Good morning, this is Moston calling…
My Councillor colleagues Andrew Garner, Ann Garner and Tim Pickstone, who I joined on the leaflet trail in Moston this morning - I was taking the picture. You’ll have to take my word for it, but it’s true…
This morning I was up with the lark (in fact, I woke the lark up) to help the Liberal Democrats in the Moston area of Manchester. There’s a local council by-election today. The Liberal Democrat candidate who is campaigning to take a seat from Labour is Tim Hartley.
In a small piece of history, I think this is the first ever local by-election to be fought on a Maunday Thursday. The law recently changed to allow by-elections to take place today. I’m not sure this entirely makes up for me having to get up at 5am and be on the streets of Moston by 6, but it’s nice to be part of democratic history, even if it is only a tiny and religiously dubious piece of that history!
It’s odd being out and about so early. I only get to experience it very rarely (either on election days or on trips to catch flights!). There was nobody about at all for the first hour, and I took the opportunity to make friends with a cat, a dog, and a pair of Canada Geese, all of whom were enjoying the early morning Mostonian air with us. Sadly they, like me, couldn’t vote. Nor could they leaflet, which was a shame because many hands (or paws…) make light work.
Rick
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Oh dear - looks like no amount of liberal whining can obscure the fact that the people of Manchester are waking up to the realities of multicultural Britain - murderous gang wars and threats to blow up football grounds.
I think your perceptions of multicultural Britain are a million miles away from mine. And it’s interesting that the very people threatening to blow up things in this country are probably the only people in the country less intolerant of others than the BNP!
Your comment about gang wars is also interesting. There have been no gang murders in the city for a long time, and that’s a tribute to our Police who work in incredibly difficult circumstances and have just helped secure very long sentences for gang leaders. We should thank them for that and look at what a positive difference it’s made to the city.
In terms of this by-election, the BNP were miles from winning, despite putting in a massive effort including four leaflets (some of which had fairly outrageous imagery and words in them) and lots of activists coming in to the area from elsewhere. They still received less than a quarter of the vote, and would have received the usual very low percentage were it not for their ability on this occasion to concentrate all of their resources in one ward.
Of more interest is the performance of the LibDems (who recorded a 75% increase in votes) and the Tories whose votes almost halved.