Four more years?

Well! That was interesting - thanks to everyone who voted for me - and in fact thanks to everyone who voted at all. As they say - if you don't vote, you can't complain about the council (or government).

So - re-elected to the Town Council for another four years, which means I'll either get a civic funeral or reach 20 years as a town councillor. And Ron got elected too - so Morpeth now has two Green Town councillors!

And I came second in the County Council elections, missing out by 99 votes to David Bawn the Tory candidate. I'm not bitter - and I can't complain about eg Labour voters wasting their vote, since I railed strongly against tactical voting during the campaign. All I will say is that having me as a County Councillor would have been better for the local economy in an immediate sense. Half of David's councillor's allowance will go straight back to central government as tax - whereas if I'd been getting it, nearly all would have stayed (and been spent) in Northumberland.

Back to the Town Council then - I think democracy in Morpeth showed up well , with all Town Council seats contested - compared with, ooooh say Alnwick, where they didn't have enough candidates nominated and are looking for seven people to co-opt onto their 18 seat town council. That said, I am arguing strongly that the 9:6 majority of LDs on the Morpeth Town Council is not really earned since in Stobhill, there were only six candidates for five seats - so that four of the nine LDs effectively had a walkover. That isn't to say they wouldn't have won against more substantial opposition, but in North ward, two out of three sitting LD councillors lost their seats. 

So - in my role as informal convenor of the non-LD members on the Council, I'll be reminding the LDs not to behave as though they have a strong mandate and that they need to be inclusive.