I didn't have time to sort the following photos taken on polling day last week in the Bridges by-election in Gateshead. So here they are a few days late. They were taken on polling day.
Lib Dem conference ended yesterday and so I headed north to get home. Here are some of the photos I took during my stay in Brighton.
Ed Davey's speech on Tuesday with the MPs seated behind him on the podium. It almost took as long as the speech just to get them all into the allocated places. That's what comes of having 72 MPs!
I am now home from the Bridges by-election count in Gateshead. The result was:
I'm just home after a day of slogging my way through Bridges ward for the by-election. I will be back to Gateshead Civic Centre later this evening to attend the count. Unlike many elections, I find this one rather difficult to predict as there are a number of knowns. Reform are standing for the first time. The Lib Dems have fought the ward hard for the first time (we usually just have a paperless candidate.) Given the quantity of literature we have produced for this campaign, "paperless" is definitely not the applicable description now. The ward was previously a Labour stronghold and their campaigning (indeed any party's campaigning) was somewhat limited. In the local elections in May, Bridges was the Greens' only target ward in Gateshead. They didn't win but they cut into Labour's majority. So from this mix we have to try to predict the result.
Here are the different possible results.
1)Labour hold. Given the history of the ward, this should be the most likely outcome. However, Labour haven't exactly covered themselves in glory recently. The High Street is a mess, the convention centre planned for the Quays hasn't even got as far as being a building site and large areas of cleared land sit idle. Their choice of candidate hasn't helped. He lost his seat in Saltwell to the Lib Dems in 2023 and was defeated in Low Fell and Whickham South wards by the Liberal Democrats. Bridges is his 4th ward. But Labour are usually entrenched here.
So a Labour hold is possible but not with the surety of previous contests.
2)Green gain. Given the result in May, the Greens should be hopeful of a gain. Labour's majority over them is 290 (16%) so it is not marginal but neither is it safe for Labour. If the Greens don't win Bridges, they will have nowhere else to go in Gateshead, having abandoned their only other target of Crawcrook and Greenside. Lib Dem campaigners who have crossed paths with Greens on the campaign trail have told me the Greens are very confident, based almost entirely on the result in May. We shall see.
3)Lib Dem gain. The Lib Dems have not campaigned hard before in Bridges but an 8 week campaign using literature and campaign techniques usually employed in our top targets may have turned around Lib Dem prospects in the ward. A Lib Dem gain is still an outside chance but not one that can be discounted.
4)Labour coming 3rd. This would have been regarded as a fantasy story in previous contests but it can no longer be discounted. Labour may lose some of their support to Reform and their government have not made friends by axing the winter fuel payments for pensioners not on pension credit. The 2 child cap has also gone down badly.
Greens and Lib Dems have been slogging it out in the ward. Has one of them managed to push ahead as the challenger to Labour, or have both Lib Dems and Greens bitten chunks out of Labour,s vote. Labour have not helped themselves by running an uninspiring campaign which was slow to get off the ground.
So with so many unknowns and new variants, predicting this one is challenging. We will know the actual result by midnight.
On Saturday 7th September 2024, MP Tim Farron met Lib Dem campaigners battling Labour to win the Bridges by-election in Gateshead. Tim gave an impromptu speech covering how Labour had won the general election by default but there was no great enthusiasm for Starmer. He also wished local campaigners a successful campaign before heading to meet local voters with by-election candidate Jonathan Aibi.
We keep a close eye on opposition literature in the Bridges by-election in Gateshead. Today I'm having a close look at the Reform Party's publication. There is frankly not much to write about. The leaflet has very little to say. Let's at least start with the imprint. It fails to show the name of the party and the name of the candidate though presumably the agent and candidate are the same person. Smacked wrists for that. The reference to "The Brexit Party" is a bit confusing as I thought that organisation had stopped functioning and was replaced by "The Reform Party". And then there is the call to "Save Britain" though from whom or what is not explained.
I was somewhat amused by the call for local issues to be sent to the candidate. One of the ways to make contact is via an email address which includes "blaydonandconsett". Though Blayon is in Gateshead, it is at the other end of the borough to Bridges. And Consett is over the border in Co Durham! So not very local.
The leaflet was found on the ground, hence the photo rather than a scan. Time to sweep it up along with all the other rubbish!
The Bridges by-election in Gateshead is turning into quite a battle between Lib Dems and Labour. Since the general election, we have held 4 action days and delivered 4 different leaflets across the ward. So far Labour have delivered 2 while the Greens are in the bronze medal position with one leaflet.
Labour's first leaflet talked about lots of plans being in the "pipeline" which I guess is Labour's way of explaining why little appears to have happened in the ward. Labour talk about plans for the High Street which is still decaying away, new homes at Chandless and Clasper Village though the sites were cleared years ago and nothing has been built on them since, and "new life" for the old Town Hall which is still closed.
But what was not mentioned was the convention centre that was meant to be coming to Gateshead, in the heart of Bridges ward. Given the noise made by Labour about the convention plans in the past, and the significant sums poured into them, Labour's silence on what should be one of the country's biggest urban redevelopments seems to be rather odd. I wonder why the convention centre failed to make it into Labour's pipeline.
(Video about - the site of the convention centre though not a brick has been laid.)
Other candidates include Conservatives, Greens and Reform.
As usual, I had my video camera with me when I was at the Pride Picnic in the Park at Saltwell Park yesterday. So here is my latest blockbuster video of the event!
An enjoyable event and hopefully it will become a regular event in future years.
All welcome.
This Saturday, 10th August, should have been a day of celebration of diversity in Gateshead. Organisers of the event - Out North East - however have decided to postpone the event, planned for Gateshead town centre, because of concerns about the recent riots carried out by far right extremists. While it is worrying that a tiny minority of extremists threatening violence can impact on the wider community, public safety has to be the primary concern. Hopefully a new date will be announced soon.
The good news is that the Pride Picnic in Saltwell Park will be going ahead on Sunday (12pm-4pm). I'm already working on making flans and so on, using produce from our farm.
The by-election will be held on Thursday 12th September. It means the constant election campaigning stretches into the late summer, having started in January as activities ramped up for the local elections (only then to run straight into the general election). Our most recent Focus in the ward is pictured above, awaiting delivery.
Given the current riots by the far-right, Gateshead Liberal Democrats are taking a stand against racism. Visit their website on this link.
Those taking part in the riots are not patriotic or pro-British. They are a stain on the country, using a terrible tragedy as an excuse to destroy property, threaten people, steal, loot, vandalise and attack the police. True Brits are those volunteers who have banded together to clear up the mess left by the thugs and rioters.
I filmed this the day after the general election last month. I have to confess I was surprised the Lib Dems had won 72 seats. My expectation was around 40-50. Well, better to exceed expectations rather than fall short!
I recorded this video on the evening before polling day last month. In it I said that the suggestions from opinion polls that the Lib Dems could become the official opposition were highly unlikely to happen. Our realistic aim should be to regain our position as the 3rd party in the Commons, taking back the position lost to the SNP in 2015. My expectation was for a total Lib Dem MP count of 40-50.
As ward councillors, Marilynn Ord, Jonathan Mohammed and myself are keep to explore options for the future of the chapel. It sits in a very prominent location in the village and we are concerned that if no future use is found for the hall that it could become derelict.
The Methodist Church South Tyne and Wear circuit, ultimately responsible for the building, asked me to chair a meeting of residents and interested parties at the church to see if there was any interest in taking on the building. The meeting went ahead last week and was attended by 38 residents, plus members of the circuit.
It was a useful meeting and there is a possibility of a community group being set up to take on the building though the repairs to the roof that are needed means the group would need to raise a sum over £50K and possibly approaching £100k. I suggested that the group should be given a chance to get up and running but that there would have to be a specific deadline to take on the building. This is out of fairness to the Methodist organsation as they are currently having to pay huge insurance and energy bills on the building.
For the 3 of us as ward councillors, our priorities are to retain the chapel building but it has to have a use. The building is one of the oldest in Sunniside and therefore it is part of our local heritage and history. So hopefully we can have some positive news about Sunniside Church in the near future.
One of the most frequently made claims by Labour in Gateshead Council chamber is that anything that has gone wrong is the fault of the Liberal Democrats. Labour have been in control of Gateshead for 50 years. Indeed, no other party has ever run the authority. Labour base their claim on the Lib Dems being in the coalition government from 2010-15. The coalition ended 9 years ago but "Blame the Lib Dems" is the mantra by which Labour operates.
Given the years of local government austerity that Labour are likely to impose on Gateshead, I can conjure up images of Labour Councillors continuing to claim that the Lib Dems are to blame. The allegation will be along the lines of "Labour have looked at the government accounts and there's no money left. Let's blame the Lib Dems who left office 9 years ago!"
I'm not a betting person but I could be tempted to put a bet on Labour in Gateshead blaming the Lib Dems for Labour austerity at a council meeting in the near future.
Instead we proposed a number of alternatives based on the history of Streetgate. Opposite the development is Sorella Sorella restaurant. The building started life in the Victorian period as the "Rose, Shamrock and Thistle" and continued to be called by the same name until the 1990s when it was renamed the "Rose". One of the names for the new development we suggested was "Shamrock Avenue". This was the name that was finaly agreed (though Avenue was dropped in favour of "Lane". The street sign is now in place.
The last constituency result sailed into view this evening when Lib Dem Angus MacDonald took Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire from the SNP. The general election delivered a Lib Dem parliamentary party of 72. My expectation of 40-50 seats for the Lib Dems was way off the mark. My excuse is that we got such a beating in the 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections that we dared not to believe positive news from opinion polls.
My hopes for the Lib Dems in this election were:
