Cllr Iain Lindley - Salford City Councillor for Walkden South Ward
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?
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.
We know what to expect from the Labour Party in Government and at a local level. They dither and they find every opportunity to hide away from the views of local people.
Last year, the Labour Government announced their decision to close the maternity and neo-natal units at Salford Royal (Hope) Hospital over the August Bank Holiday weekend. They held a “consultation” over the closure of St George’s High School months ago, and the results of the “consultation” have still not been published.
Now here’s a surprise - the decision on the TIF bid will be available just after the local elections. Our local and national Labour politicians are too cowardly to risk announcing the decision before Greater Manchester goes to the polls, so they bury it until two weeks after the elections - with a full two years before the next chance residents have to vote for their Councillors. It’s a disgrace and Salford residents should use the opportunity to tell our Labour politicians - who are incapable of listening otherwise - exactly what they think by voting them out next Thursday.
Also coming up just after the elections (a complete coincidence, I’m sure) is the announcement on whether any local Post Offices in Salford will have to close. Look out for a Post Office near you.
A day or two ago, David Ottewell made an interesting post about the proposed AGMA constitution.
For those less well-versed in local government jargon, AGMA is the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities, an umbrella organisation made up of the 10 Greater Manchester Councils, and most of the power lies within a meeting of the 10 Council leaders. It seems the Council leaders would (collectively) like a little bit more power, as well as the chance to railroad through certain measures (like, perhaps, the toll tax?) on a qualified majority.
As a backbench Councillor of course I’ve not been privy to this discussion at all. I understand we’ll be having a detailed discussion on the document in the early summer and I look forward to a robust debate. The AGMA document potentially takes decisions about Salford away from Salford residents and it would be completely unacceptable if Labour were to rush this through without proper scrutiny.
On Wednesday I attended two debates on the proposals to introduce a “toll tax” congestion charge in Manchester.
The first was in the Council Chamber, where my colleague Cllr Ian MacDonald and I introduced a motion calling for local residents to be given final say on the toll tax in a referendum. You can read the Advertiser report on the debate online, but needless to say your Labour Councillors voted down any proposals to consult the public in a referendum.
The second debate took place at Methodist Central Hall in Manchester.
It was organised by Kashif Ali of Manchester Conservatives and featured representatives from all three main political parties (Rob Adlard for the Conservatives, Marc Ramsbottom for the Liberal Democrats and Anthony McCaul for Labour) as well as speakers from Manchester Against Road Tolls (MART) and Clean Air Now UK.
What was interesting was that the Labour representatives in Salford and Manchester took completely contradictory positions in support of the congestion charge.
In Manchester, Anthony McCaul did his primary school teachers proud with a very competent reading of a speech clearly prepared and written for him by someone far higher up the Manchester Labour food chain - Pat Karney perhaps or maybe Richard Leese himself. However the speech set out a utopian vision 0f a public transport paradise to justify support for the congestion charging.
Meanwhile in Salford, John Merry and his colleagues put forward a wet lettuce of an amendment, wringing their hands and saying “we can’t decide anything now, we don’t know anything about this at all until the Government tells us”.
This is nonsense - the plans are available online at www.gmfuturetransport.co.uk. The simple truth is that they are too scared to have this debate before the local elections on May 1st.
Like everyone else I am shocked and stunned by the death of Michael Todd, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police. My thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues.
I read David Ottewell’s post on the Manchester Budget Council Meeting with great interest. Not for the comedy typo, amusing as that was (for the record, the Salford Liberal Democrat budget statement managed to spell “February” incorrectly) but rather the amount in the Manchester City Council reserve pot. Let’s look at the figures:
Manchester City Council reserves 2008-9: ~£90 million
Salford City Council reserves 2008-9: £5.3 million
The figures speak for themselves. The reserves are there for a reason - to protect the Council (and more importantly, the residents of the City) against the unexpected, and we live in uncertain times. The economy nationally looks far from certain. Locally, the staff pay claim has yet to be settled, our Government grants for 2009/10 and 2010/11 are even worse than this year’s settlement, and the transfer of housing stock to City West Homes still carries huge financial risk if it is not completed on time.
Salford’s reserves were already dangerously low and our Labour administration intends to plunder them even further. This is sheer irresponsibility.
I was delighted to have the opportunity this afternoon to help the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne MP launch the Conservative Party’s new advertising campaign in Albert Square in Manchester.
The adverts lay out the changes a Conservative Government would make to Britain, and launch a new way to join the Party - as a Friend of the Conservatives.
If you’d like more information about the positive change a new Conservative Government can bring to Britain, or if you’d like to become a Friend of the Conservative Party, click here to visit the Conservative Party website for more information.
What’s the point of Hazel Blears?
No, really. What benefit do communities in her Salford constituency and nearby get from having her as a local Member of Parliament? Let’s look at the evidence.
She’s directly responsible as Communities Secretary for the worst grant settlement to Salford City Council in decades. The Government - of which she is a prominent member - are closing the maternity and neo-natal unit at Salford Royal (Hope) Hospital and as local MP Hazel described this as “good news”. The Government also approved the Council’s shambolic BSF plans which had to be redrafted due to an inability to count and which still involve the closure of one of the best schools in the City. Her department promised massive investment into East Manchester through the supercasino, which has now been withdrawn and replaced by empty promises, lies and spin.
However, good people of Salford, fear not! In the world of Hazel Blears, the closure of hospital wards and good schools, the failure to provide promised investment into Manchester and the inability to provide Salford City Council with a fair settlement are not important issues at all.
Hazel has her focus well and truly set on the issues that matter to local residents in Salford and across Greater Manchester… not schools, hospitals, council services or regeneration, but setting up a childish ambush of the Leader of the Opposition during his visit to Salford Lads’ Club. Bravo Hazel, your constituents will be proud.
You couldn’t make it up.