and the Q&A session were recorded on video and will go onto the school's website. The children will also be voting in their own general election. I understand that other parties will be invited as well.

After about an hour the children were divided back into their classes and I went with one class to a classroom where I discovered they had already viewed some of my self-sufficiency videos. We viewed a few more and I spent some time answering questions about raising goats and poultry and keeping bees.

By far the best question so far of the entire campaign came from one of the children: what would I do if my goat had her babies in 7th May!? Fortunately she is due to give birth in late May, but if she is early, it will no doubt cause untold problems on polling day!



Pinkie: not due to have babies on polling day.

The famous wandering hen of Sunniside

On the Sunniside Residents' Facebook site there are regular photos of a hen that wanders around the streets of Sunniside. I hasten to add it is not one of mine. She seems to bring great enjoyment to local residents. I encountered her this morning when I was delivering some of my tabloids in the village. She was actually in the front garden of her owners, not wandering up the street! I snapped a picture of her - see above. She looks to me like a ginger nut ranger, one of the breeds I've got. An appropriate name, I think.

The Great Whickham Bake Off (and jam-making competition)

We had a meeting of the Lighting Up Whickham group last night to press on with arrangements for the Whickham Community Festival. This year it will be on Saturday 4th July and the theme is the 1960s and 70s - flower power and flares. This will be the 4th annual festival and this year we will be having an extra event - a baking and jam making competition. Inevitably (as it was my suggestion) I have been given the task of organising it. Sadly, that means I won't be able to enter it myself.

We are looking for an independent judge, preferably one with baking skills. We will not be charging people to enter the competition but they will have to make two over everything they enter as one of them will go into the raffle. All funds raised will go towards the Village's Christmas decorations.

The photo above is of an apple and marrow pie we made in January. Sadly, it was not entered in any competition as we ate it within a day of making it.

Labour's collapse in Whickham continues

Our latest tabloid continues to be delivered by our members and campaigners in the Whickham area. Most have now gone through doors though we have a few patches left to do in my ward. The photo above was taken last week - my ward's leaflets packaged into their delivery patches.

We have also experienced the arrival of Labour's election leaflets which they attempt to disguise as a "regular newsletter" (ie its regularity is equal to that of the local election cycle - one a year with every 4th year being time off to recover from their once a year delivery.) It seems that Labour aren't even bothering with a "local newsletter" in my ward. Whilst the two neighbouring Whickham wards are getting the "local" and David Anderson leaflets, Whickham South and Sunniside gets only the latter.

Actually, that's not quite an accurate reflection of what's happened. My opponent's leaflet which came through my door was not alone. It came with flyers for chips, pizzas and a variety of local services which most people would find far more useful than anything Labour could attempt to offer. I checked with colleagues in the other two wards and the story is the same. It appears that Labour have had to pay to get their leaflets delivered.

Labour collapsed in my ward in 2004 following a disastrous campaign they ran for the local elections that year. Whickham North however was Labour's top target last year in the North East and they poured in everything and the kitchen sink. They were devastated when our majority went from 100 to 300. There has been no Labour activity in the ward since then and their candidate has abandoned the ward. He has been chosen to replace Yvonne McNicol, their low profile councillor in Dunston Hill and Whickham East. Labour nearly lost the ward to us last year, scraping in by only 78 votes. As with the other wards, Labour there have been noticeable for their absence since polling day.

It is therefore interesting that Labour appear to be relying on a private company to deliver their literature. What's happened to their troops on the ground? Where have they gone? A look at their leaflet throws no further light on answers to these questions. In the Whickham North leaflet is a photo of what is supposed to be their local team. It doesn't even include their new candidate and nearly half the people in the photo are Labour councillors from outside the area!

Labour are now talking up on Twitter their "local newsletters". Let's hope they try to do this in the election as every time they claim to be active all year round, it goes strongly against the grain of people's experience. The more they try to make that claim, the less people will believe them. And making all-year-round action a key election issue means that local elections here will be fought on our agenda!

Labour's personal abuse has already started to be thrown at me

Labour has already started to throw personal abuse at me, two months away from the election. At the last full council meeting, I was called "Wallace and Vomit". The description was made by John Eagle who describes himself as a "socialist". He is a Labour councillor for Bridges ward in Gateshead and is a former mayor of the borough. Sticking with his descriptive theme, I don't know if Mr Eagle would turn heads if he walked into a room full of people. Whether or not he would turn stomachs is a different matter as Mr Eagle has a history of liking vile abusive comments. In April 2012 I exposed him as the supporter of a Facebook page that backed the violent murder of Margaret Thatcher. The site contained sickening comments such as "Maggie Thatcher needs a high-5. In the Face. With a baseball bat. Several times."

Mr Eagle will no doubt read this post himself. Few meetings go by without his mentioning my blog. Indeed, at the last council meeting, as well as hurling abuse at me, he attacked my blog, not for the first time. Yet, for some reason, he keeps revisiting it.

So, with less than 60 days to go, it will be interesting to see if more abuse is thrown at me by the "socialist" chums of Labour.

Photo above: John Eagle employs his considerable skills at colouring in children's pictures.

Not part of Labour's narrative

I arrived at Gateshead Civic Centre yesterday morning for a scruting meeting with DWP officers about the introduction of Universal Credit, open minded about how the new system will function. It was clear that Labour turned up with an expectation of a lecture on a system destined to failure. After all, that’s their narrative, at least locally. Any benefits reform has been attacked by them though they may have overlooked the absence of any commitment from Labour nationally to scrap Universal Credit. Last week, chair of the committee John Eagle had even warned us “not to shoot the messenger” at this meeting. Sadly for Labour their narrative was completely undermined by the solid presentation by the DWP officers who showed that many working people on low incomes are better off under the system if they get a job or take on more hours.

There were sensible questions from both sides but also some unhelpful interventions from the Labour. Martin Verbosity-Gannon rambled on for ages about how terrible it is that the benefits system subsidises employers to pay low wages but moved off this subject when he was asked to put a question by the chairman and was reminded by me that the huge number of in-work benefits were introduced by his beloved New Labour government (he was a major fan of Blair, something he prefers people not to be reminded about.)

Tommy Ultra-Verbosity-Graham rambled on for ages about, well goodness knows what. The only thing I remember from what he said was his announcement that he decided to spend his last 10 years of his working years as a civil servant as he wanted an easier life. I’m not sure what the civil servants he was addressing thought of his remarks.

And finally, Malcolm Brain swung into action with a comment that struck me as the result of the employment of a scraping device on the bottom of an empty liquid storage cntainer. Universal Credit was, according to him, terrible because people getting a job would be worse off because they would have to buy clothes and lunch. “Oh, so all unemployed people are naked and starving!?” I asked.

There are still rough edges with Universal Credit and some issues to resolve. Some changes will probably be needed as the system gets up and running. The overall system however is moving in the right direction, making sure people are better off in work. Labour in Gateshead simply hate the idea of another Coalition reform that is working. 

A look at our latest tabloid

Most of our tabloid newspapers have now been delivered in the Whickham North and the Dunston Hill and Whickham East wards. Delivery in my ward will be on going over the next three days. So far it's been getting a positive response.



Labour are currently putting out "newsletters" in WN and DHWE. They claim they are "regular" - what they don't explain is that their regularity is once a year in the run up to elections! It's not just the Lib Dems saying that. Residents say exactly the same thing. They know an election is approaching because Labour have come out of hibernation!

This one's right up my street

(Photo above - Pinkie, my pregnant golden guernsey goat is houses in conditions that conform to CIWF views.)

I've been getting lots of emails recently as Blaydon candidate about lots of issues but one in particular caught my attention. It was from supporters of Compassion in World Farming which draws attention to the need to improve animal welfare and to reduce the amount of meat in our diets to improve health and make our food production system more efficient in terms of calories produced. The argument is that a huge amount of calories are lost from the food supply system when fed to livestock. For every 100 calories grown and fed to livestock, we get less than a fifth of that back in calories from meat.

This was something I fully understood when I set out to be self-sufficient 6 years ago. As a historian who researches food history, reducing meat production and increasing the non-meat proportion of people's diets was a key aim during the war and post war years. It was a lesson I've applied to my own self-sufficient food production system.

As I said to respondents, we can't force people to reduce their meat intake, but we can motivate and inspire them to do so and we can point to the health and environmental benefits.

So tonight I emailed the people who have been in touch about this issue, and encouraged them to visit my allotment blog (www.self-sufficientinsuburbia.blogspot.com.)

Anyway, here is my reply, along with the original message from correspondents:

Thank you for your email about humane and sustainable farming. This is an area that is very close to my heart. Indeed, I don’t just back it, I live it! 6 years ago I gave up my job so that I could become self-sufficient, growing my own food in Sunniside where I now live the “good life”.

As a result, I have reduced the amount of meat I eat and increased the proportion of my diet that is vegetarian. I do keep some livestock – goats, bees, chickens, ducks and quails – and I also swap some of my surplus, especially honey and eggs, for other people’s surplus fruit and vegetables. The aim is to build up a network of people involved in food production which is sustainable and requires few food miles.

The points you raise about the calorie loss caused by growing animal fodder crops is something I understand very well. I am also an historian and have researched food through the ages. It is noticeable that during the Second World War, when land needed to be used as efficiently as possible, the amount of meat in people’s diets was reduced so that land could be used for food for people rather than livestock. I have taken the lessons of that period and applied them to my lifestyle and self-sufficiency activities.

One thing I would add to your comments is the need to tackle food waste. In my household, we use everything we possibly can. From potato peelings and egg shells to apple cores and bones, we make use of what most people sadly now throw away to make further meals or to use as ingredients in preserves and so on.

I keep a blog about my food growing activities. You can visit it at www.self-sufficientinsuburbia.blogspot.com. My aim in writing it is to encourage others to produce at least a small amount of their own food. We cannot force people to change lifestyles and diets but we can motivate others to do so by showing the personal as well as environmental benefits.

With regard to animal welfare, none of my animals are caged though I do keep my quails in an aviary. My chickens and ducks are free range and my goats have their own roaming area (often shared with the poultry).

Generally, a lower reliance on meat in people’s diet will help us to reduce the need for cages, help tackle obesity and reduce damaging greenhouse gas emissions.

If I were elected MP for Blaydon, I would have a much bigger platform to promote the very issues on which you have contacted me. I will be able to do it not as a politician who tells others what they should do, but as a politician who genuinely believes in the cause AND lives it as well.

Please visit my blog and if there are any questions you wish to raise, feel free to get in touch.

Thanks,

Dr Jonathan Wallace

Liberal Democrat candidate, Blaydon

I am writing to you as one of my constituency’s candidates in the forthcoming general election to ask that you promote a humane and sustainable farming system in the new parliament.

We need to introduce high standards of farm animal welfare. It is time to phase out production that uses cages and crates as they thwart the basic instincts of many animals to roam, forage and explore.

Animals should be kept in outdoor systems or, if they are housed, they should be kept in large barns with ample space, plenty of straw, natural light and effective ventilation. Genetic selection for fast growth or high yields should be avoided if this results in compromised welfare and systems should not be used if they require mutilations.

We need to encourage the adoption of balanced diets with a lower proportion of meat. This would deliver health benefits by reducing the incidence of heart disease, obesity and certain cancers; it would also lower greenhouse gas emissions. Although more crops would be needed for direct human consumption, this would be outweighed by a reduction in demand for feed crops.

Farming provides valuable income to many rural communities. There should be a particular focus on higher welfare production that delivers a better quality of food and a higher income to those farmers at the farmgate, benefitting both the farmer and the wider community through added value.

Much livestock production in the UK is industrial in nature. 60% of EU cereal is used as animal feed. For every 100 calories that we feed to animals in the form of human edible crops, we receive on average just 17-30 calories in the form of meat and milk. We need to avoid excessive use of cereals and put more emphasis on restoring the link between animals and the land.

We need to promote diets that include less but higher welfare meat in order to deliver a farming system that is less intensive, with less reliance on fertilisers and pesticides. This would mean reduced degradation of water, soil and air and lower use of water, land and energy as well as biodiversity gains. It would also enable animals to be kept to higher welfare standards.

Across Europe, around 700 million farm animals (hens, sows, rabbits, ducks and quail) spend some or all of their life confined in cramped, often barren cages.  Cages should be consigned to the history books and food production should be developed using extensive, outdoor and cage free systems.

Sustainable farming that nourishes our health, the environment and promotes higher animal welfare must become the rule, not the exception.

For further information on these issues, Compassion in World Farming has produced a Charter which sets out a proposed future direction of travel. It can be found here http://www.ciwf.org.uk/charter and is supported by further details in briefing notes, which can be found here: http://www.ciwf.org.uk/charter-briefing-notes

I hope you will feel able to support these policy suggestions and work towards realising them – in the UK and by taking a lead in Europe.

Marley Hill now delivered

I can tick Marley Hill off the list - I delivered our tabloid in the village tonight. So in the past week, I've delivered 300 in Swalwell, 210 in Dunston Hill, 230 in Sunniside and 170 in Marley Hill. One of the main stories in it is directly relevant to Marley Hill - the final defeat of the opencast plans. So hopefully it will be a good read for residents, though a large number of them had already had the news about the opencast via our email newsletter.

Appearing on BBC School Report

I was invited recently by Whickham School (I was a pupil there from 1975 to 1982) to be interviewed as part of their involvement with BBC School Report. In it, the children run the whole programme from deciding the questions to filming, directing, and presenting the programme. The recording was this morning at the Media Centre in Sunderland University. I was asked a range of questions about why I like living in the North East, what makes an inspirational leader, what I have done on Red Nose Day in past years, why people should vote and to tackle childhood obesity. But the one issue they seemed most interested in was my goats!

Yet more tabloid delivery

Delivery of our latest tabloid in the Whickham area of Blaydon constituency is going well. Yesterday I lent a hand to get more out. In the morning I headed to Watergate Estate and delivered all 370 houses in and hour and a half. After lunch and a haircut in Blaydon, I headed to Dunston Hill to deliver 200. And that was where I saw one of those extremely rare sights - a Labour leaflet (there must be an election coming!). Actually, 2 Labour leaflets delivered together, one attempting unsuccessfully to try to be a local newsletter and the other from Dave Anderson MP.

The lack of any photos of the 2 sitting councillors in the one purporting to be a local newsletter is noteworthy. One of them is retiring in May and her decision to go (or was she pushed?) was mentioned only in passing. The postage stamp size photo of the Labour candidate with his "team" did not include them (I used a magnifying glass to check). There was a grudging welcome for the recently announced investment in Whickham School (though they fail to mention it is the Coalition Government making the investment). They report on plans for a new school for Front Street - we reported on this 2 years ago!

Labour's arrogant claim that they are "at the heart of our communities in Dunston and Whickham" may come as something of a surprise to the people who live in those communities. The low profile of Labour in Dunston Hill and Whickham East ward is more a case of hole in the heart rather than at the heart!

Reporting on old news and padding this "newsletter" with stories from outside the ward says to me Labour have insufficient knowledge of what's happening on the ground. Nothing new there.

Mobbed at the History Society

The first Tuesday of the month is the night on which Sunniside History Society meets. In the past 4 years I've only missed 3 or 4. I was there last night and was almost mobbed by members as I walked through the doors! There were people wanting me to get street lights fixed, others wanted to know about the Marley Hill opencast plans, someone wanted to know when the next Focus is coming out and one lady handed to me empty egg boxes to use for my own eggs! I'm pleased to say that I won one of the raffle prizes - a box of truffles.

New website

I have yet another bit of social media to operate. I've set up a website for the Blaydon constituency general election campaign. You can visit it on this link.

I was hoping by now that my opponents would have some interesting material out there on the internet about what they're doing in the election battle. Sadly, there ain't much there.

However, my spies in the Labour camp tell me that the Blaydon powers-that-be are looking for help to deliver a glossy leaflet that attacks the Lib Dems. We are keeping our ear to the ground to find out if it has started to appear.

Back home!

The on-going saga of Dad's gall stones has taken a turn for the better. He was released from the Queen El;izabeth Hospital today. I picked him up and took him home via the Co-op in Whickham where I did his food shopping (he's not quite as self-sufficient as me). He's back at his bungalow in Whickham now.

I'll be at the Sunniside History Society tonight where lots of his friends will, no doubt, be wanting to catch up on the latest news about how he's doing.

The photo above was taken in his bungalow this afternoon.

Delivering our tabloid

Our latest tabloid is now being delivered in the Whickham area. We've produced two editions - one for the three Whickham wards and one for Lobley Hill and Dunston and Teams. The large pile in the photo above belongs to Whickham South and Sunniside and a forthcoming job for me is to bundle them up into their delivery patches. I'll get the patch where I live in Sunniside delivered first. I also have two patches to deliver in Dunston Hill and Whickham East to do as well.

Most of the Lobley Hill patches have been delivered. My colleague Cllr Peter Craig was in Lobley Hill whilst delivery was underway and picked up very positive feedback.

Marley Hill's first community pub

On Saturday evening we held our first community pub at Marley Hill Community Centre. The aim was to get young families in from about 6pm to about 8.30pm, and then people without kids in the later hours. It was a tremendous success with the families. They were there 10 minutes before we officially opened until about 9pm. Dozens of kids running round the main hall where we had set up the play equipment. Parents loved it as they could go out locally without having to get baby sitters. They could meet up with friends and neighbours and relax with a drink.

The later part of the evening had only a small number of people coming along. We need to try to get this onto people’s radar screens to get the visitor numbers up. Nevertheless, as a first event, it seems to have worked reasonably well. The next is on 28^th March – and then every final Saturday of the month until the end of the year.

Live streaming of council meetings

I had a meeting of Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee this morning. On the agenda we had an item about the council’s website. The officer giving the presentation said that a revamp was needed. He referred to the Newham Council site which had 70,000 residents signed up to it who receive an email newsletter. I pointed out that 10 years ago, I was “banging on” about needing to communicate directly with residents via an email newsletter in a similar way to the eFocus I produce. I also suggested council meetings could be streamed live via YouTube. We would not need to buy any new equipment and existing staff already attending the meeting could switch the ipad through which the recording takes place on and off. Whether or not Labour Councillors wish to have their words broadcast to the wider world is an interesting point. Whilst some of them clearly think they are incredible public speakers, people outside the council chamber may well have a different view after watching and listening to them speak.

Rebuilding work starts on Front Street School

Work is now starting on the long awaited rebuilding of Whickham Front Street Primary School. The site, on North View, behind the Gibside Arms, has now been fenced off by the builders. Building equipment is about to arrive.



The school recently celebrated its centenary but has been in need of replacement for many years. The school site is split and buildings are getting old. The new building will create the 21st century environment needed for teaching kids in the modern world.

And now to Labour's Councillor Paul McNally, who launched an attack on the Lib Dems on Thursday in Gateshead Council, claiming that the last Labour government's school rebuilding plans were cancelled and replaced with nothing. Perhaps if Paul were to spend a bit less time in the Civic Centre wearing very large suits and were to get out a bit more, he would recognise the inaccuracy of his claim. But there again, Labour never let facts get in the way of their narrative.

The final action day of February

Yesterday we had our final Blaydon constituency action day of February, suitably on the last day of the month. 3500 letters were delivered, as were 1800 tabloids and 2000 Focuses. There were also clerical jobs in abundance to be done. It was Whickham North's turn to host the event so most of the deliveries took place there.



This was what I delivered in the morning. I was sent to do my old home patch in Swalwell (again!).



Some of the gang having a good read of our tabloid before heading off to deliver it.

In the afternoon we did some canvassing on what was meant to be the strongest area for Labour in the ward. Whickham North was Labour's top target for the whole of the Labour party in the North East in the local elections last year. Their campaign was a disaster, despite calling in help from across the whole of the North East. Our majority jumped from 100 to 300. Judging by yesterday's canvass, no recovery is in sight for Labour in the ward. This may explain why Labour's candidate from last year has abandoned the ward to attempt election in another ward (which has already rejected him once before when he turned a 600 Labour majority into a Lib Dem one of 200).

Conservatives join the fray in Blaydon

It seems that the Conservatives have now selected a candidate for Blaydon. Her name is Ali Griffiths and I understand she lives in Battersea. It brings the total of candidates to 5 in the constituency: Dave Anderson (Labour's sitting MP), Paul McNally for the Greens, Ali, or Alison, Griffiths for the Conservatives, Mark Bell for UKIP and me for the Lib Dems.

Dave Anderson is the only one I know or have met. He is pleasant enough to me on the times our paths have crossed. His politics aren't my cup of tea. He claims to be on the left of the Labour party and has attacked his own party's support for austerity. He is however quite harmless: he started the last Parliament carrying lots of left win baggage but never once voted against the Blair/Brown government. Despite the strutting and posturing, he turned out to be a New Labour poodle.

If it is the same person, Mark Bell was the UKIP candidate in my ward last year. He did not then live in the ward. He put out no leaflet and did not turn up for the count.

I know nothing of Paul McNally other than that he lives in the Derwent Valley and stood in Winlaton and High Spen ward last year (and did not win).

It is difficult to find much on Ali Griffiths. Most sites listing candidates (including the Conservative's own website as of last night) were still listing Blaydon as having no Conservative candidate. I've found a recently created Facebook site for her. I get the impression she is into skiing and someone has posted a comment looking forward to her going to Davos in Switzerland for a dose of skiing. Whether or not she has any genuine links to Blaydon is still to be discovered. Sadly for skiers, whilst we have lots of hills, the area lacks snow.

So Ali, welcome to the fray. And now that 5 parties have candidates in place, let the battle commence (though for the Lib Dems we've been battling away already for some time).

On the mend

On Tuesday night, Dad was taken to hospital suffering severe abdominal pains. I visited him on Wednesday afternoon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead. He looked quite bad and I was a bit shocked by his condition. It turned out he had gall stones blocking his bile duct. I'm pleased to say that he underwent a procedure today and the gall stones have now gone. I couldn't visit him yesterday as I had meetings all day (including full council to set the council tax in Gateshead) but I was able to visit him today and he is looking better but still has some way to go to be fully recovered. I told him we'd let him off delivering the next Focus leaflet! He told me that the ambulance medic who was first to see him at his house in Whickham on Tuesday is a constituent of mine who quickly realised there was a family connection between his patient and his local councillor!

I took the above picture today. He will have a few more days in hospital before he can return home.

I'm the new Leader of the Pack

I'm pleased to announce on Monday, 2nd March, I will be the new Lib Dem Group Leader and Leader of the Opposition on Gateshead Council. Our current leader, Frank Hindle, told the group at the end of the Full Council meeting in December that he was stepping down and wanted a new leader elected before the start of the local election campaign. So on Monday 23rd February, we held the leadership election. I won and as I was the existing deputy leader, this post was vacated and the group elected Ron Beadle as the new deputy.

Judging by the above video I need to get a motorbike (I've already got the leather jacket) to be leader of the pack! Anyway, below is the news release now circulated to the local media.

Gateshead Council Leader of Opposition Stands Down

Frank Hindle, who has been Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Gateshead Council since 2011 is to stand down from the post on Monday 2^nd March.

The Low Fell Councillor announced his decision to his group in December so that there would be time to elect a new Leader before the start of the local election campaign.

On Monday 23^rd February, the Lib Dem group elected Jonathan Wallace, Councillor for Whickham South and Sunniside, as the new Leader. Jonathan was previously the Deputy Leader.

In Jonathan’s place as Deputy, the group has elected Cllr Ron Beadle from Low Fell.

“It has been a great privilege to serve as Leader of the group and leader of the Opposition in Gateshead over the past 4 years,” said Frank. “These have been challenging years for the Lib Dems but we have held our ground.

“Last year we held all our council seats in Gateshead and came within 78 votes of taking another from Labour.

“But the current Parliament is about to end and the next one will face big challenges which will affect local government. I decided now is a good time to get a new team in place to take the Lib Dem group forward over the next five years.

“I am however looking forward to continuing as an active member of the council – and to building up my general election campaign to be next MP for Gateshead.”

Cllr Jonathan Wallace said, “Frank has been a great Leader over the past four years. I am determined that the Lib Dems will continue to punch above our weight and increase our strength in Gateshead.”

Cllr Ron Beadle said, “We have denied Labour their hope of creating a one-party state in Gateshead. Over the coming years I will be working with Jonathan to ensure the Lib Dem group on Gateshead Council holds Labour to account whilst growing our support across the borough.”

Ends

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Photo above: Deputy Leader of the Pack Ron Beadle, me – the new Leader of the Pack, Frank Hindle, standing down as Leader, after the group elections on Monday.

The next Blaydon leaflet arrives

Our next leaflet for delivery in Blaydon arrived today. The printer dropped them off at my ward colleague Cllr John McClurey's shop in Newcastle and at 2pm I took the land rover over to pick them up. It was the only vehicle big enough to carry them all. They are now back at my house where they are being put into their patches.



Note the cardboard was not thrown out. It's going back to the allotment where, in wet weather, we will put it on the paths to try to keep the mud at bay. Note also the pallet on which theleaflets came is on the roof rack. For good lifers like me, pallets are sought-after resources. This one will be dismantled and used in making a goat house. Waste nothing!

2.5 million Flickr viewings

This is one of those moments when we feel the need to show off how big our statistics are! I've just been on my Flickr site and found that my photos have now been viewed 2.5 million times. If anyone feels the need to check out the 7900 pictures on the site, please feel free to click on this link.

Out greening the Green party

Sadly for the Green Party, the media spotlight looks set to burn off their green shoots of growth and turn their little green garden into a desert. Even more sadly for those who genuinely believe in putting environmentalism at the heart of our own lifestyles, there is little that is environmentally sustainable about Green Party policies. Their spend, spend, spend approach may be attractive to those on the left who are clueless when it comes to economically and fiscally sustainable policies, but borrowing lots of cash to spend now is simply a way of taking resources away from the future. And that seems to be completely at odds with a stance that says we should reduce our environmental damage now so that we don't dump big environmental costs on the future.

Anyway, given my self-sufficiency based way of life, just on that alone, I bet I could out green any Green candidate the Green Party cares to stand against me

"The cost of living crisis is a cliche" claims top Labour councillor

At Gateshead Council cabinet this morning, the budget report was considered. Labour are going for a 1.95% council tax increase, after four years of freezing it. Opposition Leader Frank Hindle, Cllr Ron Beadle and I were there on behalf of the Lib Dem group. As usual, some Labour members blamed us for every problem. For many in the Labour Party, history began in May 2010. All problems have arisen since then, not before then, they try to claim.

So after we were accused of causing increased suicides and mass unemployment of young people (which rather ignores the fact there are over 200,000 fewer young people out of work compared to when Labour left office) Labour Deputy Leader Cllr Martin Gannon pitched in with his comments. Martin has an amazing ability to force opposites together. Back in the 80s he was militantly socialist and then in the 90s became more New Labour than Blair himself. Somehow he survives as a rainbow "socialist" warrior taking up contradictory positions as each decade goes by.

"The cost of living crisis is a cliche," he announced. In the recent past he has normally attacked the Coalition for the "cost of living crisis". Today however he was voting to add to it. Perhaps he was just trying to admit, without saying it, that things are not any where near as bad as Labour makes out. My guess is that Martin's words may come back to haunt him.

Whickham eFocus no. 93

Our latest edition (no. 93) of our email newsletter for the Whickham area was published last night. When I was turning my mind to what the contents should be earlier this month, I was struggling to come up with suitable stories that would, in a printed newsletter, be the page leads. And then suddenly, 3 big stories came along in quick succession: the end of plans for opencast mining at Marley Hill; rebuild for Whickham School and scaling back the cuts to Dunston Leisure Centre. 

Anyway, you can read edition 93 on this link.

Lib Dem training

Sunday saw some of our team (myself included) head to Newcastle for a training session for candidates and agents. I'm not sure why I went for the agents' bit but it was useful nevertheless. We also did training on using social media and motivating volunteers.

Afterwards I headed to Whickham. My ward colleague Marilynn Ord had delivered 200 survey forms in the morning and it was my job to collect the replies left in letter boxes in the evening (from 6pm onwards). I gathered in 31. I expect some will also be returned by post. Volunteers at our next action day (this Saturday) will put the results into our database (whilst the rest of us will be canvassing or delivering).

UKIP target in Gateshead

It seems that UKIP are now beating Labour for activity in the ground war in the Gateshead ward of Lobley Hill and Bensham, though we are well ahead of both in terms of the literature we have put out. It does however seem that this ward is something of a UKIP target though it is also a ward in which we are interested. Labour have held the ward for decades but their vote came down with a thud last year. 10 years ago we nearly won it ourselves though after 2010, Labour's position recovered until last year when it went into freefall.

UKIP have now delivered an addressed letter to each household in the ward. I came by a copy this morning. Quite what the impact of both Lib Dem and UKIP literature will be is yet to be seen. It could be that the novelty of UKIP has worn off but they retain a goodly part of the vote they got last year. There is nothing in their literature to indicate they are involved in local issues. On the other hand, our literature clearly demonstrates that we are actively campaigning on what is important to residents. We have recently won the battle against opencast mining which, if approved, would have sent 60 heavy coal lorries a day through Lobley Hill. As it turns out, Labour in Gateshead backed the plans. Despite this, the plans have been rejected and there is to be no appeal.

Having local councillors who can demonstrate a record of year round activity is a key selling point for us in the local elections and we can clearly demonstrate this in Lobley Hill and Bensham ward. UKIP and Labour on the other hand will struggle. So with the battle for the local and general elections heating up, this ward is one to watch. And who knows, UKIP's presence, dragging down the Labour vote, could help us.

Another campaign day in Blaydon

We had another campaign day today in Blaydon constituency. Some of us were stuffing envelopes for our next direct mail delivery, some of us were canvassing, and some of us (me included) were doing both. We were in Dunston this afternoon for canvassing which threw up a few interesting points: those who receive our email newsletter were much more likely to vote for us and to do so at both the local and general elections; for the first time in ages, no one mentioned my self-sufficiency activities; and a former Labour branch officer we found was not impressed with Ed Miliband. No surprise there!

Marley Hill Pancake Cafe

Last night we held a pancake cafe in Marley Hill Community Centre. It was one of a number of events we are organising to make fuller use of the building. We held a similar event there last year which was modestly successful. Last night, we were run off our feet for 3 solid hours. The main hall was full of kids using the play equipment. The bar was opened up (we have a new license) but when all the tables were in use we had to set up additional ones, and everyone coming in seemed to have a great time.

The event was mainly for young families - and many turned up. However, there was a full age range of people there. And they consumed more pancakes than we care to mention! This is definitely an event to repeat next year.

We used eggs laid by our hens to make the batter but unfortunately, we are not yet able to use our goats milk for anyone other than ourselves. We will be registering soon with environmental health so that we can be inspected and, assuming we come up to the required standards, we will begin selling our milk and cheese. In the meantime, pancakes in the cafe had to be made using milk purchased from the local supermarket.



The aftermath!

Lottery bid for Chase Park

Friends of Chase Park in Whickham, with the help of Gateshead Council, have been developing a bid for £1 million of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The bid is due to be submitted in early March. If successful, it would be a fantastic boost to the park and to Whickham generally.

If the bid is successful it would result in new features including:

• WiFi capability in areas of the park
• New picnic benches and street furniture
• Gardens, community planting areas and a community orchard
• Interpretation Boards
• New trim trail and green gym equipment
• A refurbished park space for children
• A new sports area space and exercise equipment for all to use
• Art installations

With timescales extremely tight Gateshead Council have created online questionnaires for community groups, primary and secondary school aged children to complete. The questionnaires can be accessed through the following links:

Children (5-11)

Young people (11-18)

Community Groups

All of these projects would be available for community groups to use and to participate in their creation. The project would also include a development worker for the park who would link with education establishments and community groups.

The deadline for completed surveys is Friday 27^th February.

My old school to be rebuilt

It never ceases to amaze me how often Labour attack the leadership of the Conservatives and Lib Dems for having too many with public school educated backgrounds. And too often these Labour class warriors themselves enjoyed the benefits of public school education. People such as Tristam Hunt and Chris Bryant have rather wilted under the media spotlight recently when attacking others for their public school education whilst, ahem, having their own public school education highlighted by the media for all to see.

Personally, I don't give a damn what school you went to. After all, it is not your decision but rather that of the parents or the local educational system. But Labour's very own posh boys aren't going to let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Anyway, the point of this post is not Labour toffs pretending to be socialists, rather it's about my old school. Sadly for Labour they can't paint me as a public school boy. I went to my local comprehensive, Whickham School, back in the 70s and early 80s. The school is a very successful one. It's one of the reasons people want to move to the Whickham area. The buildings however are showing their age. The school was built for 400 pupils in 1960 and had grown to more than 4 times that number when I was there. Over the decades, more buildings mushroomed over the site. As they age, so the maintenance problems multiply. The school needed rebuilding.

And that is now set to happen. The school is one of 277 to go in the next wave of the Priority School Building programme announced last week by Nick Clegg. Excellent news.

Photo above - Cllr Chris Ord, me and Kevin McClurey outside Whickham School, giving the news of the rebuild the thumbs up.

A bit of family history whilst campaigning

Wallace Avenue in Whickham is a small street of just 4 houses but it is linked to my family history. It was named after my great grandfather Henry Wallace who was the first chairman of Whickham Urban District Council back in the late 1890s. He was also the first county councillor for Whickham on Durham County, back in 1889. There is another street named after him in Dunston though it is outside Blaydon constituency. Anyway, Kevin McClurey and I decided to have an impromptu photo call at the entrance to Wallace Avenue on Sunday afternoon whilst campaigning. One for the campaign photo album.

A few photos from Saturday's Action Day

We had another action day on Saturday in Blaydon constituency. We shifted 3000 direct mail and 3000 Focuses in the morning. In the afternoon we were canvassing. The most interesting point we found during the door-knocking was the lack of enthusiasm for Labour amongst people who had voted Labour for years. Miliband just isn't cranking up the support. Meanwhile, as expected, there was a strong local vote for us. Also in the mix: we found one Labour member who votes Lib Dem locally, a Green voter and even a Conservative (whose party has not yet found a candidate for Blaydon).

Pictured above: Dave Fawcett back in HQ (Cllr John McClurey's house) adds recent survey replies to Connect with Luke Armstrng, our local organiser who is faced with a choice of eating chocolate biscuits or delivering hundreds of letters.



Above: my bag of leaflets and letters. Below: me on the border of Whickham North and Whickham East, heading through to join our canvass team elsewhere in the constituency.

Opencast appeal disappears

For over two years I have been fighting plans to opencast a site in my ward to the south of Marley Hill village. UK Coal (now Harworth Estates) had wanted to extract a million tonnes of coal from the former colliery site and surrounding countryside. Last June, Labour in Gateshead backed the plans and voted them through. That was not, however, the end of the story. The proposed site crossed into Co Durham as well so Durham County Council had to take a decision on the application as well. And they rejected it.

Time has now run out for Harworth Estates to appeal. And residents are beginning to ask why the Labour Party in Gateshead were such enthusiastic supporters of the plan.

In my 28 years on Gateshead Council, I've fought 4 plans for opencast mining in or next to my ward. So far I've won four and lost none.

Photo above - me, Kevin McClurey, Cllr Marilynn Ord and Dave Fawcett at the handing in of the petition I ran against the Marley Hill opencast plans. And below, part of the area proposed for opencasting but now saved.

My first candidate interview by students

Today was a first in more ways than one. It was my first interview by students as candidate for Blaydon. And it was the first time I have met up with people to discuss politics in a Pret a Manger! The two students I met were from St Thomas More School in the constituency and they are putting together an article about the various candidates and parties for a school publication. There is no Conservative candidate yet in Blaydon so they interviewed the Conservative candidate for Newcastle North instead. They are yet to meet up with Blaydon Labour MP Dave Anderson.

It was quite an interesting and challenging experience which lasted for two hours! I was grilled on a variety of issues from (inevitably) tuition fees to gay rights and equal marriage. Hopefully they found what I said useful and interesting.

Meanwhile, my inbox has been flooded with emails about HSBC and tax avoidance by the rich. At the last count there were over 60. They are all the same wording but no explanation as to which organisation they are from though we can make an educated guess. Nevertheless, they are all residents of the constituency so I will be putting together a response to each.

Lady Penelope’s Pink Mystery Machine

Labour have been slated today for taking onto the road a pink van to attract the female vote. Variously described as patronising and sending out the wrong message, to me it looks like a cross between Lady Penelope’s pink Rolls Royce and the Mystery Machine, the van from Scooby Doo. Whether it will work in attracting the votes of women or not is yet to be seen. I would have thought putting that awful Harriet Harpoon in charge of it probably means the road to socialism will be scorched with skid marks from hand brake uturns brought on by the need to abandon unrealistic policies. There will, of course, be lots of socialist pot holes ready to wreck the suspension of the vehicle. And watch out for the road to socialism being permanently blocked by an overturned milibandwaggon.

I wonder what colour I should paint my Land Rover for the election? It’s usual colour is natural mud with a hint of goat poo. That could certainly help me get the “good life” vote! The photo above however shows it in a surprisingly clean condition.

Guest speaker at the 41 Club

Last week I was the guest speaker at the Whickham and District 41 Club, an organisation for ex-Round Tablers over the age of 40 (which means I easily qualify!) I was recruited to speak by a Whickham resident who had bought some of my free range eggs and was keen that I share the story of how I became (nearly) self-sufficient. So I headed down to the Gibside Arms in Whickham for a dinner and then attempted to set up my rather ageing laptop to give a powerpoint presentation. Alas, we could not get the laptop to link in to the projector, so I had to wing it instead. This seemed to go down rather well. Half an hour of questions followed at the end. Tony, the person who asked me to do the talk, is married to one of my former junior school teachers. He said she remembered me well. Given I was at the school 45 years ago, I either did something seriously good, or seriously bad, to be remembered so vividly after such a long period of time! Hopefully it was the former!

Bees and sardines

It may be the middle of winter but today the sun was shining strongly, a situation which brought my bees out in large numbers. The 6 hives I have at my main apiary were all busy. I saw them whilst feeding my poultry after Gateshead Council's cabinet meeting this morning (thankfully a short agenda) and before heading back to Gateshead for another meeting (on the leisure services review).

After that meeting, I again returned home, milked the goat, and then had to head off to Whickham for a meeting of the Lighting Up Whickham group which assigned tasks to various individuals for the Whickham Community Festival on 4th July. My jobs are to organise the baking and preserves making competition and to bring along some of my livestock for people to see. As one of my goats is expecting in late May, I'll bring along the mother and kids so to people can have a go at feeding them.

From the Lighting Up Whickham group, I headed straight back to Sunniside for a meeting of the Washingwell History Project. This was something I kickstarted a couple of years ago and we are now going through the process of applying for a Heritage Lottery Grant to carry out the work of recording the history of the Washingwell area.

So, 4 meetings in one day, all packed in like sardines. Thankfully, I can get on with some work tomorrow. My diary is free of meetings. Hooray!

Sunniside sunset

I captured this photo from my allotment on Saturday evening, just after milking the goat. An amazing sunset. I spotted other residents of the area had posted up photos of it on Facebook as well though their pictures don't include the edge of a quail house and goat paddock!

Blaydon campaigning weekend round up

We are deep into preparing our next mailshot in Blaydon constituency. On Saturday evening, Cllr John McClurey hosted an envelope stuffing event which resulted in over 3000 letters being prepared for delivery. Note the partially hidden bottles of wine. David and I brought along 2 bottles of our homemade plonk. It seemed an opportune moment to test out our Chateau Sunniside 2013.



I had to take a break from envelope stuffing to head down to the Whickham part of my ward. We are currently carrying out a survey of residents' views on a 20mph zone being introduced for the whole of Whickham. So far we have surveyed the relevant parts of Dunston Hill and Whickham East and Whickham North wards. Now we are rolling the survey out across the affected areas of my ward.



Last Saturday I delivered 400 surveys and got 80 back from doors. This Saturday I delivered 300 and got back 50 and yesterday I delivered 180 and got back 30. I still have over 1000 to deliver in my ward. As yet I don't have any figures for the number returned by post or for how many have been collected in the other two wards.

We are having another big campaign day next weekend and one of the jobs to do for those not going out canvassing will be to add all the survey replies to the database.

Smoking out the other side

When we submit a motion for debate at Gateshead Council supporting something positive that the Coalition has done, Labour often move an amendment which wrecks the motion and makes claims of the Lib-Dems-eat-your-babies-for-breakfast variety. A couple of times recently, they used "information" they happily acquired from the Taxpayers' Alliance website to back up their claims that the Coalition spreads famine, pestilence and plague. Their opposition for opposition sake recently led them to attack the Coalition's decision to bring in free school meals for infant aged children. During the debate on our motion welcoming free school meals last autumn, they attacked the Lib Dems for taking away child benefit from the wealthiest parents and for raising the same benefit for other parents below the rate of inflation. Sadly for Gateshead Labour's sanity, a couple of days later, Ed Balls, in one of those rare moments when he could actually remember what he was talking about, announced that were Labour to win the General Election, child benefit rises would be below the rate of inflation!

But yesterday, sanity did prevail. For the full council meeting, we submitted a motion welcoming the announcement that there will be a free vote in the Commons on plain packaging of cigarettes and calling on the borough's MPs to vote for the change. On Wednesday, we had a message from the Labour Leader Mick Henry asking if the motion could be a joint one. We were happy enough to do that as long as we moved it. That meant I was able to hand them the task of seconding the motion. Whilst it saved me the task of writing a formal speech, I still spoke in the debate, welcoming the move but pointing out it was only one step along the road towards tackling smoking.

My colleague, John McClurey, moved the motion. He is a retailer but has extensive experience in tackling smoking and is a spokesman for anti-smoking campaigners. He brought along a number of plain packaged cigarette boxes to show people what they would look like. Many contain uncomfortable pictures of the effects of smoking.

The only fly in the ointment was Labour's Cllr Steven Ronchetti. The last time he spoke in council on smoking he attacked the smoking ban for what he perceived as the negative effects on pubs (he is a publican!) He said that though he would be voting for the motion, he wanted plain packaging to be delayed until after legal challenges had been completed in Australia. He seemed to be well briefed.

LGBT History Month at Newcastle's Discovery Museum

Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums in partnership with UNISON, Community Hubs Network and Newcastle City Council held an event to celebrate LGBT History Month on Monday at the Discovery Museum. As a member of the TWAM joint committee I was invited and popped in to look at the history display and listen to a number of speakers who talked about how laws and attitudes about sexual orientation have liberalised over the past 60 years.

Sadly, I was only able to stay for an hour as I had livestock to feed and a goat to milk back home.

Our latest efocus in Whickham

This was meant to go out last night but I came back from collecting surveys last night with a painfully swollen foot which necessitated a hot bath to kick start the recovery process. For those numerous Labour hacks in Gateshead who follow my every move, I'm pleased to say the recovery is now complete and I will be back out on doorsteps again in the next day or so.

Anyway, this link takes you to edition 92 of our email newsletter for the Whickham area. It leads on leisure service cuts, funding for the Swalwell Swifts and the Washingwell History Project (with which I am involved). My first Parliamentary column is also included, looking at funding for mental health.