Cllr. Cooke’s Blog.

Having returned from a short post-election camping trip I’ve been catching up on the news. I’ve been rather struck by the slants on local election coverage in our local papers.

From stories in the MEN:

“In Greater Manchester, the Lib Dems retained control of Rochdale and Stockport but failed to make significant inroads elsewhere.”

“The Conservatives took control of Bury and made major gains in Salford and Wigan on a night of election misery for Labour nationwide.”

In Salford the Lib Dems aimed to take two seats and defend two against Labour. Labour had set Claremont as their top target and poured money and effort into it; bussing in activists from around the region and involving the resources of the MP’s office. We took our two targets and held comfortably.

The Conservatives targeted five seats and gained three - the had little to defend and were incredibly disappointed to miss out on Kersal, which proved much less close than last year’s election (mainly down to Peter Connor’s personal vote and links with the Jewish community).

So, we gain two seats (total now ten) and the Tories gain three (total now thirteen) - how does that translate into major gains for the Tories and a failure to make significant inroads for us?

The MEN’s David Ottewell wrote both the stories that I drew the two quotes from - it’s hard not to see a definite slant in his election coverage.

I haven’t bothered taking note of the overall totals, but the election results for Salford are now in. We acheived our targets, the Tories lost out on a couple of theirs and Labour had a terrible night.

We gained Swinton South on a very strong result. Ex Councillor Burgoyne and Barbara Keeley MP were very ungracious in defeat, with Val saying - ‘you can’t beat lies’! Given their material in the ward, this was pretty rich.

We also gained Langworthy with a great result.

Claremont and Weaste and Seedley we defended and held strongly - despite Claremont being Labour’s top target and an enormous amount of money and effort expended by them. Norman was happy to have lost his bet with one of our activists that he’d win by over 500 votes.

As predicted, Labour were keen to blame all of their misfortune on the 10p tax rate and national issues!

Tories gained Walkden South, Eccles and Cadishead, but were very disappointed to lose ground in Kersal (Peter Connor’s personal vote saved Labour there) and to miss out on Irlam.

On Irlam - this ward is now home to a new political force in Salford, as the Community Action Party gave Roger Jones a huge kicking and took the ward.

Lib Dem +2
Lab -6
Con +3
CAP +1

Elsewhere, I’m delighted that Jane Brophy is back on Trafford council after taking the seat off the Tories (second time lucky).

Manchester was a mixed bag - very disappointed that we missed out on Chorton and as predicted the Greens lost their only seat to Labour. I’m not sure of the result yet, but I think we’re up one overall.

It’s polling day - so this is going to be a short post as I’m about to go out leafleting. I’m glad it’s nearly over as I’m exhausted and my studies have suffered.

I’ve got high hopes that we’ll pick up a couple of seats this year (and hold on to the ones we’re defending). All in all, it’s likely to be a bad night for Labour with the Tories nipping at their heels too and the possibility that they’ll loose as many as seven seats. We’ll see in a few hours.

I’m off.

This election is getting more and more bizzare. First the Divisional Commander for the police in Salford asked us not to distribute leaflets featuring a picture of one of his officers - which we were happy to oblige him on as there seemed to have been some confusion over permissions and police rules. Then we discovered that Labour had been making much greater use of police officers on their leaflets without complaint (see Tory councillor Lindley’s blog).

Now the divisional commander has written to a colleague demanding that we not distribute any leaflets that quote: “may contain pictures or references to Greater Manchester Police“. He’s also been demanding to know if unidentifiable officers from stock art photos are members of the force. That would make the pictures of Cllr. Norman Owen outside Pendleton Police station (right) and the picture of Nick Clegg MP and Manchester Withington Lib Dem John Leech MP (at the end of this post) forbidden (you can probably tell that I’m not paying much heed to the instruction).

Now I’m sure the divisional commander must be fairly conversant with the law of the land, so I’m puzzled as to what authority he believes he has to prevent anyone from making reference to the Greater Manchester Police in a leaflet! We’re really going to have have a meeting to clear this up after the elections are over - because from where I’m sitting it looks like Labour have a free hand pepper their leaflets with pictures of named police officers, whilst we are having absurd attempts at censorship levelled at us. I can perfectly understand that there might be cause for complaint if we tried to imply an endorsement of the candidate - but that’s never been the case. All in all, it’s a very strange affair indeed.

Councillor Merry has called comments from Cllr. Owen, my group leader: “appalling attack on [the Chief Executive of Salford Council’s] personal integrity and professional ability”. So readers can judge for themselves, here are the comments referred to:

“…[the appointment of a regeneration overlord] is an admission by the chief executive that present policies are failing.

At chief executive level and Labour leadership level I am not convinced we have the right leadership to deliver for the people of this city…”

An appalling attack? Apparently both the Conservative and Labour leaders think so - I remain unconvinced by Cllr. Merry’s indignation and threats. What do you think?

Politics can be pretty unpleasant sometimes – no time more so than at elections. I’ve been reminded of this a few times recently.

Yesterday the first batch of postal ballots was opened at the council and I bumped into the Conservative candidate for Kersal. No sooner had I wished him a good afternoon, shook his hand and asked him how he was doing then he immediately began telling me how much he disliked Liberal Democrats. Not our policies; not our ideology; not even specific politicians – but everyone who happens to be a party member. Not that I care much for his opinion mind – he did after all come to Salford after resigning in disgrace from Hackney council.

Then today I stumbled across a couple of rather vitriolic and unpleasant posts on Labour activist Chris Paul’s journal (well, a couple among many there to be honest).

Now I’ not really much of a fan of either the Labour Party or the Conservatives – but by and large it’s their policies and ideology I have an issue with, and yes, I admit that I don’t like a number of their politicians either. But that doesn’t mean I hate them, or think they’re all wicked, or all alike. In fact, there are a several Labour and Tory politicians in Salford whom I find likeable and whom I have respect for.

So what is it about politics that fosters a gang-like need to caricature our political foes and convince ourselves that because we disagree with them that they must either be evil, misguided or stupid (I’ll hold my hands up here - I’m pretty sure I’ve done this once or twice myself before regaining a sense of perspective)? Personally, I think it’s important that people in power always hold the possibility in their mind that they might be wrong and keep themselves open to persuasion, argument and evidence. Somehow I think that the faith-like conviction that a particular party or ideology has the answers to every social ill is dangerous and foolish and is what leads to lots of this nastiness and dogmatic parochialism.

Sadly, there are too few politicians in any of the parties who are willing to see their opponents as the genuine committed people that they generally are, and instead de-humanise them and turn them into cartoon bad-guys.

I’m really looking forward to the end of the election period.