A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Council By-elections

Last night's council by-election results:

Newbarns Ward, Barrow DC. Con hold. Con 478 (52.3%, +9.4), Lab 177 (19.4%, -1.7%), People's Party 155 (17%, +17), BNP 104 (11.4%, +11.4). Swing 5.6% Lab to Con since May.

Waterloo Ward, Havant DC. Con hold. Con 809 (48.7%, -21.5), LD 801 (45.9%, +26.6), Lab 95 (5.4%, -5.1). Swing 24.1% Con to LD since May..

Melton Egerton Ward, Melton DC. Lab hold. Lab 314 (43.2%, -4.8), BNP 236 (32.5%, +4.5), Con 177 (24.3%, +0.3). Swing 4.7% Lab to BNP since 2007.

26 Comments:

Blogger Mark Still News said...

Brown should have stepped down and let John McDonnell stand as PM last year. Brown has not changed from Blair's awful arrogant leadership style and actions. The trouble with Labour is they have been trying so hard to get a better class of supporters & Voters and ignoring their long term Voters/supporters, who are leaving it in masses. The trouble is now all the local Labour constituencies will now pay for this at a high cost as you have shown on those election results.
Labour should ditch all these right wing cronies and fascist policies and let Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell take over!

3:17 pm, September 05, 2008

 
Blogger Mark Still News said...

Clause 4 must be reinstated and actioned as there needs to be a positive difference from Labour to Tory!!

3:25 pm, September 05, 2008

 
Blogger Tom said...

"Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell take over!"

I'm sure a clear electoral majority of British people strongly identify with those two figures.

Or not.

3:56 pm, September 05, 2008

 
Blogger Mark Still News said...

The biggest problem is the right wing press owned and controlled by the billionaires, as in the past they never gave Tony Wedgwood Benn a chance to get his argument across, who was also a very intelligent man.

Corbyn and McDonnell have a lot of common sense and need to be given a fair chance.

But continue with Brown and all those Cronies is going to eradicate Labour

4:44 pm, September 05, 2008

 
Blogger Jackson Jeffrey Jackson said...

I'm sure a clear electoral majority of British people strongly identify with those two figures.

Or not.


What an utterly cretinous thing to say.

A clear majority of British people strongly identify with Tony Blair or David Cameron do they? Or Gordon Brown? Or Neal Lawson?

Still, any excuse for another snide bitch from the soft left about McDonnell and Corbyn, who are presumably the real enemy out there.

Dur.

5:19 pm, September 05, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Personally I think it's gone beyond the point of no return. No matter what Brown does now he will be criticized...even if he's right.

A good example is todays announcement not to give £100.00 to families across Britain to help them with their utility bills. Gordon is completely correct in this decision as it's a short term gimmick to give money away. People do need to insulate their homes and the government should be spending a lot more money helping people do it.

The only way we are going to resolve our energy problems is to use less and Gordon is completely right to say so.The problem I see with the government is the lack of & availability of grants to make this possible.

If you look at the problems the government is facing and what little time they have to resolve them then I think you must realise they really are going to have to work hard to change public opinion.

Another problem with the government now is cash, there simply isn't enough of it floating around in the treasury to push forward a real energy strategy.

I'm afraid Labour have left it far too long to change it's policies now. In some ways I feel for the PM as he's not really going to get the same chances as Tony Blair.

8:17 pm, September 05, 2008

 
Blogger Mark Still News said...

The boom & bust was supposed to end in 1997. Yet the NLP allowed housing to go up in hyper astronomical prices fuelled by a shortage. It was bad enough in the 80's and they had a crash in 1988.The housing market should have been controlled and price ceiling levels put on properties through census.The banks should have been monitored so they did not lend more than 3.5 x times the income. Tony Blair was to busy making money on his own property to see what long term damage was being done to the economy and society through this blind stupid greed! Brown was Chancellor so he is as much to blame.

Well we can expect another 18 years of Nazi Tory rule again. People have such short memories and would be stupid enough to support Tory, but NLP are not much better-Union members are totally demoralised by the NLP. Resolutions passed at Labour conference were ripped up by Blair and Brown-They did not even respect their own very loyal LP membership in the quest to get a higher class of voter and supporter.

How can you change public opinion as the NLP has been in 10 years and now even changed leaders, but nothing new seems to happen. How can labour supporters and members argue for the NLP?

Try telling some one who has been privatised and lost most of their rights and it was done by NLP and others who's pensions are in a mess and working people who can't get a decent home. There is nothing to campaign for with NLP.

8:39 pm, September 05, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mark, right on all accounts, couldn't agree more and you may also be right about the conservatives. But if we don't kick Labour out then what is the alternative?

I voted for this government and continued to vote for them up until last year but never again. Over the last 20 years I've seen employment rights vanish. Two governments both Labour and Conservative both following the same agenda of completely destroying workers rights.

With no rights and no security the British worker has been left to compete with cheaper immigrant workforce which in turn has driven many working people over to the BNP. Brown and his obsession with keeping inflation down betrayed the working classes by undercutting their pay packets by introducing the concept of a global mobile workforce.

Brown also refused to include house prices into the inflationary index and as a result we've had artificially low inflation because the true cost of living has been hidden. Rent and Mortgages now consume more than 50% of people incomes and we wonder why rising energy and food prices are having such an impact.

Labour have messed up and it has taken the collapse of the global credit markets to highlight this. We are not fit to weather the storm as Brown would have us believe.

On all accounts the work classes of this country have been completely screwed over. But I have a stark warning. It's spreading and soon this betrayal will spread to the professions so unless this country stands together and fights this then I'm afraid we are all in for a hard time. Just look at the way Ryan Air is treating its Pilots, unheard of 20 years ago. No profession is safe.

4:23 am, September 06, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just to give you some idea of how out of touch SOME labour mps are:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/2684774/David-Blunkett-says-people-should-work-until-they-are-incapacitated.html

I get the feeling that Labour are giving up on the welfare state?

While I wish to work for as long as possible, bad health will almost certainly mean that I will not.

5:44 am, September 06, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Melton Egerton Ward is obviously full of masochists

10:12 am, September 06, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Labour out of touch? Never.
How about Darling going on about people working for a 1/3 of their life! He is an imbecile. Maybe if you are a typical Labour party member with 25 years in education, 25 years filling your pockets at tax payers expense and 25 years making peoples life a misery as a local councillor. I cant wait for the next General election and the destruction of the Labour Party.

10:18 am, September 06, 2008

 
Blogger Mark Still News said...

We need John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn to run this party or the Tories will get back in and smash the min wage and what tiny concessions given to us after a fight. I agree that Labour is now crap, but just getting them out is not the answer. The Liberal Democrats are crap to, look how they run councils, privatising everything and raising their own councillor salaries and expenses well above inflation?

3:07 pm, September 06, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mark, you're not leaving a lot of options are you. So we carry on voting Labour because we hope they might actually change.

Unfortunately that's not how people think or vote. At the moment they are very pissed off and very unlikely to vote Labour and very likely to vote conservative as a means of punishing Labour.

4:04 pm, September 06, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Minimum wage! Don't make me laugh. Two prosecutions since it was introduced. Under 21's only get an slave wage of £3.40 per hour. It's a joke and one of Labour's crowning achievements of 11 years in power.

5:53 pm, September 06, 2008

 
Blogger Mark Still News said...

You are right there is not much options and as I said about the Min wage it was a tiny concession that was fought for. True the Min wage is a joke. What are the other options at the moment?
1. Conservative
2. Liberal Dem
3. UK Independent Party
4. Greens
5. Respect
6. CPGB
7. BNP
8. Monster raving Loonies
And lots of other Parties.

I would consider options 5 or 6, but these Parties don't have the same amount of funding, as the leading parliamentary Parties.
Of course Labour is crap, but it won't help us getting the Tories back will it? What is the Alternative?

Revolution?!!! The trouble is they would call us Trotsky nutters!!

With hindsight Was the Militant tendency correct in the 1980's?

11:36 pm, September 06, 2008

 
Blogger Mark Still News said...

The prattish x minister who reckons we should not retire. Errr what about the young people, do they go on a waiting list for a job, they would have to stay on at School until they are 35 waiting for some poor over worked geriatric to drop dead. Employers would have to recruit carers to look after the workforce. No offence meant to old people though as we all get there far to quickly, one day your a teen and many days later a pensioner.What about Glasgow, the average age is 63-do they get a refund?
Sorry Luke for taking so much space on your blog, thanks for setting up this service!

11:52 pm, September 06, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am not Labour. I am not Conservative. I am not a card-carrying supporter of either party, that is.

I read your blog because it offers an insight into what the Labour Party is thinking. That is privileged and fascinating.

You come across as a decent fella. I would share a pint and possibly think "Fuck it, he's ok, I'll vote for him".

The problem is we're well past bedtime on that point. The leader is a klutz. The economy is up the swannee.

Several of the key policies, most notably education in Hackney, are demonstrably shite.

Show us the way, Luke. It ain't Brown. He's a disaster. There must come a point when enough is enough and you have to ditch the klutz because he'll sink everyboby otherwise.

I'm really worried that someone like Cameron is day by day being given a mandate to do what the fuck he likes.

12:44 am, September 07, 2008

 
Blogger Mark Still News said...

At least the NLP did attract a better class of people rather than those Proletariat beasts from the masses, that couldn't tell a Claret from a Bordeaux?

11:59 am, September 07, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've just heard on the news that the US government has bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This makes the US tax payer liable for over £2,900 billion dollars. So the US has done the same as the British government with respect to NR.

While I can understand any government taking steps to prevent economic turmoil I find the idea of using tax payers money to bail out the banks very worrying.

What ever your feelings on the New World Order this is surely an attempt to preserve the current one. This is a very dangerous and worrying move.

10:25 pm, September 07, 2008

 
Blogger Mark Still News said...

The US government has bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This makes the US tax payer liable for over £2,900 billion dollars. So the US has done the same as the British government with respect to NR.

Very Dodgy stuff indeed!!
The capitalists now only use free market policies when it suits them?

3:34 pm, September 08, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

At what point will these banks be returned to the private sector....will we even be told.

This is a massive money laundering scheme using tax payers money.

Most of the stuff concerning these banks is being hidden away under the 100 year official secrets act. For all we know the money may never be paid back.....

5:23 pm, September 08, 2008

 
Blogger Mark Still News said...

The Mafia is at it again?

5:31 pm, September 08, 2008

 
Blogger Mark Still News said...

True the New Labour Government is shit

But a Tory Government would be double shit!!

What does one prefer shit or shit twice?

2:11 am, September 13, 2008

 
Blogger Mark Still News said...

bankingcrisis@parliament.uk Ask the Chancellor a question on the banking crisis
What's this all about?

The Treasury Committee is asking members of the public to send in questions they would like to see put to the Chancellor, the Governor of the Bank of England and the Chairman of the Financial Services Authority at an urgent inquiry into the banking crisis.

How to submit a question

bankingcrisis@parliament.uk

E-mail questions under 100 words to bankingcrisis@parliament.uk if you wish to remain anonymous, please state clearly at the beginning of your email.

These can be submitted up to 48 hours before the hearing, which will take place on Mon 3 November 2008 - so get all questions in before 4pm on Sat 1 Nov.

The Chairman of the Committee has said:

"This inquiry will take a fundamental look at the causes of the present banking crisis, the current responsibilities of the banks and the Government to the taxpayer, and the future shape of the financial and regulatory landscape.

"Taxpayers are naturally very concerned about the scale of this investment. The Committee hopes that by providing people with the chance to have us put their questions to those in charge, we can provide a constructive way of engaging the public on a matter of such deep concern to the whole country."

Will my question definitely get answered?

The Committee has said that not all questions submitted can be guaranteed to be asked at the inquiry, so there is a chance your question will not be put to the panel.

Please don't stop let this stop you asking a question though, there is a chance yours could be used.

10:20 am, October 27, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Rover Bosses crooks, but they are getting away with it!

And under a Labour Government no less.

This makes depressing reading. Not just did they pocket millions but the cost the country millions by sacking thousands of skilled workers and chucking them on the dole.
Personally I feel that there was a strong case for the company to be put in public hands. A real Labour Government would have done but unfortunately with cries of 'remember what it was like in the 70s' New Labour left it to the market.

That brings me to the banks..............

4:46 pm, September 15, 2009

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Women are not fit to lead parties, they should be at home cooking and doing sex duties for their husbands!

Mrs Thatcher got carried away with Libertarianism and shut down Great Britain's industrial base and coal mines, she was a traitor and weakened our great Nation!

3:20 pm, December 29, 2010

 

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