What will happen to Labour and LibDems in 2016?

[CllrGeoffAbell]

Thanks Hoffnung.

My pleasure.

[Hoffnung]

Hello Geoff,

Your openness and your contributions on this forum are  appreciated, certainly by me and I'm sure by many others. 

I don't know about the hustings of other parties. I was told about the LD's by an LD activist who voted at them. He was pretty disappointed at the way the south Marple   

[CllrGeoffAbell]

Informed and interesting debate here as often happens!

A few points.

Many parish councils have independents, and, as has been stated, the Rate Payers of Heald Green are not mainstream.  I think they were started in the 1920s!

having watched a lot of the council debate online,

You brave man.

Hoffnung, I am glad you know about Lib Dem hustings - do you know about the other parties' hustings too? 

We belong to parties so you basically know our core values but at local level it IS about actions.

I will tell anyone who wants to know, details of how councils work and what councillors do.  As to swapping parties, Offerton's Cllr Laura Booth was the last to swap and came to us from Labour.  But in the 10 years I've been interested in politics, we have had many "crossings" of the floor, all ways.   And yes, Colin was Labour years ago and was a mayor, but has had a period of non-politics.  And is now our candidate in Marple South.

Lib Dems (I hope) are about practical policies, serving the community and getting things done.  And we did lose votes in the general election - perhaps we were a protest party and you cannot be as much of a protest whilst in government!  But we still hold power in Stockport.  One of our jobs is to implement government cuts to finance, yet still protecting vulnerable people.  Even George Osborne has asked us to put up tax this year.  Never popular, but he's asking Stockport residents to do it rather than us getting money from the Westminster. 

Finally, it's actually nice being on a blog with your own name.  That's transparency.  I am lucky enough to know a few who blog here, but I probably wouldn't use my name except that I am a councillor.

[ta41700]

Whilst people are throwing names into the ring on this topic, I live around the corner from my sister who observed a delivery of Xmas cards on behalf of the Libs Dems from the former Labour Mayor of Stockport, Colin MacAlister!

[Hoffnung]

Simone,

I promise you, I am not making this up about the ex labour mayor standing as a Lib dem councillor. It is just that it is really not my place to name names.

If you really want to know then why don't you ask Malcolm or Geoff they were both at the hustings when he was elected as the candidate. 

[Hoffnung]

No Duke,

3rd party coalition was/is not the best the voter can expect. It is only the best you can expect, if as a party you have self-seeking leaders who have an egomaniacal hunger for government minister's shiny car syndrome. If the Lib Dems  had resisted coalition overtures, then they would have had 90/100 MPs now and who knows how many after the next election?

Condate/Rambler, absolutely tremendous posts. 

[marplerambler]

Two elections ago I was looking forward to a future LibDem government in 2015. Labour had died and the Conservatives would destroy the moral fabric of the country by selling off the NHS and public sector, denying the disabled the dignity and security of a basic income with a roof over their heads. The message was there through my door 'Labour cannot win here you must vote Libdem to keep out the Tories' so I voted Stunnell as I had done for the preceding 12 years. I expected the Lib Dems to hold the balance of power, to vote for or against every bill on its merits and effectively prevent a swing to Conservatism. Andrew Stunnell then immediately helped implement the coalition, sold out the people of Marple and eventually got his knighthood. He did not just conform to the demands of his party to vote Conservative - he implemented the coalition. This was the ultimate betrayal which will never be forgiven by many in Hazel Grove & Marple. I shall never vote for them again.

The sad thing was that the Libdems had six terrific local councillors, all of whom worked incredibly hard for Marple who were then expected to implement the LibDem/Conservative cuts - the greatest tragedy is that they did not resist by continuing to fight for the people of Marple as independent councillors. They had been betrayed by their party and by their MP who had decided to follow the Tory Whip - they had every right to feel betrayed and to stand for the people of Marple as independents fighting for the people of Marple.

The LibDems condemned themselves to defeat and obscurity by ignoring the main wish of those who elected then to prevent any return of the Tories. In the space of five years their position changed from the strong possibility of being the majority party in the UK to political has-beens.   

[Condate]

I can't understand that Hoff. "the Lib Dems by their actions in joining the coalition and conducting themselves the way they did whilst they were in it, have irreparably damaged democracy in this country by bringing about the ruin of their own party."

I voted Lib Dem in the previous election and I knew that the best I could hope for in voting for the 3rd party was coalition. I was thrilled they got into government and had a say, that is the best the voter can expect.

I think the point is that coalitions are by their nature anti-democratic. A candidate must be able to say to the electorate what he or she will always vote for and what they will always vote against. They should then do just that. Simply trying to influence policies and voting for thing you know are wrong, just so you can get other MPs from another party to vote for things you want, even though they oppose it in principle is not democracy. Democracy must mean voting as you believe, even if you know you won't win. Any MP or party which joins a coalition and supports things they oppose, just to have a say in government is an enemy of democracy.

[Duke Fame]

Hello Malcolm,

Thank you for response.

Apologies for transposing your name. It was a careless mistake of mine, I didn't do it on purpose and it wasn't meant to be disrespectful in any way. I too have a name that lends itself to being mucked about with, so I have some understanding of the situation.

I'm not a member of the Liberal Democrats so I haven't seen any of their literature with your photo on. On the subject of political literature,we were bombarded with literature from all parties during last year's election and the lib dems were the worst culprits, by a mile, with every leaflet saying the same thing. Mine just went straight from letter box to bin. No wonder you were hammered, you bored people that much they voted against you, if only to stop the literature.

On the subject of photos. John, Kenny and Geoff have all posted a photo recently on this website so it must be fairly easy to do, I'm sure Admin would help you with it if you asked. I don't doubt your Marple credentials nor you yourself in any way. My problem is with political parties in general and with the Lib Dems in particular. I think that I've made my views clear about them in a previous post. What I haven't said previously is that IMO, the Lib Dems by their actions in joining the coalition and conducting themselves the way they did whilst they were in it, have irreparably damaged democracy in this country by bringing about the ruin of their own party. If as a political you can't even preserve your own existence, then what is the point and what can you do?

Very little if you're dead.


       

I can't understand that Hoff. "the Lib Dems by their actions in joining the coalition and conducting themselves the way they did whilst they were in it, have irreparably damaged democracy in this country by bringing about the ruin of their own party."

I voted Lib Dem in the previous election and I knew that the best I could hope for in voting for the 3rd party was coalition. I was thrilled they got into government and had a say, that is the best the voter can expect.

[Hoffnung]

Hello Malcolm,

Thank you for response.

Apologies for transposing your name. It was a careless mistake of mine, I didn't do it on purpose and it wasn't meant to be disrespectful in any way. I too have a name that lends itself to being mucked about with, so I have some understanding of the situation.

I'm not a member of the Liberal Democrats so I haven't seen any of their literature with your photo on. On the subject of political literature,we were bombarded with literature from all parties during last year's election and the lib dems were the worst culprits, by a mile, with every leaflet saying the same thing. Mine just went straight from letter box to bin. No wonder you were hammered, you bored people that much they voted against you, if only to stop the literature.

On the subject of photos. John, Kenny and Geoff have all posted a photo recently on this website so it must be fairly easy to do, I'm sure Admin would help you with it if you asked. I don't doubt your Marple credentials nor you yourself in any way. My problem is with political parties in general and with the Lib Dems in particular. I think that I've made my views clear about them in a previous post. What I haven't said previously is that IMO, the Lib Dems by their actions in joining the coalition and conducting themselves the way they did whilst they were in it, have irreparably damaged democracy in this country by bringing about the ruin of their own party. If as a political you can't even preserve your own existence, then what is the point and what can you do?

Very little if you're dead.


         

[admin]

I read the Cons candidate for Marple South is a young lad called Tom Dowse.

Funnily enough Tom has just registered for an account on the forum, so welcome @TomDowseMarpleSouth, we look forward to hearing from you.

The mysterious LD candidate that @Hoffnung hinted at must be former mayor and former Labour Councillor Colin Macalister, whose photo was in the most recent LibDem newsletter with Shan Alexander. I haven't seen anything that actually declares this though, so we could do with confirmation that he's standing.

I can't find any information about other candidates at the moment except a contacts page that suggests Janet Glover is the Labour candidate for Marple South. It isn't clear if this is current information or some kind of left-over from a previous election.

[JMC]

I read the Cons candidate for Marple South is a young lad called Tom Dowse.

[simonesaffron]

Duke,

I haven't seen anybody suggest that a local councillor should concentrate on his/her ward to the exclusion of everything else. So why respond to something that hasn't been suggested ?

Obviously borough issues can effect the wards, they don't exist in vacuums. What I'm saying is that a local councillor should be primarily concerned with what goes on in his ward in preference to what goes on elsewhere. I have also watched some online council debates and some of the issues debated by our councillors had nothing to do with anything that any of those councillors could influence, one way or another. Contradictory to your opinion Duke (welcome back by the way) I thought most of the waffle was initiated by and came from the Conservatives. 

[Duke Fame]

Wasn't the last local election heavily influenced by the general election, which produced a shift to the Conservatives. The Lib Dems nationally were unpopular during the 5 years of the coalition government. Remember Nick Clegg and tuition fees, they still had no problems winning in Marple. They will be back at some point just not sure when.

So where has the Lib Dem vote gone?
Some of the tactical voters who used to vote for them locally to keep the Tories out have gone back to Labour. This would explain the higher Labour vote at the last election.
Maybe some have stopped voting.
Have some switched to the Tories?

I think there is a lot in that. In the General Election, we had Michael Taylor who did a pretty good job of appearing normal and electable, the fact Michael's politics appears to be closer to the centre than most Labour candidates, he managed to get some LD votes and when both elections are around the same time, many voters can be swayed in hte local elections as well as the GE.

For the left-wing voter, they appeared to return to labour having fallen for the spin that LD's let them down.

For me, whilst I have tended to vote LD, I wasn't impressed by the GE candidate adn having watched a lot of the council debate online, I've been more impressed by the Tories than LD's so took my vote to the blue half in both elections. Had we have had an Indy, that would have made me think again. 

[Duke Fame]

You would get candidates that were only focused on the needs of Marple not Stockport as a whole or party interests. So for example, if the Council wants to invest £5 million on upgrading Stockport markets, Marple Independents could say OK but in return for our block 6 votes we want x£ to invest in Marple.  Policies that had no impact on Marple residents would be rejected without a local payback. If there was no majority on the Council you would hold the balance of power and team up with whoever promised you the most in return.

You would have to pursue populist policies and not propose anything controversial for it to hold together.

Its popular in Heald Green, so why not here? How does it operate there?
On a bigger scale it works in Scotland?

I am only discussing the idea, I'm not necessarily advocating it, what do others think?

I don't think a councillor can or should focus purely on his own constituency, in this case, the quality of Stockport as a whole has an influence on Marple and any other conurbation. However, I agree with non-party politics. I watch a few of the online debates and much of the waffle from party councillors (usually Labour) is an attempt to score party political points on national issues which is really just the individual councillor trying to get themselves noticed within the party.