After a day of media speculation, the Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak finally announced that he was calling a General Election on the 4th July. The Labour Party is ready for this election and the Hexham CLP has been working for a Labour victory for over a year. Sunak’s Tory government is out of time … Read More
After a hard fought campaign Kim McGuinness has been elected as the first NE Mayor. This is a historic victory which saw Kim win 185,051 votes (41%), with independent Jamie Driscoll in second place on 126,652 and Conservative Guy Renner-Thompson in third place on 52,446. A full list of candidates and vote share can be … Read More
Across the North East the news of the closure of the Port Talbot steelworks in Wales was met with sadness and remembrance for the past damage done by the Conservatives to industry in our region. This compelling evidence of the Conservative’s failure to enact a meaningful industrial strategy, or support industries critical to our national … Read More
Our Parliamentary Candidate Joe Morris has revealed shocking figures that show 35.9% of bus services in Northumberland have been axed under the Conservatives. Despite the Conservatives promising “bus services so frequent you wouldn’t need a timetable” in 2022, the total number of miles driven by buses in Northumberland plummeted by from 13.8 million kilometres driven … Read More
Yesterday the CLP met in Hexham for the hustings and selection process for the Labour Party’s Parliamentary Candidate for the Hexham Constituency. After listening to the speeches and questions and answers from the two candidates (the third had withdrawn earlier in the day) members voted. The ballots cast in person and the postal votes were … Read More
The Conservative Party Conference in Manchester has surfaced yet again all of the divisions and lurches to the right that characterise Rishi Sunak’s government. The PM himself has engaged in a strange kind of political pantomime over HS2. This High Speed Rail Link, originally intended to link London with Leeds and Manchester via Birmingham, was … Read More
The Allen Valleys Labour Party Supporters’ Group held a Labour Party stall at the Allendale Agricultural Show today. Local members and supporters on the stall chatted with friends, neighbours, local people and visitors to the area about a range of issues including bus services, affordable housing, the cost of living crisis, the water quality in … Read More
Heavy rain across the North East over the last few days has made for a miserable August and difficult driving conditions. What’s worse is that all of that rain runs into our rivers and oceans through networks of drains and sewers. Massive under-investment by our privatised water companies and repeated lack of action by the … Read More
The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today announced 100 new oil and gas exploration licences in the North Sea and carbon capture schemes. He claimed that these risky bets on fossil fuel extraction and unproven carbon capture technologies were justified in the name of energy resilience. The gas and oil extracted from any new North Sea … Read More
Proposed changes to our railways will see many ticket offices closed and reduced staffing at stations. The proposals include closing the ticket offices at Hexham meaning that (with the additional planned closure of Carlisle booking office) the only staffed ticket office on the Tyne Valley Line will be at Newcastle. Train operators have outlined that … Read More
Jonathan Reynolds MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, responding to Jaguar Land Rover’s Gigafactory announcement, said: Labour welcomes any investment in British jobs and industry and decisions like these vindicate Labour’s advocacy of an industrial strategy in place of scattergun announcements. In spite of the Government’s cack-handed approach to industry and our economy this shows the … Read More
The Tories’ 13 years in power have seen bus services across the country suffer. In Northumberland alone it has been calculated that over 3 million miles of bus journeys have been lost since 2016 in a sustained decline. In a betrayal of the government’s ‘levelling up promises’ almost one in ten of Britain’s rural bus … Read More
Labour has today pledged ‘a bright future’ for British industry under a Labour Government ahead of Keir Starmer’s speech to the British Chambers of Commerce on Wednesday. New analysis shows Labour’s plans to part-finance eight gigafactories will boost jobs in the automotive sector by 50%, creating 80,000 jobs and powering nearly two million electric vehicles. … Read More
In October 2021, Guy Opperman and most of his Conservative colleagues voted against an amendment to the environment bill that would have placed a legal duty on water companies not to pump waste into rivers. Not all his colleagues agreed. 22 Conservatives had the strength of character to vote for the amendment. The Environment Agency … Read More
Northumberland County Council has decided, without consulting local residents, to reduce the opening hours of Prudhoe Household Waste Recovery Centre from seven days a week to only four (Fri, Sat, Sun and Mon). Prudhoe Town Councillor Paddy O’Kelly (for West Wylam), with Angie Scott, also a Town Councillor and County Councillor for Prudhoe North, launched … Read More
As previously reported, Northumberland County Council has decided, without local consultation, that the Recycling Centre in Prudhoe should only be open Friday to Monday. This is to save money, caused at least in part by a decline in funding to the County Council from the Tory Westminster Government. Many local residents believe that the midweek … Read More