The local elections saw Labour steady the ship in the North East after a difficult few years, despite suffering some losses.
The historic loss of Durham County Council 12 months ago and a number of headline-grabbing Conservative incursions into the Red Wall since 2019 have made it tough going for Labour in a part of England that has for so long been a stronghold. The party’s biggest fear going into Thursday was the prospect of losing control of Sunderland City Council for the first time in its history, having haemorrhaged nine seats there last year.
But, despite weeks of Tory predictions to the contrary, Labour stopped the rot. Only one red seat fell on Wearside this time and council leader Graeme Miller successfully retained his Washington South berth. And what had threatened to be a dangerous night for Labour in Newcastle, after a stormy few months that had seen Nick Forbes ousted, also proved fairly sedate – as in Sunderland, just one seat dropped to the Lib Dems.
Read more : all the local election results
There were a handful of losses elsewhere in Tyne and Wear too, with the Lib Dems and particularly South Tyneside’s Greens the main beneficiaries, but there appears to be no overwhelming threat to the party’s dominance in North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and Gateshead.
Starmer 'confident' Durham beer did not breach guidelines
Any optimism gained from the ballot box on Thursday was quickly overshadowed by news that Sir Keir Starmer is being re-investigated by Durham Police over the ‘Beergate’ claims that he broke lockdown rules in April 2021.
Sir Keir said this weekend that he is “confident” that he did not breach lockdown rules by having a beer and curry at a campaign event in Durham.
He said: “As I have explained a number of times, I was working in the office, we stopped for something to eat. There was no party, no breach of rules, I am confident of that.”
A leaked memo published by the Mail on Sunday indicated that the dinner in Durham had been planned on the schedule for Sir Keir’s day of campaigning in April 2021. The document states that there would be a “dinner in Miners Hall” with City of Durham MP Mary Foy from 8.40pm to 10pm - and a note indicates a member of staff in Sir Keir’s office was to arrange the takeaway curry from the Spice Lounge.
Air miles row
There was no election in Northumberland this week, but instead we did get a row after it emerged one of the council’s top earners has claimed thousands of pounds in expenses flying between London and the North East since being appointed in November.
A freedom of information request by the Local Democracy Service has uncovered that the council’s interim monitoring officer, Suki Binjal, received £3,501.68 to cover air travel expenses in just five months since she was appointed.
The spending was criticised by Labour and Green politicians, with a Labour spokesman saying: “Given the cost of living crisis and the perceived waste of money at the county council already, plus the millions cut this year from frontline services, it’ll be difficult for people to understand why thousands have been spent on flights when rail tickets are far more cost-effective and work can be completed easily during the journey.”
A spokesman for Northumberland County Council said: “This is a key senior role within the council with a high and complex workload.
“While this is an interim post, the Monitoring Officer spends most of her time working remotely, based in London, and using air travel is much quicker and allows her to spend more time working in the county when required to attend for face-to-face meetings, and less time commuting.”
Tory grandee hits out at current leadership
On a visit to Newcastle, former Conservative Party chairman branded Boris Johnson a “moral vacuum”.
Lord Patten, who was the last governor of Hong Kong, slammed the Prime Minister over the Partygate scandal and said it would be “foolish” to think his job had been saved by the war in Ukraine. He was speaking ahead of a lecture at Newcastle University, where he was previously chancellor for a decade, on Wednesday night.
He said: “I think the continuing pitter patter of fines from the Metropolitan Police and, above all, the Sue Gray report are likely to be issues. Against that, the background is pretty grizzly with the economy, all the problems associated with energy prices, all of which is made more difficult by Brexit.
“I am just not sure how much this will affect the exotic mood at Westminster. Whether we will continue to have a moral vacuum at the heart of government I just don’t know.”
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