Nationally the Conservatives suffered their worst losses in 40 years. Congratulations to Chris Webb the new Labour MP for Blackpool South who won with a huge swing to Labour – as Keir Starmer said this win is a message directly to Rishi Sunak to call a General Election.
Locally though we must be concerned at the size and scale of the losses we had at South Tyneside Council.
Losing ten seats when nationally Labour is winning the fight to change our country for the better is very worrying.
Any good that South Tyneside Council is doing is overshadowed by their failure to resolve the dispute with the bin workers and despite my successful intervention to broker a last minute deal to suspend the action, the damage was done over the last few months. This dispute should have been resolved much sooner and I hope that the talks now progress and there’s no need for the workers to resume their action.
The local factors around the greenbelt and previous administration came up on the doorstep and frequently at my regular campaigning sessions and in my constituency casework.
I hope the Labour Councillors in South Tyneside Labour Group take last night’s results very seriously and take action to change what is needed.
Together South Tyneside Labour Group and our constituency Labour Party’s must work jointly to ensure we regain people’s trust and deliver for residents.
Commiserations to those that lost and congratulations to all those that won locally and nationally.
Particularly pleased to see Labour returned in the ward where I live.
As always I will not shy away from representing my constituents and demanding better from the Tories nationally and from Council’s locally.
I look forward to continuing to deliver for my constituents and to kicking the Conservatives out at the General Election and I hope that Election comes very very soon.