Salford Labour have got themselves into a spin over Peel Holdings – there’s a bit of a rant on their website about Peel and the Liberal Democrats to follow up comments made by several Labour Councillors at Wednesday’s Council Meeting.
Personally, I find the idea of Peel working with the Liberal Democrats to unseat Roger Jones more than a little fanciful – the LibDems struggle to even nominate paper candidates in Irlam & Cadishead and last year came a poor fourth in both Irlam and Cadishead wards. Local residents in Irlam and Cadishead fed up with the lack of representation provided by their Labour Councillors should vote Conservative on 1st May.
The most interesting comments on Wednesday were made by Cadishead Labour Councillor Keith Mann, who compared meeting with Peel Holdings to “supping with the Devil”, and even went so far as to produce a long spoon to illustrate his metaphor. It was clearly not an off-the-cuff remark.
Presumably this is a completely different company to the Peel Holdings who are key partners for Salford City Council in a number of flagship projects, including the BBC move to mediacity:uk at Salford Quays. I don’t know whether Peel are yet aware of Councillor Mann’s comments, but he is a senior Labour Councillor and I would be very interested to hear whether the Labour leadership condones and supports his remarks.
I also assume that, as Labour clearly object to political parties being involved with Peel, they will be removing all references to mediacity:uk from their election literature. What do you think?
May I just second Iain’s advice that residents of Irlam and Cadishead would do well to vote Conservative as the only realistic alternative to Labour – both in the sense that Tory councillors would represent them better and also from a tactical voting/realities of chance-of-winning consideration.