Welcome Jonathan

Posted By: Susan Emmott
Date Posted: 02/12/2007

It will nice to welcome Jonathan Burns to the Labour Group this week after his victory in the North Middleton by-election last Thursday. Jonathan will be a great asset to our group and I’m certain it won’t be too long before he is making his mark on the Council. He came through a very tough by-election campaign with the Lib-Dems resorting to the most disgraceful examples of spin, innuendo and personal slurs that I have seen in 25 years.

They spent much of the campaign personally attacking Dave Murphy, which I am convinced finally backfired on them. Going round Boarshaw on Thursday night, I was amazed at just how many people knew Dave and how he was able to convince them to go out and vote Labour. The nasty tactics blew up in the Lib Dems faces; they were attacking a man with a solid reputation in Middleton going back many decades.

Their spin was unbelievable. The Lib Dems went in there to try and squeeze the substantial Tory vote in order for them to win. So, from the very first they told voters that the Tories could not win. They produced their usual spurious graph showing they were close to Labour (from 2004, not 2007 when the Tories were clearly second) and then in a later “Hocus Pocus” came a headline that was quite incredible: “Official – Tories can’t win”. “Official” by whom?  Who or what is this “official”?

Sadly, these tactics almost worked and a lot of usual Tory voters must have voted Lib-Dem in the belief that by doing so they could have beaten Labour. I predict that most of these voters will return to the Tories next May.

Anyway, all the nastiness, spin and possibly illegal tactics did not work. We held on to the seat. It was close, but they don’t give out silver medals in elections. The Lib Dems threw everything they had at it and must be hugely disappointed not to have won. What’s the betting that Middleton North residents won’t hear too much about “Our Rhoda”, now the election dust has settled?

It is noteworthy that they could not even accept defeat gracefully. “Our Rhoda” claimed that the low turnout in the election was due to "Labour’s neglect”. So, it had nothing to do with the election being held on a cold, late November day when it went dark by 4.30 p.m. or being fought on an old electoral register?  Of course not, it was all Labour’s fault!