Out for the count
May. 10th, 2021 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustCounting the votes for Durham County Councillors was delayed, as the figures for the Police and Crime Commissioner didn't tally, and they had to recount (Labour won; I can live with that) but by yesterday morning the radio was able to tell me that Labour had lost control of Durham County Council, and that this was a big deal - "for the first time in a century", says the BBC (the local paper says Durham was the first County Coucil to controlled by Labour, and I'd believe that). In the small print, Labour is still the largest group on the Council, but they have lost overall control. I would like to think that this is less part of a national swing to the Conservatives, more a judgement on the arrogance and intransigeance of DCC (their treatment of the teaching assistants, the new County HQ by the river) but no doubt all over the country people are telling themselves that they aren't part of a national swing, that their locsl election was about local issues ... Anyway, the Coucil is now Labour 53, Independents,local parties and one Green 31 seats, Conservatives 24 (a gain of 14), Liberal Democrats 17.
The count for the Parish Council was held yesterday, in Spennymoor;durham_rambler went to observe, and I went along for the ride, and to take a stroll around town. Spennymoor isn't a pretty town, but I wanted to follow the trail around sites associated with local artist Norman Cornish:
Like so: from the Town Hall to the church, to the school, through the park, where the manic colour of the plantings around the mining memorial provided a jarring contract to Cornish's scenes of work underground (and the even more macabre background information provided). I can always find something to entertain me on unfamiliar ground with my camera, and there were shop fronts and blossom and an entirely separate art project consisting of community sourced portry (no comment) on giant perspex letters dotted around the walls of buildings...
One way and another, by the time I had explored what was described as a 50 minute walk, I didn't have as much as half an hour with my book beforedurham_rambler emerged from the count.
He had not been re-elected. He had received a perfectly respectable 1117 votes, and come tenth out of 18 candidates for eight places: not the runner-up, but the runner-up to the runner-up. My suspicion is that people voted along party lines, to a greater extent than they had at the previous election (possibly because Covid regulations resulted in less face-to-face canvassing, or because the election was in parallel with the County, and indeed national, elections, and people were thinking more in party terms). Certainly at least one LibDem candidate was elected despite (I understand) having persuaded to stand to make up the numbers. The good news is that the Green candidate was elected, and none of the Tories. And we are still processing what this will mean: but in the short term,durham_rambler will still appear at the hearing into DCC's attempt to take over the common land on the Sands.
The count for the Parish Council was held yesterday, in Spennymoor;
durham_rambler went to observe, and I went along for the ride, and to take a stroll around town. Spennymoor isn't a pretty town, but I wanted to follow the trail around sites associated with local artist Norman Cornish:Like so: from the Town Hall to the church, to the school, through the park, where the manic colour of the plantings around the mining memorial provided a jarring contract to Cornish's scenes of work underground (and the even more macabre background information provided). I can always find something to entertain me on unfamiliar ground with my camera, and there were shop fronts and blossom and an entirely separate art project consisting of community sourced portry (no comment) on giant perspex letters dotted around the walls of buildings...
One way and another, by the time I had explored what was described as a 50 minute walk, I didn't have as much as half an hour with my book before
durham_rambler emerged from the count.He had not been re-elected. He had received a perfectly respectable 1117 votes, and come tenth out of 18 candidates for eight places: not the runner-up, but the runner-up to the runner-up. My suspicion is that people voted along party lines, to a greater extent than they had at the previous election (possibly because Covid regulations resulted in less face-to-face canvassing, or because the election was in parallel with the County, and indeed national, elections, and people were thinking more in party terms). Certainly at least one LibDem candidate was elected despite (I understand) having persuaded to stand to make up the numbers. The good news is that the Green candidate was elected, and none of the Tories. And we are still processing what this will mean: but in the short term,
durham_rambler will still appear at the hearing into DCC's attempt to take over the common land on the Sands.
