It seems the Salford Labour website is stuck in a time warp on polling day. Perhaps they are sat in the Civic Centre trying to work out how to turn the clock back…
It was interesting to compare the attitudes of our local Labour MPs at the local election count last week.
Ian Stewart was his usual friendly self - I spoke to him briefly at the start of the night. It was very noticeable that he was the first person there to congratulate and commiserate Labour candidates (see the MEN video of the Irlam declaration) when the results were announced.
Barbara Keeley by contrast seemed almost invisible, maintaining a very low profile and being reportedly rude to any opposition activists who tried to say hello - something noted by Liberal Democrat Councillor Steve Cooke as well as at least one Conservative.
Yet Ian lost out to Barbara in the Labour selection contest for the new Worsley & Eccles South seat. Perhaps he will allow himself a wry smile if - as current polls suggest - Keeley is beaten by the Conservative candidate at the next General Election.
(Hazel Blears, incidentally, was not at the count, having been summoned to the television studios to give the view from the bunker)
David Ottewell has published an interesting article about Greater Manchester-wide vote shares in today’s Manchester Evening News. It’s also available in handy bar-chart form on his blog.
Rather makes a mockery of the Labour and Liberal Democrat spin about Conservative performance in the north and Greater Manchester in particular.
Over at Vote UK there’s been a lot of discussion about stand-out results in various areas. I had a quick run through some local results and here’s my pick for a stand-out result in Greater Manchester:
Wigan MBC, Lowton East Ward
Jonathan Miller (Community Action) 1418 (43.17%)
Susan Greensmith (Labour) 1085 (33.03%)
Jeanette Leigh (Conservative) 782 (23.81%)
Majority 333 - Community Action Hold
James Grundy (Conservative) 1972 (53.69%, +29.88)
Sandy Franzen (Community Action) 943 (25.67%, -17.49)
James Cowley (Labour) 758 (20.64%, -12.39)
Majority 1029 - Conservative Gain From Community Action
A truly astonishing victory. A win would have been a great result, a win on that scale is almost unbelievable - especially when you consider that there has not been a Conservative Councillor in Leigh for three decades prior to Thursday night!
What’s your stand-out result this year?
There will be a New Prospect Housing walkabout in the Athens Drive area on Thursday 15th May. I’ve not received full details as yet but the walkabouts usually start at 10am on the corner of Athens Drive and Bridgewater Road.
If you are a resident on Athens Drive, Corinth Walk, Oracle Court, Sparta Avenue or Delphi Avenue and would like to raise an issue, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me or come out to talk to officers and Councillors on the walkabout day.
On 10th June, the Post Office announces “Network Change” proposals for Greater Manchester. In real English that means “Post Office closures”. I’ll be taking a close interest in the proposals for Salford, as I’m sure will local residents across the City.
It’s interesting to look at the consultation programme on the Post Office website. With the solitary exception of Merseyside, all the English metropolitan areas have had the announcements on Post Office closures scheduled for this summer, after the local elections. What do all the metropolitan areas have in common? They all had local elections last week.
Doesn’t that tell you all you need to know about our spineless Labour Government?
Over at his MEN blog, David Ottewell has posed himself a question - was the congestion charge a factor in the local election results? David doesn’t think so, but I’m not convinced by some of his reasons.
Yes, a targeted campaign against Roger Jones, chairman of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority, saw him lose his seat. But his seat was already pretty marginal.
It’s certainly true that Irlam was already a marginal seat, but that doesn’t account for a result which sent shockwaves around the counting hall. Roger didn’t just lose. The Labour vote share dropped 15% to a distant third place and Roger got only 23% of the vote - in a ward that has elected Labour Councillors continuously for three decades.
It’s quite conceivable that Roger would have lost had he been a run-of-the-mill backbencher rather than the Chairman of GMPTA - but I suspect the margin would have been an awful lot narrower.
Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester city council, is another “face” of the transport innovation fund bid. He won on Thursday, by 1,200-odd votes. Is that result, too, a referendum on the congestion charge? If not, why not?
Sir Richard represents one of the safest wards in Greater Manchester for any party. Trying to draw conclusions about the congestion charge from Labour performance in Crumpsall is like trying to draw conclusions about the popularity of Boris Johnson by looking at local election results in Knightsbridge.
Bolton council was a major Conservative target. They failed to make significant gains, even though they did very well elsewhere. The Tory group in Bolton left people in no doubt they are opposed to congestion charging.
Whilst the MEN coverage of the local elections this year has on the whole been very good, I thought the coverage given to the elections in Bolton did not reflect the state-of-play at the start of the election period. Thanks to a strong performance in 2004, Conservatives were defending three wards that had been won by Labour in both 2006 and 2007. To hold on to two of those wards and still make a net gain of 1 Councillor is an excellent result. Indeed, Labour will have been bitterly disappointed not to make further gains and buck the regional trend.
Spent this morning gardening with volunteers from Friends of Walkden Station - hauling 3 huge planters together with ballast and compost up the steps and then adding the plants.
It was hard work but well worth the effort as the end results look excellent.
A huge thank-you to all the FOWS volunteers and particularly to Angela and Neil who were co-ordinating the gardening efforts!
A few comments on the Walkden South election result. I’m delighted that Nicky has joined Les and I on the Council, and that a ward which had never elected a Conservative before 2004 now has a full complement of 3 hard-working Conservative Councillors.
A huge thank-you to all local residents in Walkden South who turned out to support Nicky - and a big pat on the back to all residents who turned out to vote. At 40.3% only one ward (Worsley) had a higher turnout in the entire City of Salford.
CAVANAGH, Tommy (BNP) 336
OGDEN, Pauline (Liberal Democrat) 458
RYAN, Brendan Patrick (Labour) 815
TURNER, Nicky (Conservative) 1649
Turnout 40.3%
Conservative Majority 834
Crewe & Nantwich
I made a flying visit to Crewe yesterday evening to support our excellent local by-election candidate Edward Timpson, who I’ve just noticed has a blog on the Crewe & Nantwich Conservative website.
Morale is high and the campaign seems to be exceptionally well organised. I’ll be back in Cheshire later this week - not today unfortunately as I have commitments here - and I’d urge all Conservatives reading this post to do just the same!