The ongoing story of my life at the moment – both as a councillor and as a resident on a very ordinary income – is all about the “cost of living crisis”.
It’s all about the terrifying black holes at the heart of the council’s finances, the fire service’s finances (I also sit on the East Sussex Fire Authority) and my personal finances too.
But last week there was at least a bit of respite from gloomy budget discussions as Labour campaigned for our fantastic candidate Bella Sankey in the Wish ward by-election in Hove.
Despite freezing weather and the dark clouds over the national and local economies, our members and supporters turned out in force in this Conservative seat.
And they produced an absolutely stunning victory, with Bella taking around 60 per cent of the total vote. The Tory and Green votes collapsed – and the Lib Dems and UKIP candidates were nowhere.
I think it’s fair to say that people are angry with the Tories for the national mismanagement of all of our most important public services – the NHS, care system, transport and energy – and for the all-too-obvious corruption and cronyism at the heart of government.
Many of us are surely starting to see it as the “cost of greed crisis” rather than a “cost of living crisis”.
And that’s because the huge corporations, bankers and already wealthy continue to get richer and richer at the expense of the rest of us, like some obscene upside-down version of the Robin Hood story.
Locally, the only line the Cons seem to have – on repeat – is that they are the antidote to the supposed Labour and Green “coalition” that they know perfectly well doesn’t exist.
In our minority-run council, the Labour group has always said that our members would work with all other parties in any areas where we felt that a proposal was in the best interests of residents or local businesses. We would not oppose just for the sake of it or for a media headline.
But of course we think we can run the city better than both the rival parties – and it looks like the voters of Wish ward, at least, agreed with us last week.
So, we’ll be welcoming Bella to the Labour group this week.
And we’ll be campaigning hard across the city over the next five months, hopefully in even bigger numbers than we saw in Wish, for a new Labour administration, a majority one this time, and a fresh start for the city.
Councillor Amanda Evans is the deputy leader of the Labour opposition on Brighton and Hove City Council.
Hopefully at the next local election there will be a plethora of independents elected. The city deserves better than to continue with the busted flush of the main three parties. One good bit of news though, I hear that Phelim is standing down so not all bad then😊
Totally agree, but independents are not putting their heads above the parapet so far. There is not long to go and I don’t see much sign of independents coming forward to make a case for election There is only one truly indie councillor in B&H , and she has been excellent, despite being left to deal with a 3-councillor ward entirely on her own, because the other two appear to be very long-term sick. One of them, fairly newly-elected, but who did nothing at all, as he was sick during his campaign, has put his hands up and says he will stand down in May, and the other one has said nothing at all about anything for a long time. Obviously, we have every sympathy with councillors who are long-term sick, but they should not become totally silent and transfer the burden to someone else.
However, the really exciting news, if true, is that Mac Cafferty is bowing out. Is he running away like Kitcat?
Sorry to burst your bubble Amanda but Bella was always going to win this seat.
People have woken up to the green logic therefore are un-voteable, no body is going to vote tory and the rest aren’t really in the running.
Bella actually concerns me with some of her statements, she thinks we should accept terrorism, supports criminals who she thinks shouldn’t be deported.