Thank you
Following a hard fought campaign across Blackburn and Darwen Labour came out comfortably on top with 5 seats gained from the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and For Darwen. In the seats Labour was defending majorities were increased across the board as the Labour vote remained almost as high as in last year’s General Election.
In Blackburn Lib Dem Muntazir Patel was beaten by Labour’s Hanif Khonat, whilst the Tories were beaten in Meadowhead and Roe Lee. In Darwen the Leader of the For Darwen Party – Tony Melia – was beaten by Labour’s Brian Taylor and Lib Dem Simon Huggill was beaten by Frank Connor.
‘This is a wholehearted rejection of the ConDem policies that are wrecking the good work done by the last Labour Government in securing a stable economy and protecting jobs’, said Blackburn Labour Party Chair, Damian Talbot, who had been re-elected to the Mill Hill Ward – doubling Labour’s majority in 2007.
‘We would like to thank all those who came out to support Labour in these elections and we will be working hard to protect services and jobs in spite of crippling Government cuts’, said Labour Party Secretary, Phil Riley, after beating Tory stalwart, Maureen McGarvey, in Roe Lee Ward.
The Big Debate – 2011 local elections
The main issue in this year’s local elections is the government’s cuts programme and, in particular, whether it is a reasonable response to the current economic situation and whether the cuts are fair in the impact that they are having on towns like Blackburn with Darwen. A second major issue is the total abandonment by the Liberal Democrats of many of their previous policy positions (and, certainly, many manifesto promises made at last year’s General Election) in return for ministerial seats and a referendum on the introduction of the Alternative Voting system.
It is the Labour Party’s belief that the Tory government, for ideological reasons, has exaggerated the depth of the economic crisis so that they can make sweeping cuts in the many popular social programmes introduced by previous Labour governments. As justification for his actions, George Osborne has repeatedly said that there was a serious chance of an economic collapse in the UK – this is disputed by many economists who argue that, even after the Labour government was forced to bale out a number of high street banks, the deficit as a percentage of GDP was around the average for the major world economies, not all of whom have embarked on similar programmes of public sector cuts.
The Labour Party argues that the Tory government needed an excuse to attack popular social programmes – such as the Educational Maintenance Allowance and winter fuel payments – as they aim to reduce the size of the state and to hand over large sections of the public realm for private capital investment and they found that excuse in the current deficit. The Tories have therefore invented an objective of getting rid of the deficit in the life of this Parliament when there is no recognisable economic reason to do that and, in response, the Labour Party have adopted the election slogan of “Too far, too fast. “
An equally important aspect of the election debate for towns like Blackburn with Darwen is the question of the fairness of the cuts. ” We’re all in this together” was David Cameron’s slogan when the cuts programme was first unveiled but the evidence suggests otherwise. The cuts are falling much more heavily on the poorer areas of the country – as an example - in East Dorset, the loss in revenue of the cuts programme works out at £2.00 per person and, in Richmond on Thames, it works out at £5.39. in contrast, in Blackburn with Darwen, it’s £128.94; in Manchester, it’s £140.38 and in Liverpool, it’s £162.99. This discrepancy reflects how the coalition has scrapped grants introduced by the previous Labour governments to benefit poorer parts of the country with specific historical and social problems. In Cameron’s brave new world, these places are expected to get by without this kind of financial assistance – it’s not too clear what they are supposed to do instead but, broadly, the Tories don’t care other than to suggest that the half-baked idea known as the Big Society will, in some mysterious way, compensate for this loss of government finance.
