Council by-elections

There were five yesterday:

Bicester North Ward, Cherwell DC. Con hold. Con 443 (65.9%, +7), Lab 130 (19.3%, -5.8), LD 99 (14.7% -1.3). Swing of 6.4% from Lab to Con since May this year.

Penrhynderdeuth Ward, Gwynedd CC. PC hold. PC 515 (62.5%, +4), Llais G 219 (26.6%, -14.9), Ind 90 (10.9%, +10.9). Swing of 9.5% from Llais G to PC since 2008.

Diffwys/Maenofferen Ward, Gwynedd CC. PC gain from Llais G. PC 219 (58.9%, +9.4), Llais G 153 (41.1%, -9.4). Swing of 9.4% from Llais G to PC since 2010.

Bishops Castle Division, Shropshire UA. LD hold. LD 801 (53.4%, +5.7), Con 544 (36.3%, -4.2), Lab 80 (5.3%, +5.3), Green 74 (4.9%, -6.9). Swing of 5% from Con to LD since 2009.

Nascot Ward, Watford BC.LD hold. LD 1021 (48.5%, +2.9), Con 818 (38.8%, +2.5), Lab 134 (6.4%, -5.3), Green 133 (6.3%, -0.1). Swing of 0.2% from Con to LD since Mat this year.

At Conference

A proud moment for me as a Labour member - the privilege of chairing Annual Conference on Monday afternoon:

Some people on the Hard Left weren't happy to see me there though:

http://home.freeuk.net/clpd/cb2011wed.pdf

"Campaign Briefing" handed out to delegates by the left said:

"Tight elections for the six CLP seats on the NEC are due in 2012.
Surprise, surprise: the sole CLP representative whose profile is being boosted by chairing a Conference session is the very one who only just scraped onto the NEC from the right-wing slate last time. Conference has the right to expect the selection of chairs to be non-partisan. Centre-left
NEC members from the alternative slate should also be chairing Conference. They all have larger mandates from the membership than Luke Akehurst, who is well known for his strident support for the invasion of Iraq and is allegedly the joint secretary of the hard-right (and shadowy)
organisation, Labour First. The latter organisation puts together the rightwing slate."

How silly and sectarian and contrary to the comradely and collegiate way members of the NEC treat each other, right or left. It's also an insult to the seriousness with which I took my duty to chair fairly and non-partisanly. But thanks for the free publicity guys.

Council by-election

Only one last night:

Staithe Ward, Fenland DC. Con 228 (42%, -13.1) Lab 166 (30.6%, +1.8) LD 90 (16.6%, +16.6) UKIP 39 (7.2%, -8.9) Ind 20 (3.7%, +3.7). Swing of 7.5% from Con to Lab since May this year.

Green Haze

Thoughts from me and Linda about fighting the Greens (this is the kind of thing we chat about at home), from the new edition of Progress magazine:

http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2011/09/22/green-haze/

More League Tables

More league tables from Total Politics.

I'm #2 in the list of councillor blogs:

http://www.totalpolitics.com/blog/258497/top-35-councillor-blogs-2011.thtml

and #23 in the overall list of political bloggers:

http://www.totalpolitics.com/blog/259042/top-100-uk-political-bloggers.thtml

though a lowly #87 in the list of blogs (as opposed to bloggers) reflecting the fact that most of my posts are now on Progress and Labourlist:

http://www.totalpolitics.com/blog/259027/top-100-uk-political-blogs-2011.thtml

NEC Report

My NEC report is online on the Progress website:

http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2011/09/21/nec-report-%E2%80%93-september-2011/

Labourlist column

My Labourlist column this week is about the Refounding Labour proposals:

http://www.labourlist.org/luke-akehurst-refounding-labour

Council by-elections

There were seven by-elections last night:



Highgate Ward, LB Camden. Lab hold. Lab 1178 (41.6%, +12.6), Green 947 (33.5%, +3), Con 593 (21%, +0.8), LD 111 (3.9%, -18.3). Swing of 4.8% from Green to Lab since 2010. This is the best ward in Camden for the Greens and elected one Green and two Labour councillors last year, 2 Greens and 1 Tory in 2006.

Bramshott & Liphook Ward, East Hampshire DC. Double vacancy. 2 Con holds. Con 796, 743 (52.8%, +2.2), LD 404, 371 (26.8%, -5.5), Lab 183, 117 (12.1%, -5), Green 126 (8.3%, +8.3). Swing 3.9% from LD to Con since May this year.

Phoenix Ward, Gedling BC. LD gain from Lab. LD 556 (48.7%, +0.9), Lab 446 (39.1%, -13.1), Con 98 (8.6%, +8.6), UKIP 42 (3.7%, +3.7). Swing of 7% from Lab to LD since May this year.

Hedley Division, Hampshire CC. Con hold. Con 1588 (64.6%, +0.9), LD 290 (11.8%, -19.3), Lab 258 (10.5%, +5.3), Green 178 (7.2%, +7.2), Justice & Anti-corruption 146 (5.9%, +5.9). Swing of 10.1% from LD to Con since 2009.

Surbiton Hill Ward, RB Kingston-upon-Thames. LD hold. LD 997 (39.7%, -2.6), Con 895 (35.6%, -0.9), Lab 349 (13.9%, +2.7), CPA 171 (6.8%, +4.7), Green 81 (3.2%, -4.7), Ind 21 (0.8%, +0.8). Swing of 0.9% from LD to Con since 2010.

Graiseley Division, Wolverhampton MBC. Lab hold. Lab 1527 (64.7%, +0.2), Con 591 (25%, +8.5), LD 177 (7.5%, +2.1), UKIP 65 (2.8%, +2.8). Swing of 4.2% from Lab to Con since May this year.

Highland Ward, Perth & Kinross CC. SNP 1449 (54.4%, -4), Con 596 (22.4%, -3.2), LD 321 (12.1%, -1.4), Ind 269 (10.1%, +7.6), Ind 27 (1.0%, +1). Swing of 0.4% from SNP to Con since 2007.

Top Ten Labour Blogs

I've managed to stay in the Top Ten Labour blogs according to Total Politics (
http://www.totalpolitics.com/blog/258212/top-25-labour-blogs.thtml ) .

Not bad as I didn't canvass for votes and posting has been light recently.

Thank you to everyone who voted for me, congratulations to the winners:

Full list of top 25, with last year's position in brackets (I couldn't cut and paste all the links so you need to go on the Total Politics web site to follow links to the winners):


1 (1) LabourList

2 (8) Labour Uncut

3 (4) nextleft

4 (36) Scarlet Standard

5 (22) ProgressOnline

6 (5) Alastair Campbell

7 (-) Labour Hame

8 (70) Young Fabians blog

9 (7) Luke Akehurst

10 (2) Tom Harris MP

11 (-) Touchstone blog

12 (3) Hopi Sen

13 (13) Tom Watson MP

14 (14) Honeyball Buzz

15 (-) Shibley Rahman

16 (15) Labour Home

17 (-) Diary of a Benefit Scrounger

18 (-) Danny Hackett

19 (20) From One End of Kent

20 (-) The Green Benches

21 (18) Kerry McCarthy MP

22 (50) Kezia Dugdale

23 (45) Young Labour Politico Blogger

24 (19) Bob Piper

25 (-) Her Sins were Scarlet but her blog was Red

Progress Column

My Progress column this week is about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars:

http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2011/09/14/looking-back-on-iraq/

Labourlist column

My labourlist column this week is about the forthcoming publication of the Purple Book:

http://www.labourlist.org/luke-akehurst-in-defence-of-ivan-lewis-and-the-purple-book

I agree with Peter Kenyon

Bet that headline surprised you.

I often disagree with former NEC member Peter Kenyon (http://petergkenyon.typepad.com/peterkenyon/)

But he is pursuing something very sensible and practical just now.

He has appealed for every Labour member to go on membersnet on the Party website (you will need your membership card to register if you haven't already got a log-in) and update their contact details (http://members.labour.org.uk/).

The more of us that Labour has an up-to-date email for, the easier it is for HQ, your CLP and your Branch to contact you and inform and involve you, and it keeps the cost of communicating with you to a minimum. About 20% of Labour members have an email address but the Party doesn't know about it.

Please do this and if you encourage any other Labour members you are in contact with to do the same.

Council by-elections

Three last night, including a Labour gain in a ward in a Bristol parliamentary marginal:

Southmead Ward, Bristol CC. Lab gain from LD. Labour 1109 (45.5%, +5.1), Con 765 (31.4%, +10.7), LD 365 (15%, -12.2), Green 120 (4.9%, +2.3), Eng Dem 77 (3.2%, +0.6). Swing of 2.8% from Lab to Con since 2010. This looks similar to the national polls - Lab and Con both doing well at expense of LDs.

Stock Division, Essex CC. Con hold. Con 1820 (59.2%, -6.5), UKIP 736 (24%, +24), Lab 275 (9%, +3.8), LD 160 (5.2%, -7.3), Green 80 (2.6%, -6.1). Swing of 15.3% from Con to UKIP since 2009. This was the seat of Lord Hanningfield who was jailed for expenses fraud.

Backwell Ward, North Somerset UA. Ind hold. Ind 816 (61.7%, -5.6), Con 314 (23.7%, -7), Lab 124 (9.4%, +9.4), LD 69 (5.2%, +5.2). Swing of 0.7% from Con to Ind since May this year.

Progress column

My Progress column this week looks at Chris Mullin's diaries and their verdict on the Blair years:
http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2011/09/07/looking-back-on-new-labour/

Labourlist column

In my Labourlist column this week I argue Gordon Brown made the right call in his argument with Alistair Darling about cuts:

http://www.labourlist.org/gordon-made-the-right-call

Council by-election

Only one last night:

Keswick Ward, Allerdale DC. LD gain from Ind. LD 757 (59.7%), Lab 448 (35.3%), Green 63 (5.0%). Ward was uncontested in May 2011 so no swing comparison possible.