Four days to election day
It is Sunday and the election is on Thursday. Between us, Grenville Holland and I have now knocked on around 90% on the doors in Neville’s Cross and the response has been very good overall. As usual the ‘outs’ are strongly in the lead, but a big majority are clearly appreciative of the work both he and I have done over the years.
From the canvassing, a number of things are very clear. Firstly, no-one on the doorstep is being taken in by the Tory “poll” showing them ahead of Labour with the Lib Dems in third place.
This is obviously a national poll (a fact I was able to confirm this lunchtime), but, as we know, what is the case in leafy Surrey is no way typical of the North East where the Lib Dems have been the only serious alternative to Labour for many years.
Secondly, Labour are in real trouble. We are picking up a real anger on the doorstep over the Government pushing through the new unitary Council against the clear vote by the people of the County against it.
If this is reflected in other parts of the County, Labour is going to lose lots of seats and it more than possible that they will lose overall control of the County Council.
Given our strength over wide areas and the weakness of the Tories (they won only 3 district council seats outside Teesdale last May compared with 57 for the Lib Dems) we are as certain as can be that the Lib Dems will continue to be the main opposition to Labour at County Hall.
This is because most of the Labour seats under threat are where we are already in a good second place. We are confident therefore that we will have a large group strong enough to ensure that the new Council is organised to be as responsive and accountable as possible to local communities and not remote from the people.
Which leads to the third thing: the idea of a Town Council for Durham City is going down really well on the doorstep.
Just about everyone we have discussed it with thinks it is a good idea and will help to keep the local links that make for good local government.
Once the election is over, the City Council must get on with the wider consultation process to move this project forward.
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