Friday, May 04, 2007

oh dear

My contacts tell me that Labour held 2 seats in Crawley (Bewbush and Langley Green). That means losing seats in Ifield, Three Bridges, Southgate and Tilgate, presumably to the Tories. It is unlikely that any other seats changed hands.

That would give the Conservatives control of the council with 22 seats, a majority of 7. Labour would be on 12 and the Liberal Democrats on 3.

I haven't seen the figures, so it's hard to tell whether it represents a major change from last year. Southgate and Ifield were the scene of losses last year (and a nasty and inaccurate piece of hate mail went out in Ifield just before the election). Three Bridges was a seat in which the result was very close in 2004, and it was a hard ask to hold that seat. Tilgate is very disappointing, but the omens did look bad there yesterday.

Commiserations to the losing Labour candidates. Well done to Chris Cheshire and David Shreeves for their re-elections. Across the town this was a tough campaign, and we always knew that it would be an uphill struggle to hold all seats, let alone make any gains. But the members really pushed as hard as they could.

There are, of course, a few factors which overshadow the elections, some of which are beyond the controll of local councillors (Iraq, Blair, the Hospital). However, we can't escape the fact that the Tories have consolidated power and have the momentum, and that there are local factors as well.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

nasty piece of hate mail....you must mean that UAF leaflet.....!

Danivon said...

No, I mean the one about John Stanley.

The UAF leaflet was fine. Of course, if you are a moronic racist idiot, it might offend you, but if so, I think that you need to be offended.

Anonymous said...

What was the thing about John Stanley? I haven't heard about that (by e-mail if its unrepeatable publicly!)

Danivon said...

Well, it was a 2-sided A4 thing, part of which was cobbled from a local website (anti-traveller), and the rest was accusing John Stanley of being a traitor to Ben Clay, and a puppet of Brenda and Rob Hull. It was nasty to all three, while beatific about Clay

So clearly not written by anyone who knows them, or that John Stanley and John Mortimer are still on good terms with Ben Clay.

Richard W. Symonds said...

It was a strange leaflet. I thought it was a BNP one, but I don't think so. It seemed like a well-timed anti-Stanley piece of nonsense, coming from a very disillusioned former Labour supporter - who needs therapy.

Anonymous said...

or possibly you Richard?

Danivon said...

I don't think it was Richard. It didn't mention Orwell or Chomsky once, and didn't claim that international Master Puppeteers were bent on building on the Golf Course.

Anonymous said...

Did it have lots of 'odd phrases' wrapped up in single quotes? That is Richard's 'trademark' and I think he would find it 'exceedingly difficult' if not 'totally impossible' to write anything without using them, even if he was being 'anonymous'

Apart from anything, I am pretty sure Richard had John Stanley as his second preference for who he would prefer to be elected (with himself being number one obviously)

Danivon said...

Looking at his website recently, I worry that Richard is now doing self-parody.