A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.
After a couple of bumper crops, there was just the one council by-election yesterday:
posted by Luke Akehurst at 10:33 am
Labour MP for North Durham since 2024. Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012 and since 2020. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Dad. Unite and GMB union member. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.
21 Comments:
Despite Labour's troubles, the Tories have still not won over the electorate. Polls are saying 'hung Parliament' rather than 'Tory landslide'. If Cameron gets in, he'll most likely be a one-term wonder. Good.
7:31 am, October 31, 2009
Cameron will be even more right wing anti working class than Thatcher or Blair ever was
12:17 pm, October 31, 2009
Mark - Ignoring that nutter Arnolds (typical) opinion no one can be more anti working class that Brown and Liebour.
10p tax, council houses, immigration to destroy local jobs (British Jobs for British workers)taxes through the roof, NI increase, National Debt - it goes on and on.
Always the same - blame someone else. And as Labour voters why would you want this bunch in?
It's OK for you young London based idealists but in the real world things are dramatically different.
1:11 pm, October 31, 2009
Although N-L have been a great disappointment Blair and Brown betrayed us by continuing the Neo Conservative economy,but they have not been as bad as the Tories. In the 1980's it was much worse than it is now, we had 8 million unemployed from the early to late 1980's. During the 60's you could sense the despair and hopelessness and thousands of working people committed suicide. The Country became a police state and if you voiced an opinion not favourable to the Tories you were put on the economic league list of Subversives blacklisted from employment. GCHQ staff were banned from joining a trade Union how much more Fascist has it been than that here?
The mess we are in now was caused by the Tories who laid the foundations of a finance and service industry economy by selling off all our good assets and productive industries!
We import Steel and coal for our power stations yet this was in abundance before the Tories vandalised industry! The Tories used North sea Oil money to run an economy based on high unemployment!
4:02 pm, October 31, 2009
Vote the Tories if you want Fascism in the UK?
4:05 pm, October 31, 2009
Mark come on here, get real.
If this isn't a surveillance based police state then I've never lived in one.
There are money grabbing speed cameras and CCTV watching our every move.
42 day detention and compulsory ID cards or the Terrorism Act to detain an 86 year old Labour Party member at their conference.
Protests are not allowed - the fascist police in London kettling people going about their lawful business, Brazilians being shot by the MET, cover ups, huge databases - people held without trial or being told why they languish in prison.
Protesters at the G20 KILLED by the police who then try to cover up the truth...David Kelly...Iraq War...
An idiot member of the BNP, legitimately elected (shame on Labour for being so unpopular) is almost prevented from going on QT by fascist thugs outside the BBC.
I can understand a person having a political opinion that differs from the mainstream opinion of the general public - in other words with Labour being the most unpopular government since records began why support them?
As for the unemployment I marched against the poll tax and supported Peter Law in Abertillery delivering leaflets for years and suddenly the PLP tried to foist a woman on us. Same with Rod Morgan in the Welsh Assembly.
This government are a disgrace Mark and quite why people who believe in real labour support them is beyond me. They should be held to account by the party - if not the electorate will do it for us and I fear it will be a carnage :-(
5:18 pm, October 31, 2009
Sunday Telegraph has Cons 42% (up 2), Labour 25% (down 2), reported on Political Betting.com.
You're fucked.
11:51 pm, October 31, 2009
For goodness sake You get real!
In the Thatcherite 1980's GCHQ staff were banned from the right to join a trade Union!
During the 1984-1985 Miners strike some villages in Kent and up North were under police siege people were restricted and demobilised and were not allowed to travel this is not happening now is it?
12:03 am, November 01, 2009
Mark you *really* need to get real.
Some taxi drivers had concrete blocks thrown on them from off motorway bridges and you complain about GCHQ Unions Mark?
And the state sponsored killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraq civilians?
David Kelly?
G20 protests? 42 days? ID cards?
And all you can go on about is the union at GCHQ?
Mark you need help man....
10:47 am, November 01, 2009
Anonymous said...And the state sponsored killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraq civilians?
The Iraq war was about oil and controlling the price of it.Would you have been prepared for Petrol rationing had not the government sent troops into Iraq?
Would you have complained at the high cost and quality of fuel?
Did you go on the anti war demo's as I did?
Do you drive a car and have you cut down on its use?
1:07 pm, November 01, 2009
Mark,
Notice you didn't answer the 'G20 protests? 42 days? ID cards?' bits - whatever.
The cheapest solution to the oil price was to simply buy the crude from Saddam. There would have been no rationing - the Saudis have the worlds oil and the Iranians.
The high price of oil is down to the taxes the government charges so they can allow people like McNaulty and Co to steal our money for their extravagances.
The reason this lot went to war was their slavish support of the Neo Cons and George Bush in the States.
Bliar lied to Parliament about his "45 minutes" before WMD could hit the west and the rest followed.
As someone who was on the war protests why would you still vote Labour?
As for driving a car why shouldn't I? I pay VAT on the purchase, tax and VAT on the fuel, Road Tax to use the roads, VAT on MOT's and IPT on Insurance.
And we have no public transport that coincides with my shift pattern - plus the estate I work on is 3 miles out of town from both bus and train stations.
Your point on driving a car was...
2:23 pm, November 01, 2009
How old are you Mark?
2:25 pm, November 01, 2009
To Anonymous 1
Notice you didn't answer the 'G20 protests? 42 days? ID cards?' bits - whatever.
These were Tory ideas and do you think your wonderful; Tories would not have done the same?
To Anonymous 2
Enough to remember how bad it was under the Tories between 79-97!
8:30 pm, November 01, 2009
You could always cycle those 3 miles and may find it cheaper and quicker than the Car!
If more people stopped driving private cars then no middle eastern Country could hold us to ransom!
8:32 pm, November 01, 2009
Mark perhaps if this useless government actually started looking at environmental forms of renewable energy instead of their usual double standards eg Runway 3 at Heathrow etc then I'd listen to them.
They are a bunch of dishonest useless incompetent dithering twats.
End to boom and bust, leading the world out of recession and on and on.
Unemployment through the roof, the country possibly on the way to the IMF (again) - all Labour Governments end the same way and it's always someone elses fault.
I ask again Mark why support them?
Why support something you disagree with? Or are you secretly a NL fan?
8:48 pm, November 01, 2009
Anonymous said...
I ask again Mark why support them?
Why support something you disagree with? Or are you secretly a NL fan?
I have not mentioned that I support the far right wing N-L, but I do support Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell campaigns for a real Labour party!
9:01 pm, November 01, 2009
The problem is that there is no real alternative. I wish there was. I don't feel inclined to vote for anyone
6:08 pm, November 02, 2009
I can't see a hung parliament at all...anyone who believes that is fooling themselves. I can remember tory supporters saying the same thing just before the major government got kicked.
The next 15 years will be dominated by a conservative government...I have no doubt at all.
The dilemma lots of people are having is that they don't like Labour or conservative. Both are pretty unappealing.
11:41 pm, November 02, 2009
Hi Rich,
I'm not sure now - two things spring to mind regarding a Hung Parliament. Firstly the Hunting Bill and Lisbon.
As now ex-Labour voters there is NO WAY we'll vote for any party that is even going to consider wasting time on hunting - hate it for class reasons.
Secondly Lisbon. I want a vote and like Matthew Paris was going to vote 'yes'.
The left seem to be panicking about a vote but that's just a lack of discussion on the matter.
They don't realise it but the Tory vote will take a hammering if they go ahead on hunting and not on Lisbon.
After Blair and "We wont bring in tuition fees and have legislated against it" type comments how is Cameron different with his "Cast Iron" guarantee?
Not sure who there is to vote for, certainly not this crowd - they've had their chance and blew it.
8:14 am, November 03, 2009
Hunting for me has nothing to do with class. I'm from a farming background and see nothing wrong with killing an animal for food. I do however, feel that hunting foxes and deer with dogs is barbaric and Labour were right to ban this so called sport.
I will point out though dogs being dogs and in particular working dogs love to kill the prey they were designed to catch. I have two collies....which love to chase and herd and a pack of terriers which love to kill. The terriers often go missing on walks and return home with a rat, rabbit or even a fox....this instinct is very difficult to train out of working animals. I think a lot of people need to realise that dogs in the countryside often have uses and my terriers are used to kill rats, rabbits and when needed a fox. If a fox is taking chickens then the fox terrier is used to control that fox problem. This is however, leagues away from chasing a poor old fox with a pack of hounds.
7:49 pm, November 03, 2009
As regards the Huntingdon North ward That's actually a very good result for Labour in the circumstances, but a ward we held many moons ago.
The party barely exists outside the town there, and we are lucky to get 50 votes in most wards. Look to Peterborough too, where we used to control the Council, and now have a grand total of 2 Councillors.
8:59 pm, November 05, 2009
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