Cllr Iain Lindley - Salford City Councillor for Walkden South Ward
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!
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?
Interesting to listen to Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg trying to spin the results yesterday - he talked about the Conservatives making no progress in (I paraphrase, I’ve been trying to find the video and haven’t yet succeeded) the “big important northern cities”.
Clearly the Liberal Democrat leadership do not feel that Salford, where we gained 3 seats and polled as many votes as Labour across the City, is an important northern City. Presumably the Liberal Democrats are happy to talk down to other northern Cities like Wakefield (7 Conservative gains) and Sunderland (5 Conservative gains).
The Salford Liberal Democrats had a decent night on Thursday, gaining 2 seats from Labour and holding on to the 2 wards they were defending, so it must be a real kick in the teeth to hear how dismissive their Party Leader is about the City in which we all live.
I’m delighted by the results from across the country, but I’d particularly pleased that three friends and colleagues have been elected.
In Chester, a friend of mine from University Tom Parry was elected to the City ward of the new Cheshire West authority. Tom missed out on election to Chester City Council by a handful of votes last year and I’m delighted that he has been successful this time.
Closer to home, some excellent news from Wigan. James Grundy has been elected to the Lowton East ward on an unbelievable swing, and Sean Ell has been elected as the new Conservative Councillor for nearby Astley Mosley Common. James and Sean are the first Conservative Councillors in east Wigan (Leigh and Tyldesley) for three decades and I am absolutely over the moon that their hard work has paid off. Fantastic.
Congratulations to all our successful Conservative candidates across the country.
On Tuesday, Fraser Nelson from the Spectator spent some time in Salford and Bury with Chris Grayling MP (Shadow Secretary of State for Work & Pensions) and local activists. This was Chris’s second visit to Salford this year, and although he’s a southern MP I believe his father used to work for Bridgewater Estates and he knows Salford and the surrounding area very well.
His article makes for an interesting read - you can view it in full on the Spectator website.
Labour MP and junior Minister Angela Smith announced she was resigning over the abolition of the 10p tax rate… and then changed her mind and decided she quite liked the ministerial salary after all.
Quite aside from the bizarre dithering, Ms Smith is a Treasury Minister (PPS to Yvette Cooper, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and yet it appears to have taken her a whole year to realise that abolishing the lowest tax band means those on the lowest incomes pay more - the changes were announced by Gordon Brown in his last budget in 2007. What sort of people do we have running the country now?
Incidentally, a number of people have raised the 10p band on the doorstep. Labour have taken their core voters for granted since they got into Government, and now they are hitting them where it hurts in the pocket. Labour voters who have been let down have the chance to send a message to Gordon Brown on 1st May - by voting Conservative and evicting their hopeless Labour Councillors.
An encouraging post on ConservativeHome - there will be more Conservative candidates than Labour or Liberal Democrat candidates in the elections on 1st May. This is a real boost and makes a mockery of the line peddled by Labour and the Liberal Democrats about Conservative strength in the north - a huge chunk of the elections this year are in the Metropolitan Boroughs and Wales, and comparatively few in rural district councils.
It is very telling that in most of our areas of electoral weakness, we as Conservatives still give the electorate the opportunity to vote for us. There are one or two areas where we are not quite there, but our candidate base is increasing year on year. By contrast, in their weakest areas, Labour and the Liberal Democrats can’t even be bothered to put candidates up. Only the Conservatives are a truly national party at these local elections and indeed at previous local elections.
Here in Salford we are running a full slate of candidates for the third successive year. You can view a full list of Salford Conservative candidates here. We have an excellent set of candidates representing all strands of Salfordians. They will make excellent Councillors and I hope that local residents will support them on polling day.
As from today, thousands of hard-working taxpayers on lower incomes in Salford and across the country will be paying more income tax, thanks to Gordon Brown’s decision to abolish the 10p tax band. On top of the soaring cost of living under Labour, anyone earning £18000 or under - 5 million families across the country - will be paying more income tax from today.
This is just the latest in a long series of examples of Labour badly letting down those people they claim to represent. Locally and nationally, the Labour Party have taken local residents in Salford for granted. It’s time for a change.
I had an excellent weekend at Spring Forum in Newcastle and Gateshead, and my spirits were lifted further on my return by the YouGov poll in the Sunday Times showing a Conservative lead of 16 points. It’s only one poll and nothing to get carried away about, but very encouraging nonetheless.
It was great to catch up with friends and colleagues who I haven’t seen for a while, as well as enjoying some excellent and weighty contributions from our front bench team.
However, the highlight for me was a fringe event with some very impressive young people involved with the Lewisham Young Mayor project. I was extremely impressed with the work they are doing and I am sure there are plenty of lessons we can learn here in Salford from the way in which Lewisham ensures that the young people have their say.
Strictly Come Doorknocking
Vince Cable MP is about as close as the Liberal Democrats get to a political heavyweight. He’s a long-serving MP, LibDem Deputy Leader and Treasury spokesman, took a high-profile role after Sir Menzies Campbell was knifed as LibDem Leader (and during the Northern Rock debacle) and before entering Parliament he spent many years in a senior role in the private sector.
Yet, here is how the Crewe & Nantwich Liberal Democrats introduce him:
UPDATE: I was going to make a post about Labour’s leaflets as well, but it seems I’ve been beaten to it.