The count for the Neville’s Cross Division election was declared just after midnight this morning. The figures are:

Across County Durham it was a very bad night for Labour who lost the equivalent of 39 seats with the Lib Dems gaining 17, Independents gaining 16 and the Conservatives gaining 6.

The balance across the County is Labour 67, Lib Dems 27, Independents 22 and Conservatives 10. Labour now has an majority of only 8 over all other parties.

As I predicted we remain the second party and the main opposition to Labour.

The Lib Dem gains were 5 in Durham City, where we took both pairs seats in Framwellgate Moor and in Sherburn, and one of the two seats in Deerness Valley where our candidate, John Wilkinson topped the poll.

Elsewhere we gained one seat in Derwentside, two in Easington, three in Sedgefield and 6 in Wear Valley.

Some big Labour names lost their seats including a former Leader Ken Manton, a former Deputy Leader Brian Walker and the current Chairman of the Council, Edna Hunter, for whom I have particular sympathy as she was the first ever woman to be Chairman of the County Council and has been a particularly good ambassador for County Durham.

So whatever happens now, there will be a breath of fresh air running through County Hall in the coming years.

Exciting times!

Well, polling day is here at last. If you are reading this before 10 pm and have not voted, please go out and vote. As the saying goes, if you don’t vote, you can’t complain.

This goes especially for the new voters who have reached 18 over the past year. Please go and make your cross. Get into the habit now and make it last a lifetime.

The Northern Echo is calling it a close election with a good chance that the County Council will end up in no overall control tomorrow.

On the ground, the Lib Dems are best placed to challenge, both in seats contested and seats currently held.

But now, dear voter, it is up to you!

I hope to get the Neville’s Cross result details posted here first thing tomorrow.

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.

I spoke representing the Lib Dems at a small public meeting hosted by the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) in Shakespeare Hall yesterday evening. Alongside me was Albert Nugent, Labour Leader of Durham County Council. The Conservatives were invited but failed to send anyone.

In my speech I mentioned my opposition to Academy Schools and particularly those sponsored by the Emmanuel Schools Trust (funded by the Vardys and promoting whacko ideas about evolution).

This elicited a strange response from Albert. He agreed with me. He was also against Academy Schools.

Why strange? Because Durham County Council, led by him, has just decided to proceed with two Academy Schools and are still looking at a third!

No wonder things are going off the rails at County Hall.

The other thing I found out was that the County are in discussion with the Civil Service about using a building at Aykley Heads to deal with ID cards. The building concerned is the detached council block where the County Library Service used to be run from.

Apparently this could attract another 500 workers onto the County Hall site with who-knows-what impact on traffic and parking in local streets.

The thing that annoyed me is that my County Council division includes County Hall, yet no-one in the administration had the courtesy to let me know what was going on so that I could represent the serious and legitimate concerns that residents of North End already have about parking and transport issues.

Yet another cavalier example of how Labour deals with local people.

The Tory leaflet “independent opinion poll” figures look more than a little dodgy (and more than a little like national figures than local ones). In recent elections (i.e. last May and at the Sedgefield by-election last year) they cam miserably down the field.

The sharp-eyed will see no reference to who did the opinion poll nor where nor when, so this little morsel needs to be taken with a shed-load of salt!

A rather cavalier statement in today’s Durham Times from the Tories.

They claim that the Lib Dems cannot defeat Labour over the whole County, so therefore people should vote Conservative.  Somewhat strange logic as we have 93 candidates, they have only 70 and 64 is needed for an overall majority (half of 126 is 63). If this is the quality of their argument, no wonder people still don’t believe anything they say.

County Durham Liberal Democrats have now published their manifesto for the forthcoming elections on 1 May. It can be read (as a pdf file) via the following link

Liberal Democrat County Council Manifesto 2008

The County Council have also said they they will make it available at local libraries in the next few days.

An interesting news item appeared in today’s Northern Echo about the chaos there has been in Easington with the selection of candidates for the elections on 1 May.

A representative of the local Labour party was openly discussing the prospect of losing control of the County Council if things went pear-shaped in that part of the County.

Three years ago at the last county elections, this would have been unthinkable.

Now it is thinkable - for the first time in 90 years the tectonic plates of politics in County Durham are starting to shift - there can be a political earthquake on 1 May, all the electors have to do is vote for it!