Gateshead car park opens on " World car free day"

 

With a great fanfare (well a Facebook post actually) Gateshead Council have announced the opening of its brand new car park on the Gateshead Quays. At a cost of over £20 million, the multi-storey car park was meant mainly to serve the needs of people coming to the international convention centre. There's only one teeny weeny problem. After years of waiting, the convention centre is still just a cleared site with not a single brick laid. But at least the flashy new car park is now open, having spent a year closed to vehicles because of a dispute with the builder. 

Opening of the car park was impeccably timed. The day of the announcement of its opening was also "World car free day." Oooops.

Meanwhile, spare a thought for the pigeons which have now had to move out of the world's biggest pigeon cree.

RIP Menzies Campbell

 

I was saddened to learn of the passing of former Lib Dem Leader Menzies Campbell last week. He was a gentleman in politics. I first met him in 1991 when he came to Hexham (I was the Parliamentary Candidate) to support a Lib Dem social event. Around 1995 he visited Gateshead as part of our local election campaign and did the same again in 2006 (see photo above).

He became Leader in 2006 but for a variety of reasons, he wasn't cutting through to the electorate despite having dominated the airwaves during the Iraq war. He chose to step down rather than cling to power as so many politicians had done before him.

RIP Menzies Campbell

Full Council photos

 As usual, I had my camera at last week's full council meeting in Gateshead. Here is a selection of photos of the Lib Dem group.

It's still the Lib Dems' fault

Another council meeting in Gateshead (Thursday 25th September) and another opportunity for Labour to blame everything bad on the Lib Dems in Coalition. The Coalition was formed 15 years ago and came to an end 10 years ago. Now it seems, according to Labour claims, the wrongs of the world are still the fault of the Lib Dems, not the current Labour government. The more Labour use their "blame the Lib Dems" line of attack, the more and more absurd they look.

I am just a humble backbench councillor who used to be Leader of the Opposition (I retired as Leader nearly 3 years ago.) Nevertheless Cllr Catherine Donovan, former Labour Deputy Leader, attacks me in nearly every Council meeting, arguing that 15 years ago, I supported calls for us to "live within our means." She seems to think this is something terrible. Yet, she is part of the Council administration that "lives within its means", and is a Labour Councillor whose party is aiming to get the government's finances sorted out so that as a nation we are "living within our means". Behaving as if her needle is stuck, she keeps repeating the same line at meeting after meeting.

If as a nation we don't live within our means, we would end up in a state of bankruptcy. We came close in 2007-10. Before the credit crunch, Cllr Donovan was one of those shouting loudly that the boom was all down to Labour's "sound financial management of the economy." She is strangely quiet on this now.

Meanwhile, I can report that there was strong unity expressed across the Council chamber on a motion tackling racism head on, following the appearance of racist graffiti in Birtley. There were many speakers, all of whom spoke well. I spoke about how the people affected must have felt about being targeted and how violated they must have felt. I was able to illustrate this with my own experiences in the 1980s and 1990s when our home was vandalised by homophobic graffiti and we had to endure physical assaults. 

We can no longer be sure that our liberties can be protected. Given recent events, there is a danger progress could go into reverse.

Campaigning in Kibblesworth

 

Gateshead Lib Dems were out campaigning in Kibblesworth recently. We had 10 members knocking on doors and doing a survey. Alas, I wasn't able to get to the action day as I was writing other Focus newsletters.  My colleagues sent me photos instead!

Back to the Tynesider

 

Gateshead Lib Dems gathering at the Tynesider on Gateshead High Street is getting to be a regular event. Here are some pics I took last night of the most recent get-together.

Also at conference

 

I wasn't the only member from Gateshead to attend conference. Steve Kelly (Ryton) and Jamie Rickelton (Saltwell) also attended. Jamie attends as a steward (he is pictured above). Steve was attending for the first time. Alas, I didn't get round to getting a photo of him in Bournemouth.

Northumberland Reform Punch and Judy Show

There seems to be some significant entertainment value in the Reform group on Northumberland County Council. The party is the official opposition to the ruling Conservative group on the council and is led by Councillor Mark Peart. It appears however that Reform councillors are revolting. They recently passed a vote of no confidence in Cllr Peart. That however was not the career-stopping vote that would otherwise be the case as Cllr Peart remains in place as group leader.

Indeed, not only does Cllr Peart continue to cling to the leadership, he stripped the whip from four Reform councillors who opposed him, those aiming to stand in the hustings to replace Peart are not allowed to meet without permission, and two councillors have resigned the whip in protest. This is more like a Reform Punch and Judy Show than a properly functioning political group. Thank you Reform for entertaining us!

Not advancing far

Earlier this month I wrote a blog post about defections to Advance from Reform. The party set up by former Reform deputy leader Ben Habib is looking to be even more right wing than Reform. All was set for a big launch party in Newcastle on 27th September at a secret location. Alas for Advance, they are not advancing far, or indeed at all. Instead, their big launch has been cancelled for now. 

The Crowne Plaza Hotel, owned by Newcastle City Council (but operated by a third party) has pulled the plug on the event happening in their building on the grounds of health and safety. It has not been explained what the health and safety concerns are though with protesters expected, perhaps the fear of confrontation is enough to deny Advance the keys to the hotel.

One point that strikes me however is that if Advance do ever have their launch party, they could go on to split the right wing vote. Interesting times ahead.

A rerun of an old story

There is speculation that Keir Starmer is to be challenged for the Leadership of the Labour Party. This is something of a familiar story. In 2008 there was talk of Gordon Brown being challenged by Peter Mandelson. Yes you read that right! Quite how this would happen is difficult to explain as Mandelson was no longer eligible to stand for the leadership. Not only was he no longer an MP, he was also a member of the House of Lords, therefore ruling him out completely. Still, this did not stop the speculation.

Then there was the call to challenge Richi Sunak in the twilight months of his government. And the person who was to challenge him? None other than Boris Johnson, the scandal laden former PM who had just resigned as an MP.

So, move on to September 2025 and there is speculation that Starmer is to be challenged. And the challenger is? - Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham who, as with the previous 2 possibilities, is not an MP. To challenge Starmer, Burnham would have to find a seat and, even more challenging, hold it in a by-election. While there was talk of Andrew Gwynne MP stepping down to create a vacancy, we now understand he does not want to give up his Westminster job. Sorry Andy, but you are going to have to stick with the Manchester job instead.

With no one from within the Commons rushing to put themselves forward (at least for now), Starmer is safe. Attention however may shift to the Conservatives. Remember them? They are led by Kemi Badenoch but is she going to be there for much longer. Or, looking at it from another direction, is there going to be a Conservative Party left to lead anyway?

Rule Britannia - the movie!

 

So here it is! Rule Britannia as sung by Lib Dems at the rally on Saturday 20th September at Bournemouth conference.

Bournemouth Conference - more training on beating Labour

Today, I was late for a training session on how to squeeze the vote of opponents. With Labour's vote disintegrating, a few interesting ward results were flung around the meeting. In one ward in Cornwall, the winning candidate got only 19% of the vote. In another ward in Hull, Labour's vote crashed from its normal region of 1000 to 200. Could the same happen in Gateshead? We shall see.

The lunchtime fringe was interesting. Reform have taken up an anti net zero position and are threatening to end energy production from non-fossil fuel sources should they get into Downing Street. The fringe I attended was about the fightback against the anti-environment policies of the Right. I suspect we will hear more about this fightback in the future.

After the fringe I headed for yet another training session, this time about target mail. I'm already working on plans for a batch of target mailings so this session was well timed.

Bournemouth conference - Rule Britannia!

 

As you can see, I am in Bournemouth for the Lib Dem conference. I arrived on Friday evening having endured a seven hour journey by train to London and then picked up the connection at Waterloo. For me, the most important point about conference is the chance to get to training meetings (there must be dozens of them) and indeed, my first event yesterday was to go to a training session (campaigning in Labour leaning areas). There was an inevitable fringe on electoral reform to visit and then the party rally in the evening. This had an unexpected turn. We ended up waving union jacks while Tim Farron gave a speech about patriotism. It went down well and as a person who is fed up with the far right hijacking our national flag, I for one was backing the fight back. 

I keep an eye open at conferences for anything agricultural so after the rally I headed to the National Millers' Association for a reception. Here's a useful question for a pub quiz - what percentage of the wheat we consume is grown in the UK? The answer is 85%. It's a big business operation and we are all in some way dependent on it for one of our staple foods. Not even I grow wheat!

Will the Corbyn Sultana party ever be launched?

Serious questions have to be asked about whether the Your/You/Ewe party will ever be launched. Recent events look more like a political boxing match rather than the launch of a political party. It is not uncommon for there to be divisions and civil wars at the top of political parties. The Your Party however hasn't even launched and yet the "leaders" (Sultana and Corbyn) are already slugging it out with the lawyers waiting on the sidelines.

If I were a betting man (I'm not) I'd put my money of Corbyn and Sultana each launching their own party in their own image. Thoughts of "splitters" spring to mind. 

Congrats Vicky and Christee

Delighted to see fellow Councillor Vicky Anderson marry her girlfriend Christee Ord last week. Congratulations and have amazing lives together. Also well done in achieving Gateshead Council's first all female same sex marriage. Photo above - me with Vicky at her reception in the Cafe Under the Spire in Bensham.