Reasons to be gloomy
By any standard Thursday's election results were a disaster for the Labour Party nationally and very disappointing locally.We believe that we fought a good campaign in Ashton with a candidate who has worked selflessly for residents of Ashton. We spent four weeks canvassing and putting our message over but it became more and more evident as time went on that national politics were influencing people's decisions. A lot of people decided not to vote for us because of issues like the abolition of the 10p tax rate. I get the impression that these people did not vote against us they just abstained. Clearly the party nationally needs to listen and act to address this.
Or perhaps we are just at the bottom end of the political cycle and we have to accept this ,keep our nerve and struggle through to the next general election Given that the Labour Party has been in power for 11 years it has up until last Thursday been virtually untroubled by bad opinion polls. Compare that to the Conservative even under Margaret Thatcher and John Major in the 90s. However, the mood in the press and the public is to blame us for everything under the sun, some criticism justified and some not. I am sure Tory readers of this blog will remember how that feels during the last days of John Major.
So Peter Franzen and members of the CAP Party might get what they have always wanted in two or so years time - the end of New Labour. Well I hope they like David Cameron's Tory Party better. I can remember 1979 when the country got rid of the Labour party in government and got -- Margaret Thatcher.
Reasons to be cheerful
1.We did not lose any seats in the Makerfield Constituency despite the electoral carnage elsewhere.
2. Wigan Council is still Labour controlled despite losing five seats.
3. The leader of the Community action party was defeated in Golborne - see article above.
Our reaction as a local party
We will continue to do what we have been doing for the past few years doing working in the community, helping both individuals and groups, communicating with the people of Ashton through leaflets and surveys asking local people what we can do to improve Ashton and not just at election time. It's what we do.
1 comment:
I believe the electoral cycle in now working firmly against Labour.When you are in government you are always going to lose seats in local elections, it is the natural order of things.But there comes a point when these sustained losses become a flood and a signal that the voters have stopped listening to the party in office.I firmly believe that point has been reached and Labour will be defeated in 2010.
I should add that I'm a Labour supporter but I think the national party has simply run out of 'a message'.Despite all Labour's measure to help ease poverty the abolition of the 10p tax rate has more or less undone the public's faith in Labour as an 'anti poverty' party. Better it loses in 2010 than limps on with a wafer thin majority for five more years in my opinion.
It wasn't all bad news in the north west.Labour made gains in Liverpool and St Helens.
As for CAP. Any party that has a sole purpose of damaging another political party will eventually be found out by the voters.CAPs only purpose is to attempt to damage the Labour Party, wherever and whenever it can. Once the public woke up to that very obvious fact they were always finished- I'm astonished CAP seem unable to fathom that very basic and obvious fact.
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