Labour in Northumberland are derided by members and supporters of their own party elsewhere in the North East. The cause of the party’s recent decline, Grant Davey and David Ledger, have stepped
down from their leadership roles to make way for a seemingly less toxic political brand. But Northumberland Labour is now rotten to its core, and no change of leadership will address that.
The fundamental problem facing the party is an outright denial of objective facts. The transactions of the development company Arch were regarded by many as criminal, and at the very least were morally
repugnant no matter which side of the political fence they are viewed from. Yet a hardcore rump of Labour supporters continue to maintain that the company provided good value for taxpayers’ money. That’s because as union officials and 'clurb' committee members, Labour’s councillors in Northumberland live in a world where
benefitting from the people you’re supposed to represent is par for the course.
Die-hards maintained for a long time that the allegations against Arch were nothing but innuendo, which was of course true when the independent report into Arch was supressed by Northumbria Police, but now its findings are a matter of public record. Taxpayers' money to prop up a non-league football club, trips abroad for Labour politicians, failures to declare members' interests, multi-million pound contracts paid to firms employing Laverys,
and extraordinary payments to Labour spindoctor Graham Harper all feature, and that's just what's currently in the public domain, but the charge sheet doesn’t stop there. The council paid over £2000 for booze at Ian Lavery’s private executive box while he was
chair of Ashington Football Club. Only in warped Labour minds is that good value for taxpayers.
On social media the very characters that cost Labour so many seats in 2017 are still the party’s A Team with the names Sambrook, Whisson and Tyler trying desperately to defend the regime they were a part of. Seeking to
clear your own name is understandable, but when other names like Bell, Matthewson and Wilczek take to defending the old crimes of their new paymasters, there is little to suggest different leadership will stop the rot.
Labour have lost almost every by-election since their wipeout in May 2017, demonstrating deeply rooted attitude from residents against their lavish self-indulgence. Even in their Ashington heartland
an independent candidate managed to make them work for their reduced majority. It’s little wonder that they have retreated to their formerly safe havens to drum up support for their lacklustre mayoral candidate whose has only further damaged his party’s brand in the
county where their reputation hasn't got much further to fall.
Scott Dickinson and Susan Dungworth are slightly less tainted by the toxic Northumberland Labour brand than Honest Grant and Junket Dave were, but until the party's grassroots activists and disgraced former councillors accept the damage done by their
former leaders, the change at the top will make no difference at all.
