Martin Salter's Westminster Diary

Martin Salter MP • Last updated 8 May 2008 10:19 0 Comments

HERE'S a story you won't read in any national newspaper - Labour won the local elections in Reading last Thursday and once again bucked the national trend.

Even including the small, single-member Tory ward of Mapledurham the results were as follows: Labour: 7 seats, Conservatives: 6 seats, Lib Dems: 3 seats and Greens: no seats.

In reality my party lost overall control of Reading Borough Council when it failed to get the politics right in 2007 and threw away four Labour seats it should have held on the back of trying to introduce alternate weekly bin collections and a one-way IDR in the same year.

There is little that we could have done to stop the Conservatives regaining their traditional seats and coupled with last year's losses for Labour the Conservatives now had a unique opportunity to take control of Reading Borough Council for the first time in a generation. However, they failed to even become the largest party and the disappointment on the Tory faces was as plain as it was pleasing.

David Cameron himself visited Reading last month to announce that the Tories would win enough seats to control or run the council but Labour stopped them, despite a dreadful electoral performance nationally.

In Reading East I was delighted to see my old ward of Park staying Labour and to see Tony Page fight off the Tory challenge in Abbey. It is now quite clear that the Tory strategy was for taking control of the council. In addition to pocketing their previous gains in Kentwood, Church and Caversham, they heavily targeted Park and Abbey in the East and Minster, Southcote, Norcot and Tilehurst in the West.

I was justifiably proud of the performance of Labour councillors and candidates in Reading West on Thursday. Obviously it was a blow to lose overall control but to hold all five Labour seats in my constituency, thereby ensuring that we remain the largest party on the Council, was nothing short of stunning. There were very few Labour MPs returning to Westminster this week with results anything like as good as we achieved in Reading West.

My Conservative opponent was visibly gutted to fail to take Southcote and Minster, despite flooding these wards with Tories from all over Berkshire. In Southcote Deborah Edwards built up a well-deserved personal vote as a result of her community work, which saw our majority increase on last year.

The Minster result was simply incredible in the context of Labour's worst election results nationally since 1968. Debbie Watson and Paul Gittings worked tirelessly and effectively and will make a great team in the ward.

Finally, I want to say how sad I was to see David Sutton lose his seat. It has been under the leadership of David that Reading has prospered and the whole town, not just the Labour Party owes him a debt of gratitude.

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This blog appeared in Reading Chronicle 08 May 08

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