Brown urged to face the music

May 9 2008 by William Green, The Journal

Come and feel our pain, Gordon told

PRIME Minister Gordon Brown has been asked to make a personal visit to Northumberland in the wake of the Labour Party’s savaging by the county’s voters at last week’s council elections.

Labour councillors want him to hear at first hand the experiences of defeated election candidates and local people’s disenchantment with a number of unpopular Government policies.

Blyth Valley Council’s Labour leader Dave Stephens – whose own bid to win a seat on Northumberland’s new unitary council was derailed by the Liberal Democrats on Thursday – has written to the PM inviting him to come to the borough.

Labour lost six seats in Blyth Valley and four in neighbouring Wansbeck to the Liberal Democrats at last week’s poll. In all, the party lost 18 of its 35 seats on the county council and failed dismally in its bid to secure political control of the new council.

The Liberal Democrats ended up as the biggest party with 26 seats, Labour and Conservatives have 17 each and there are seven Independents.

Although the local Labour campaign was riven by bitter in-fighting over all-women candidate shortlists and rivalry between county and district councillors in the selection process, Coun Stephens says much of the blame for the defeat lies with the Government.

"Gordon Brown said after the election results that he is going to listen and lead, so I have formally asked him to come to Blyth so that we can show him what is going on here. This is in response to what we were getting from people on the doorsteps during the election campaign. People are up in arms about the cost of fuel, the 10p tax rate and other issues, and we are getting this day in, day out."

Coun Stephens said all-women shortlists, which saw four senior Labour county councillors defect from the party and stand as Independents last week, had not been a big issue during the campaign. "We didn’t have many people questioning the selection process and that indicates to me it was not an issue for the public.

"It was only an issue for potential Labour candidates who suffered as a result of it."

From the heartland

DURHAM and Labour have been joined together throughout their history, but now election experts are warning that it would not take much at all to see a big change in the county’s politics.

The Labour Party first won over Durham City voters in 1922, when Joshua Ritson was elected MP.

His victory came three years after the Labour Party took control of the county council, which had started in 1889 with a slim Conservative majority.

It has since remained strongly Labour. But there are increasing signs that underneath the headline figures, the electorate in some parts of the county could be preparing to say goodbye to its "chosen" party.

At the last election, City of Durham MP Roberta Blackman-Woods managed to attract fewer votes than the other candidates combined, with more than half of all voters deciding they were fed up with Labour. She holds the seat with a majority of just 3,274.

Dr Gidon corrCohen, lecturer in Government and International Affairs at Durham University, said the image of Durham as the home of Labour was out of touch.

He said: "Even before we look at the current situation, it would be wrong to say most voters have always been on Labour’s side.

"The Conservative Party in the region was reasonably strong even through to the 1970s.

"And there are some parts of the region where the Labour party has seen a drop in support. The first-past-the-post system we have, along with the media representation, creates a false impression of Labour’s strength in Durham.

"If we were to see a change in some seats at the next general election, it might be treated as a surprise and a shock victory but really it would be anything but."

Dr Cohen said the next general election could see some long-held electoral illusions shattered as majorities are reduced and some previously safe seats lost.

"The first-past-the-post system has hidden the spirit and intention behind the electorate.

"It’s actually something of a myth to say that Labour and Durham are inseparable."