By-election result and Labour blunders!

Regular followers of this blog may have noticed that it has not been updated for a while. We have been busy campaigning in the Local Elections and also had a Town Council by-election added on for good measure taking up our team since March.

The local elections offered us a splendid series of results with both myself and Cllr Elliott being returned for a further 4 years. The Morley South result was quite spectacular and offered us the largest majority we have ever seen in the ward. Some of this is down to our solid campaigning stance on Knowle Manor, our opposition to Labours LDF promising 7,200 housing units in Morley and the rejection of Labours proposals to shave off £25,000 from the Policing budget in Morley. Labour's vote collapsed in Morley with their total vote and share of the vote decimated. No wonder Eddie looked disappointed when he attended the count in Morley Town Hall.

But this Labour failure - despite serous resources targeted to remove Judith (including visits to Morley from Cllr Keith Wakefield, Cllr Richard Lewis, Cllr James Lewis, Rachel Reeves MP and most of the Student Unions Labour Club!) did not stop Morley Folk backing the MBIs and holding Labour accountable for their many failures across the town.

Perhaps the biggest blunder from Labour was their mishandling of the by-election on Morley Town Council. This followed the resignation of Louise Bentley from the Town Council in April (which is the sixth time a Labour Councillor has resigned from the Town Council). Leaving aside the Labour Party's propensity for electing councillors who wish to avoid anything resembling work and who can't be arsed serving their office term - its the expense of holding a by-election which is really the outrage. Of course a by-election does not have to be held if it is not called and a seat can be filled by co-option. This would have saved local taxpayers £6500 in election costs.

But up steps Labour stalwart Frank Tighe - with his group of Labour buddies-  to call a by-election! That will be £6500 please to cover the call - money better spent on improving Policing or keeping our streets cleaner. But the most blundering blunder of all is the failure of the Labour Party - after calling the by-election - to get their nomination papers in on time. I'm reliably informed that Labour Leader Neil Dawson turned up with the wrong papers and too late in the day to lodge the right ones! It is perhaps easy to understand - with this level of Labour incompetence - why the Country's finances were left in such a mess by the Right Honourable Ed Balls and his colleagues!

The result was a straight race between Gareth Beevers for the Morley Borough Independents and our local right wing extremist Chris Beverley under the English Democrats banner. Gareth won by 305 votes to Beverley's 154.

Labours blunder seems to have reached both local and regional papers and perhaps offers an insight into Labours failure to make inroads in to Morley. Roll on the next elections in 2014 and especially 2015 when we will have the opportunity to evict Labour Loyalist Neil Dawson from his temporary position!