Local Tesco ructions, Local Elections and Local morons

Regular readers may have noticed that some time has passed between the last post and this one. We can only apologise for that, but it’s obvious that posting to this blog has become occasional of late, so you know what to expect in future.

Well, there’s lots to catch up on. But rather than split all of this material up into different posts, and be pushed to provide a customarily apposite image for each one, we’ve decided to ramble on at length and weave it into one continuous thread. So here goes.

Since we last reported on the Hattersley & Mottram Tesco, we’ve been treated to one of the most hilarious official documents we’ve had the pleasure of witnessing since the days of the Public Inquiry into the Bypass 1.0. As part of their application, the developer for Tesco (CTP) published their mammoth transport assessment. We won’t bore you with an in-depth analysis, but suffice to say, they found that overall, constructing a 95,000 square foot supermarket with 525 car-parking spaces would actually reduce the traffic flowing through the area! Furthermore, they also decided that since the impact on traffic would be negligible, there was no need to conduct a pollution assessment. So there we are. Tameside’s Planning Committee duly ratified the plan three weeks ago.

Thankfully, that’s not the end of the matter. Because Tameside have effectively torn up their own Local Plan and therefore have to ask the Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, for a decision. Will he ‘call in’ the application for a Public Inquiry? Or will he wave it through, like his decision this week to reverse a call-in and allow a Tesco Extra at Trafford (yet another one tied into other development, this time Lancashire County Cricket Ground)?

Last Sunday saw the start of a popular movement against Tesco, under the auspices of the newly-formed Longdendale Community Group, with a packed meeting in Mottram full of people venting their feelings. And whilst we wouldn’t support the paragraph in their standard ‘call-in’ letter that suggests locals want a bypass, the irony is that by fighting the Tesco, they are making a future bypass far less likely. One announcement at the meeting seems to suggest that a more notorious group – the Longdendale Siege Committee – have not fully realised this: although it’s not exactly a secret, they have not so far chosen to openly publicise that they are planning a protest march – ostensibly against the traffic the new Tesco will bring – from Hollingworth to the building site at Mottram on Wednesday 6th October, the date being chosen in order that it doesn’t upset their usual power base in the local Labour Party, and confirming rumours we’d heard before that some of them are very much disenchanted with Labour. You heard it here first - although, as we were writing this blog, a comment popped up from a Mrs Bradley announcing it! In that case, they announced it here first!

More irony comes in the fact that this whole kerfuffle has broken out towards the end of a local election campaign, for the vacant Council seat previously occupied by Roy Oldham (the candidates addresses can be seen here). The silence of the local Labour Party on the Tesco issue has been deafening, although the local MP, Jonathan Reynolds, brought Eric Pickles’ opposite number John Denham to look at the ‘regeneration’ of Hattersley, with much trumpeting of ‘government money unleashing private investment’, a veiled reference to Tesco getting exactly what they wanted for peanuts (it’s also untrue because no government money is being put directly into this - they simply underwrote the deal). Meanwhile, the local Tories have come out strongly against the Tesco, after testing the water with this leaflet: the responses they got seem to have convinced them that campaigning against it could work in their favour, although only a few weeks before, one of their Hattersley members expressed support for the Tesco proposal (the same individual has seemingly had a damascene conversion and set up the Tories’ anti-Tesco group on facebook). The latest leaflet goes for Labour's jugular on the issue, as they've clearly smelled blood here.

At the ‘not a cat-in-hell’s’ chance end of the candidates, we find the BNP and the Green Party. The Tameside BNP Führer, Anthony David Jones, wants to give people a local ‘plebiscite’ on the bypass (presumably because he thinks they are plebs). How this would resurrect a dead road scheme he doesn’t explain. Jones can regularly be found over at the Tameside Citizen blog, which serves as a village pump/water cooler for all the assorted right-wing pricks in the area. Jones fancies himself as a historian, and is a regular on the Nazi stormfront message board. If all else fails, Jones probably proposes to resurrect the Organisation Todt to and use ‘untermensch’ to build it by forced labour.

Melanie Roberts of the Green Party doesn’t mention any local issues – such as the Bypass or Tesco – at all in her election address, following the example of Ruth Bergan during the General Election campaign, giving no one a reason to vote for her.

Lastly, it wouldn’t be a decent NMB blog post if it didn’t mention our favourite Longdendale Councillor, Sean Parker-Perry. He now lives on Back Moor, perhaps hoping that some of Roy’s magic will rub off on him. But if the BNP had an arboreal wing, it seems he’d been a leading member. Those perusing the press of late may have noticed that he called for the felling of the much-loved Stockport Road Monkey puzzle tree on the grounds it was ‘an alien species’ from Chile. A war then erupted in the press in which Bill Johnson put him right about many other well-known ‘alien trees’ which are and have been part and parcel of our landscape and ecology for hundreds of years. Never mind, Sean has other things on his mind, specifically his latest girlfriend, who seems to have re-named herself Sian Parker-Perry (surely-shome-mistake?), despite the fact that he’s still married. Even better, Sean is planning a ‘Long Way Down’ style trip to Kenya on his motorbike, to raise money for Roy Oldham’s medical centre – and he’s created a lovely website which tracks the frankly appalling progress so far. It’s a laugh a minute. Why anyone would give Sean money given his past track record is beyond us, but stranger things have happened. He’ll need some ideas for a future career though, because we’ve heard on the grapevine that he won’t be selected as a Labour Party candidate next time he stands. Enjoy it while you can Sean!

Jonathan 'Jonny' Reynolds wins in Stalybridge & Hyde - lock up your virgin daughters...

No surprises here - Jonathan 'Jonny' Reynolds wins in Stalybridge & Hyde. We've heard that James Purnell didn't even stick around to congratulate his successor and is already hanging out in London, but the son of Dracula now holds his safe seat after all kinds of dubious shenanigans to get him there and attempts on his political life from pipsqueaks in the same Party, albeit with a vastly reduced majority (hardly a massive endorsement).

Andrew 'Tweedledumber' Bingham wins in High Peak

High Peak Councillor (and blogger) Anthony McKeown broke the news of the High Peak election result first on Twitter - and the winner is the Tory Andrew Bingham. It's High Peak Labour Party's own fault - they failed miserably by not taking swift and decisive action over the expenses fiddles of the crook Tom Levitt.

We're sure some very odd people would like to extend their congratulations to Bingham, 'Tweedledumber' in our parlance due to his non-difference from Tom Levitt regarding the Bypass, but the choice on this issue between all the three main candidates was a non-choice for us. Nevertheless, this writer regards Bingham as the natural enemy and we intend to be ruthless.

Oldham in desperate "I'll deliver Bypass 2.0" pledge - the Old Goat has shot his bolt

Predictably, Roy Oldham is using his secret weapon in a last ditch move to shore up any wavering voters in Longdendale. The best bit about the leaflet is that Oldham is saying that Bypass 2.0 will follow public consultation, almost like night follows day. Now we think this seems to be a case of him prejudging the issue, which could have serious consequences for him. We understand both Longdendale Siege and Longdendale Labour have chosen this moment to pounce because the Tory candidate Peter Hayes has been making it quite clear that he can't make any promises regarding Bypass 2.0

Meanwhile, the man who made all the promises for years on end and didn't deliver is making more of them. The Old Goat has shot his bolt.

Labour, Conservative & Liberal Democrat High Peak candidates declare war on their constituency

Well, we did promise to examine last week's High Peak Radio hustings in more detail, so we're returning to dissect the words of the three main candidates that featured in that debate (the audio is once again at the bottom on the post) - Labour's Caitlin Bisknell, the Liberal Democrat Alistair Stevens and the Tory Andrew Bingham.

47 seconds in, the debate turns to the housing targets imposed by the Government of the East Midlands upon High Peak Borough Council. All three candidates turn this into a call for affordable housing, but readers need to be aware that this is coded language and does not necessarily mean the same thing as Social Housing (which is actually being slowly dismantled), with affordable housing actually meaning affordable to those on an average wage, something which those in most need of housing can only dream about. It also increasingly means that these homes are 'shared ownership' (i.e. mixed mortgage/rent), a sector which is currently somewhat problematic given the complete lack of mortgages available to anyone on a low income (something which is likely to continue long into the future). In addition, readers should know that the housing targets specify that only a small proportion of the planned units must be 'affordable'.

Thus what we're seeing here is an attempt to justify large scale development on Greenbelt land for a 'projected need', and not necessarily current need, which could arguably be accommodated by the occupation of existing empty homes and the use of recognisably brownfield sites.

The contributions can be summarised thus: Bisknell calls for building on the Green Belt (contrary to local development plans), Stevens thinks the targets aren't high enough (but then he's an estate agent!) and calls for a political united front.

At 2:28, the issue of Cowdale Quarry is raised. In essence, this is a crackpot scheme which, on the surface, seeks to turn a long disused Quarry (over 62 years) into a bottled water plant, but is actually an asset-stripping environmental outrage. Both Bingham and Bisknell decline to comment on the basis that a planning decision has yet to be made, and if they are not elected as the High Peak candidate, as members of the Council they have to make a decision about it.

Which is interesting. Because keen readers will also know that the planning permission awarded by HPBC for the High Peak end of the Glossop Spur has now expired and, if Roy Oldham and Co. are serious, will need to be renewed again in future. Since later in the debate, they both declared enthusiasm for Bypass 2.0, we can only assume they have prejudiced this application.

At 3:39, we get a long rant from all three candidates about the need for Bypass 2.0. Bisknell's support seems not exactly unequivocal, but she goes on to mention the need for a Bypass for Fairfield near Buxton, which is a new one on us ('No Fairfield Bypass' anyone?). Bingham refers to Bypass 2.0 as the 'Glossopdale Bypass', and speaks in favour of it, but makes no promises about funding, saying he will 'fight very hard' for it if elected - Game On then Tweedledumber! The Estate Agent agrees.

The final section is the one we mentioned in our last post - yes, it's our question which we emailed in (though High Peak Radio chose not to mention that, or the blog), and it went as follows:

The 3 main candidates go on and on about reducing Carbon emissions, yet they all support the construction of a Bypass, along the lines of the discredited Longdendale Bypass, but now through Mottram and down into Glossop. The old plan would have seen Carbon emissions increase in this area by 15,000 tons each year. Doesn't this make a nonsense of their claims to be 'environmentally friendly'? Surely the best way to be green is not to pollute the area with more traffic and CO2?

And of course we then had Alistair Stevens telling us to 'get real' because the road would be used for 'green cars' (apparently powered by wind turbines). He must know about these things, after all he's an Estate Agent...

That just about wraps up our little contribution to the 2010 General Election. Just remember: whoever you vote for, the government always gets in. Voting for any of this lot ensures business as usual, which also means a war on the local environment, and that's a war that will not go unanswered in the years to come.

Ruth Bergan & the Tameside Green Party position on Bypass 2.0

If you haven't been following the comments on a recent blog post, you'll know that we've been having what Mrs Merton would call a 'mass debate' (all four of us) about the position of Tameside Green Party and the Stalybridge & Hyde candidate Ruth Bergan regarding Bypass 2.0.

Ruth has sent us a copy of the latest Green Party leaflet (you can view a larger version of the leaflet by clicking on the image on the left) which states that Tameside Green Party members have been involved in fighting to stop the destruction of Swallows Wood by the old Bypass plans. We can't necessarily begrudge anyone taking credit for that victory, least of the thousands that took time to formally object, amongst whom are some of the members of Tameside Green Party (just to remind Longdendale Siege and any pro-bypass folk out there, objections outnumbered supporters by a ratio of 2:1).

And to underline her and her Party's opposition to Bypass 2.0, Ruth said the following in her last comment on this site (emphasis added):

"To make our position clear, Tameside Green Party is opposed to the builiding of any bypass. We believe it is a scandal that the Labour council are so hell-bent on destroying our natural heritage. Traffic levels will grow to fill the road space, reducing air quality and increasing CO2 emissions. A bypass is not the answer..."

This is what we'd wanted to hear. Let's hope that we now hear that continuously (& loudly) echoed by the party - in public -  for as long as TMBC choose to pursue the plan. If we were cheeky, we'd ask for a link to this blog too.

Well, we're glad that's settled...

Pure propaganda - Roy Oldham "aware of the beautiful countryside on his doorstep"

One of our contacts has passed us Roy Oldham's latest election leaflet for the local Council Elections, and it's a gem.

You can see the full leaflet here and here. Note that the only line about the Bypass is a solitary sentence - "In Longdendale, the Bypass is going through its procedures", which makes it sound like it's some kind of independent sentient being. We're willing to bet that behind closed doors, Roy carries on conversations with the Bypass - for all we know, he may even believe he sleeps with it, which perhaps may go some way to explaining his dogged persistent devotion to the "idea" over the years.

Equally bizarre though is the small series of vignettes which illustrate how Roy is 'working for you', and in particular the one on the left. Apparently, Roy is very aware of the "beautiful countryside on his doorstep". The problem is that Roy wants to introduce his jealous lover Bypass to the beautiful countryside -  it's one of Roy's sick, twisted fantasies - and we know how it's going to end folks don't we? Yes, the perverted Bypass will have his wicked way with 'beautiful countryside', making her tired, ugly and degraded - a shadow of her former self.

Now you would have thought that a perfect backdrop to illustrate Roy's love for the countryside would be - the countryside of Longdendale! The only problem with that is that many of the views you could pick would be spoiled forever by the Bypass. So Roy's played it safe and posed against the park at the junction of the A57 and A628 in Hollingworth.

We think this is no small accident: for politicians like Oldham, the mitigation for projects that entail environmental degradation and the destruction of open spaces in the countryside is the provision of dead, paved, ecological deserts such as the park in the photograph. We know which we prefer.

We hear that Roy's facing a showdown with Kieran Quinn on May 16th, only 9 days after the results of the Council Elections. He may have plenty of time to spend in his park after that.

Ruth Bergan - don't mention the Bypass(?)

Now in this post we're not going to do any transcribing of the interview Saddleworth News has made with the Green Party candidate for Stalybridge & Hyde, Ruth Bergan. The reason being is that there's no mention of the Bypass.

We're not entirely sure why this is, but we'll posit some possibilities:

1. The interviewer didn't ask. So, far, the only other candidate who has not been asked about it is the Nazi David Jones, but you would have thought it was the ideal question to ask a Green candidate. But it's a strong possibility.
2. The interviewer did ask, but Ruth refused to answer and/or asked to have her words deleted from the interview. Seems highly unlikely, but a possibility.
3. Ruth thought it was best not to mention it. Although there were chances to raise the issue herself, in relation to transport for example, Ruth thought better of it for fear of 'losing votes'. This is also a strong possibility.
4. Ruth thinks it's irrelevant - she simply doesn't think it's an issue in Stalybridge and Hyde. Inconceivable.

Historically, Green candidates in Tameside - and even Tameside Green Party itself - have been fainthearts in relation to this issue: it's simply not been an issue that they have taken up at a political level in the area. Indeed, at the Public Inquiry, a representative from Friends of the Earth in Stockport was the only person from a mainstream Green organisation to be combative about the issue and subject the promoters to scrutiny. In her local election address in this week's local papers, the prospective Green Party Council candidate for Longdendale - Melanie Roberts - makes absolutely no reference whatsoever to Bypass 2.0.

Politicians of all stripes are usually more than keen to tell us both what they are for and what they are against. You would have thought that the issue of a road scarring the beautiful landscape of Longdendale & Glossopdale, promoting more traffic and attendant pollution would be something a Green candidate would have something to say about. But not in the case of Ruth Bergan and Tameside Green Party.

UPDATE 5th May 2010: Ruth Bergan has responded personally to this blog post, and you can follow the discussion by going to the comments. We have offered her an opportunity to make clear her opposition to Bypass 2.0, and she has now taken us up on the offer - you can read the blog post about it here.

John Cooke's Truck Driver Divorce

Who cares what UKIP think about the bypass? Or anything else for that matter? Well, you can't accuse Saddleworth News of being inconsistent (although there's no mention of the bypass in the interview with the Tameside BNP Führer and Gollum soundalike David Jones), so he asks Tameside's UKIP afterbirth John Cooke (aka "Rubber Duck") what he thinks. So let's be even handed and give the bloke five minutes shall we?

Well, it's a very short interview and the bit about the bypass is even shorter.  So short we'll simply quote in full rather than leave it to the end. C'mon Rubber Duck:

Erm, I'm 100% in favour of the Mottram Bypass, erm, I used to run a transport company. It's possible for a lorry to get across to Sheffield in 45 minutes, erm, except for the traffic jams. The traffic jams need to be got rid of, it's doing nobody's health any good having thousands of vehicles sat ticking over, belching fumes into the air, so I would like to see the Mottram Bypass completed as quickly as possible.

Appropriately, Cooke's interview appears to have been conducted in the street, and the sound of traffic is constant. Anyway, at this point, there's precious little else to write about, so here's some lyrics from Frank Zappa's Truck Driver Divorce which seem apt:

Truck driver divorce!
It's very sad
(Steel guitars Usually weepall over it)
The bold & intelligent MASTERS OF THE ROAD,
With their Secret Language,
And their GIANT OVER-SIZED MECHANICAL TRANS-CONTINENTAL HOBBY-HORSE!

Indeed...

Rob Adlard's "rural feeling"

Another candidate for Stalybridge and Hyde interviewed by Saddleworth News is the Tory Rob Adlard. As you'd expect, our interest lies with what he has to say about the Bypass, and once again, we've produced an mp3 from the edited interview and have also transcribed it - both of these appear below.

As with Jonny Reynolds, there appears to be precious little comment from Adlard about the Bypass in other media. Even his own website's transport policy section has no specific mention of the Bypass. So Saddleworth News has done a good job of dragging what little these politicians have to say about the issue out of them.

And what does he say? Well, he's definitely for a bypass, although most of the time is spent attacking Roy Oldham's failure to deliver the road, which is in tune with the approach taken by Longdendale Conservatives. But his words about the 'majority' wanting a bypass concur with the perorations of other politicians - i.e. uninformed and without presenting any empirical evidence to support this assertion.

Adlard's record on the matter also speaks for itself: he did not write to the Public Inquiry to support the Bypass, nor schedule an appearance to speak in favour at said enquiry. You could say he's shown absolutely no interest in the matter, other than to play political football with it at election time: the same could be said of the Tory candidate for Longdendale Peter Hayes (whose fence-sitting blather about the bypass can be read here) - another one who thought the issue was so crucial to the people in the area that he decided not to register an opinion at the Public Inquiry. It's called having your cake and eating it.

Still, in a constituency that's been Labour since 1945 it's unlikely Adlard and Co. will ever get to the main course.


Interviewer:

Now one other erm issue that's important locally is erm the issue of the Bypass which is one that's erm rumbled on for a long time? Where do you stand on that?

Adlard:

It's an interesting and enormous issue, I mean, erm, you know it's something that's been going on for 30 years and it certainly divides the community here, erm - the majority of people want to have some kind of bypass. Erm, the village just up the road from me, Mottram, is absolutely split in two, er, by the problem with the roads right now and they're very upset about it - the majority of people up there want it, apart from the people who live on the outskirts, on the more sort of - erm - rural feeling, areas and they're very much more against it, er, and to be honest there are good arguments on either side.

When I started, erm, having a role to play in politics in this area, started to research, er, again the beginnings of the bypass and all the things that had gone on, we started by having a campaign to trying to get, erm, Roy Oldham the Council leader here to be more open and we were calling for more honesty erm on the issue, and use that as a starting point, and it was interesting when we began to do that, and we found that y'know there was a sort of spike in activity and promises about the bypass at election times. Recently he's just been holding -erm - consultations across all the villages in Longdendale, erm, y'know it's very very close to an election time er after the scheme fell through and he claims that it was because the Highways Agency, you know, withdrew the money and it was all their fault, and all the rest of it, and it was to do with the environmental campaigners, and it's not: I mean he never really had an argument to satisfy the environmental campaigners and just, you know, treated them as if they didn't have a point to make, and they clearly did have a point to make because, er, a lot of people were upset about that and it did cause ructions, but actually, that wasn't what stopped it. What stopped it was that the Highways Agency said it had the least strategic fit, it was the least suitable plan, the least well thought out plan, and the money went elsewhere, to other road schemes.

So, we need to start again, I think we need to look at it, erm, again from scratch - the scheme that Roy Oldham's proposing right now, we just shift the problem a little bit further down the road, away from his house in Mottram, and down into Hollingworth.

Jonny Reynolds interviewed about Bypass 2.0

Whilst it seems that any public pronouncements backing the Bypass in print from the Stalybridge and Hyde candidates are thin on the ground, the Saddleworth News website has been carrying interviews where it has been mentioned. Most interesting is their interview with Jonathan 'Jonny' Reynolds which appeared on their site recently.

Now the sound file for this interview is rather large, so we hope the editor of the site doesn't mind that we've altered it to save our readers/listeners the hassle of downloading it and wading through the other bilge to get to the relevant bit - the edited mp3 can be heard on the player below, along with our transcription of Reynolds' words.

But what's really fascinating about this interview is how much Reynolds gives away about the true reasons for this road. He makes a pitch aimed at the local electorate using the conventional justification about 'relieving locals of traffic' (although Bypass 2 is now only 'helping' Mottram), and wraps this around the true aim: that the bypass is part of a strategic route improvement, ultimately aimed at facilitating the motorway network, as part of a trans-European route (you may remember that we have written extensively in the past about the plans Tameside had for a North European Trade Axis).

Other interesting points are:

• How Reynolds corrects himself when talking about opposition to the original bypass plan - changing it to the well-worn myth propogated by the local roads lobby that it was "opposition outside the area".
• How Reynolds calls the new Bypass proposal 'Bypass 2' - a term first used on this website which now seems to have entered the official lexicon.
• How thoroughly middle class Reynolds is (and likely to become ruling class by May 7th if he's elected).

Interviewer:

Now one other erm issue that's been rumbling on here for er em really rather a long time is the issue of the Bypass, erm, where do you stand on that?

Reynolds:

I used to live on Mottram Moor in Hollingworth, I'm the Longdendale Councillor, so you won't be surprised to know I'm very much in favour of the Bypass. You know I'm not someone who believes that building roads is always the answer to traffic problems but if you look at the unique situation that we have with two motorways pointing towards each other, everything that I've seen, you know, there's not an easy public transport solution to this, and some of the more sort of, erm, distinctive ideas like a roll-on roll-off railway don't seem to have been a starter at all, er, in order to solve the traffic problem.

What annoys me the most as a Longdendale Councillor is the way that, you know, the funding allocations have come about in such a way as to, you know, be assigned in a way at a regional level, and I understand why across the North West for certain transport projects that makes sense, but really this is, you know, an essential piece of road infrastructure on the edge of a region - it's a national project because it links two regions together and it's something which has come about really through the National motorway network, creating the unique problems that we've got in Longdendale, and I think the government - all governments - going back many, many years should have recognised this and given us the funding, and we've got the busiest A-road in the country and we've got levels of pollution in Hollingworth outside the primary school which are in excess of anything that's recommended by, you know, the medical experts.

So, the funding should be given - I appreciate the original Bypass plan caused a lot of opposition because of, sorry a lot of opposition outside the area, because of what was perceived to be some sort of damage to the Peak Park as it came through at the end, that was a small piece of the, er, wider bypass that was proposed. At the minute what we're looking at is really what's been called Bypass 2 or a smaller initial option that would just bypass Mottram and come back across and use the Glossop Spur back to Woolley Bridge from the M67. That's still going to require a solution for Hollingworth, and road calming and maybe an HGV ban can be part of that, but I need to know in terms of being both a local Councillor and, er, a possible MP for the area that Hollingworth's going to get a solution as well as Mottram, and I'm very much committed as someone who lives in the area as well to getting, er you know, a system in place which relieves the residents of the traffic because what they're being asked to put up with at the minute is not acceptable at all.

High Peak Hustings - Bypass 2.0 is for "cars powered by wind turbines"

Yesterday saw 3 of the candidates from the main political parties contesting the General Election take part in a 'hustings' event on High Peak Radio. NMB audio faeries whipped out their copies of Audacity to make a recording, and we've edited the 'lowlights' of the proclamations of the three candidates - i.e. the bit where they reveal their plans to trash the environment of the High Peak in numerous ways - and you can hear this at the foot of this post on the mp3 player.

We'll be back soon with a fuller analysis, but for the time being, we'll leave you with Alistair Stevens' (Lib Dem) bizarre The Day Today-esque response to a question we posed (which begins at 7:14) - the Bypass he wants to build will be for "cars powered by wind turbines". Whatever next...

A future free from the Bypass?

Now we don't pretend to have done a full survey of all the election literature circulating both Longdendale and the High Peak, but from what we have seen so far, it seems remarkably free of mention of Bypass 2.0.

In the High Peak, in leaflets mailed and posted by the successor to Tom 'Shiteman' Levitt - Caitlin Bisknell - there's no mention the Bypass anywhere. This is also the case in the examples of literature delivered on behalf of Andrew 'Tweedledumber' Bingham (we will try to post scans of these leaflets when we have time).

But the most interesting case is that of the Labour PPC in Stalybridge & Hyde, Jonathan Reynolds. A website has been erected for his campaign this week, by the looks of it in a rather hasty fashion. Here's what we noticed on a cursory glance:

1. It seems to contain rather a lot of press releases about James Purnell - in fact, it appears to be Purnell's website with a makeover - a bit like Reynolds himself.
2. Reynolds 'About me' spiel on the website makes no mention of Bypass 2.0, although there's plenty of talk about 'better transport by road and rail'.
3. Politicians and other folk publicly backing Reynolds on the site DO NOT include fellow Councillor Sean Parker-Perry (wonder why?) and, crucially, Tameside Council leader Roy Oldham.
4. As we've already said, this website appears to be James Purnell's redirected to a new domain name, and in the haste to get it online, Reynolds seems to have overlooked the fact that it does not contain his agent's details*, but does contain those of the General Sectretary of the Labour Party (Ray Collins) at the bottom (as a Labour MP's website often does). Those more well-versed in electoral law than ourselves may want to see if anything illegal is taking place.

Whilst we haven't seen Reynolds campaign literature yet, it seems clear that many of the major political parties in the area do not consider the Bypass to be a campaigning issue. How long this lasts for after the election remains to be seen.

*UPDATE, 22/04/2010: a recent article in Tribune magazine carries a description of what seems like internecine civil war within Stalybridge and Hyde Labour Party, being heavily critical of Reynolds and his 'backers'. It makes clear that Reynolds was struggling to find an election agent, but has now secured Mike Kane, who some may remember replaced Mike Doherty as James Purnell's Office Manager when Doherty was sacked for writing to the press to back Purnell without declaring that he worked for him. Reynolds website now names Kane as his agent, although bizarrely he seems to have been  re-named 'Michel'.

Four more years...

...of Sean Parker-Perry. That's what Longdendale voted for last Thursday. Or did it?

To give Sean some credit, after our lambasting him for not campaigning on the bypass issue, he did talk about it in his statement which appeared in the local Reporter Group Newspapers publications. Whether or not he went door-to-door on the issue, we have no information. But we have been told that James Purnell was seen delivering leaflets in Longdendale 6 days before the election - when was the last time you heard of a Government Secretary of State out helping a local councillor to retain his seat?

This tells us 3 things - that the Government is in the shit. That Parker-Perry is in the shit. And that James Purnell is also in the shit. Indeed, on Thursday night's election programme, there was a report that projected that were the same voting patterns repeated at a General Election, Purnell would have lost his seat. Amen to that, the sooner he's back in Islington, the better.

So Sean will probably now claim that he has a mandate as a councillor, and that those electing him voted for the bypass. Apart from the fact that people vote for all kinds of reasons, and that his leaflet mentioned ASBOs, IKEA and cheap Council Tax and not the bypass, how do the stats stack up?

Firstly, his majority. Sean had 259 votes more than his nearest rival (Sue Barker, the Tory candidate with 1057 votes to Sean's 1316). Hardly a convincing margin of success. Indeed, if 130 of those people had voted for Sue, Sean would have been out.

Secondly, the turnout. A total of 2895 people turned out, with 7 spoiling their ballot papers. This is 37.6% of the (registered) Longdendale electorate. Hence, 6376 people didn't vote for Sean (or anyone else) - 83%. So if, as he alleges, all of Longdendale are screaming for a bypass and see Sean as the answer, he must be disappointed. Using these percentages, Sean's 'majority' is 3% of Longdendale's electorate.

Thirdly, following on from that, let's play devil's advocate. Let's pretend Sean's majority voted for him solely on the bypass issue. If it's the case that 83% didn't vote for Sean on any issue, then clearly only 17% may have voted for him on the bypass issue. How often are Longdendale Siege - of whom Sean is a member - quoting that 90-odd percent of people in Longdendale want a bypass? So often, we've lost count. The truth is that they're clearly neither motivated to vote for it, nor for a politician who has personally identified himself with the campaign for it.

So from now on, let's hear Siege quote their figures in the following way - 17% of people in Longdendale might be in favour of the bypass. Because that's the only thing they can say with any degree of certainty.

As for Sean, we're looking forward to the next 4 years. With his track record, he can only make things a lot worse, and you will read all about it here.

Sean Parker-Perry - no Bypass Mandate

Sean Parker-Perry - along with the other Longdendale Labour candidates that support the Bypass - have always made much of their 'mandate' in the area. They trot out the typical refrain of politicians, that they 'campaigned on the bypass issue' and therefore they were also elected on the back of it, as if it is the only point in their manifesto, and as though the electorate have a huge choice to vote for those who oppose it (or at least actively oppose it, eh Green Party? - NOT).

Indeed, both Johnathan Reynolds and Parker-Perry have made their views known to the Inspector at the Public Inquiry, as has Roy Oldham (although rather oddly, his evidence has yet to appear online, though it is available for all to see in the library). So let's take a look at what they say.

First Reynolds. You can read his letter here. The best bit reads:

"...In addition, I would like to make a point about the democratically expressed wishes of the people of Longdendale. As a newly elected Councillor in 2007, who had until very recently lived on Mottram Moor, I made clear my unequivocal support for the bypass during my election campaign and the reasons for this. My support for the Bypass was the subject of a specific leaflet I produced and distributed in Hollingworth and Mottram. Despite claims from the organised opposition that local opinion is not in favour of the project going ahead, I received more votes than all the opposing candidates combined. If local people are against the bypass, as some would claim, then they are certainly not registering this view through the ballot box. In fact, quite the opposite is true."

Of course, as we've pointed out before, most people in Longdendale don't vote, and since most of the candidates are for the bypass, there's not really any choice if you don't support it. No doubt Reynolds would point out that if you don't take part then 'tough', but you can't crow about a 'mandate' if the majority of a minority of the total population voted for you.

And then we come to Sean's letter to John Watson, which you can read here. He doesn't waffle and come over all pro like Johnny, but here's his bit:

"The elected members of TMBC who represent the Longdendale Ward have done so on a mandate from the electorate of supporting the bypass. Both I and my ward colleagues have run campaigns of clear support for the Bypass at each election and we have been returned with increasing majorities." (our emphasis)

Well, it seems that isn't the case this time. Because we've had Sean's leaflet through our letterbox. We've looked high and low, and there's no sign of any mention of the Bypass, let alone transport. Most of it is about how low the Council Tax is and it brags about vile crap like ASBOs and IKEA, as if they are laudable achievements. If you want to scrutinise it, we've produced scans below (click through for larger versions).
















No doubt a lot of canvassing is going on, but you can bet that most of it is concentrated on known Labour voters. So if Sean wins this time, he won't be able to talk about a mandate, at least not with a straight face. We''ll be there to remind him - and everyone else at every opportunity...