If the new boundary commission changes go ahead, it looks as though The proposed  Lewes and East Brighton seat will be a Tory marginal based on the voting figures from the last Local elections results.

On May’s results in wards included in the new seat:

Con 13700,

Labour 9000,

LibDems 6500,

Greens 5800,

so Labour become the main challengers and if you want to defeat the Tories then you will need to vote Labour. This will be a massive turn around for many in the Lewes section of this seat. Will Norman Baker be standing in the hope to maintain his position or will ge go elsewhere.  The greens who have made inroads at the local elections will be divided and pushed to the bottom.  Decisions will have to be made as they have been made in the past by other voters on who exactly you want or don’t want to represent you and govern the country.

Only Labour, your voice in a tough time, has the clout and the leverage to fight back on your behalf against the vicious cuts the Lib-dems and Tories are handing down for. No other party has our interest in public service or our strength locally and nationally to fight back.

This is because only Labour believes strongly in public services like Libraries, proper education for young people, free books for children, universal child benefit and of course the NHS.  The Lib-dems want us to fight for the NHS in Lewes and fight for the Vic all over again.

Labour has shown there is another way, an alternative to the slash and burn policies that are annihilating the NHS, cutting back the police and eradicating the education system and bringing incredible pressure on  local peoples lives.

If you want to get in on the act, a large group from Lewes labour will be going up to the march on 26th March, look in the Labour Office window at 3 North Street, Lewes for details, or look for our banner at Victoria Embankment at 11am in London or drop in on saturday morning at 3 North Street for a coffee.  Alternatively you could join the coalition for resistance here

By now you will have all seen the result in Barnsley, yes it was an expected Labour win. But additionally it was a very bad night for the coalition.

The Lib-dems not only fell to 6th place, but fell below even the independent candidate who had hardly two pennies to ryb together.  They also lost their deposit. £500 not well spent in these times of all in it together austerity!

The Lib-dems managed to poll 1,012 votes.  As one commentator has said “Shock of the night was that 1,012 people still prepared to vote Lib Dem at all” . In terms of vote share (of who did vote) Labour’s was up 13.5% and the Lib-Dems down 13.1%, Tory’s down 9% and UKIP up 7%.  The reality may be that the Lib-dem vote just didn’t come out, and this may happen locally.  It does mean that Lewes Labour must ensure good voter contact and work hard to get our own vote out. If you want to help contact us or come to the next branch Meeting or one of our Saturday drop ins at 3 North street, Lewes.

There is something else here too which is the Tories also slumped but the parties of the Right like UkIP did well.  The likelihood is that the Tory faithful may be disillusioned with Camerons Liberal Toryism as much as they Lib-dems are unhappy about Tory Liberalism.  And to think they did it all for ‘POWER’…oopps sorry I mean the national interest and all being in it together.  The result also shows us something else ….that the left wing vote who previously supported the Lib-dems last year are deserting them and that this vote may be hard for them to claw back.

I understand from a BBC article by Michael Crick that there is no time since 1945 in England that a party has gone from 2nd in a seat to 6th in one election. But it could mean nothing in the scheme of things.

So can we take anything from this by-election?  Well it shows the mood of the country at the moment but thats about it…. The coalition is making is playing dice  with our economy and public services, in order to gain advantage at the next election.

They think if they can get the pain and public services anguish over as quickly as possible regardless of the horror it causes, hoping the economy picks up by the time the election comes around and with additional revenue brought in by an improving bank sector (there will be budget goodies to be handed out)   The Tory’s wrote the book on this one, and even though the policy machine has spat out a few spanners in the last 2 months, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have 4 years to grease the necessary palms and re-oil Camerons hair.

Community Land Trusts are a great idea and have been set up across the country to offer an affordable way to provide housing and locally-owned business and community buildings. They work as an alternative to private developers and when at their best involve at all levels a full range of local men and women of all ages and walks of life.  They are there to try and ensure that local development benefits the whole of the  local community not just a set of private developers.

We support the idea of CLTs and Lewes has its own in the Lewes Community Land Trust, you can find their website here and if you want to get in touch contact them as well.  The idea behind the CLT is not for them to dictate to the community like our local lib-dem council have done, but to involve the community, and Lewes CLT have been true to their word on this, their most recent consultation and discussion being on the Phoenix Development, back in November.

The local Labour Party would encourage everyone to get involved, rather than just protest at what you don’t want it is a chance to be involved in creating a vision of what the community might want for Lewes. The problem is that the Lib-Dems use this kind of organisation as a platform.  So all of a sudden we find people leading community organisations are up for election wearing an orange rosette.   An holisitic vision for Lewes has been sadly lacking in terms of development, the Lewes Community Land Trust can change all that, but it can only be done if we all get involved and we are all encouraged to be involved.

So Jason Syrup gives Lord Baker of Iraq a drubbing via the letters page of the sussex express. Syrup reckons that Norman Nothing (that is done nothing for the district of Lewes to you) has done nothing, I am sure we said that first, but may Tory Jason has been getting his ideas from us, because to be honest when was the last time a Tory had a good idea, unless it was an idea that benefitted them.

So Norman Nothing and Jason syrup can lay into each other, but all we have to remember is a vote for the Liberals is a wasted vote and vote for the Tories is a vote for the fat cats. Just remember the Tories are fakes, remember all that on the british beach photos in Boden clothes that Cameron and his wife did in the summer, then they swanned off on a slightly different holiday altogether.

Honest Gordon Brown may be stern, he may have one eye, he may look uncomfortable in front of the cameras but thats because he’s better behind his desk using his experience to run the country.