Out and about in Sedgfield

From the Editor's Sunday Brunch Table.

Yesterday I was out and about in the Parliamentary Constituency of Sedgefield to experience the campaigning activities of the candidates in the much publicised by-election. Not a Green, English Democrats, Official Monster Raving Loony, Independent or a British National Party (thank goodness for the latters absence) in sight. That is not to say the campaigning teams were about just that I did not see them.

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I did hear the voice (via a megaphone) of the LibDems; but I failed to make eye ball contact. The Liberal Democrats are taking this election very seriously indeed. They have sent the team attributed with engineering their victory in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election to lead the campaign of their candidate Greg Stone. Mr Stone, a councillor in Newcastle, is urging voters to send Labour a message “after years of neglect”.

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Labour faces something of a test in the by-election for Tony Blair’s former seat to head off local anger over the failure to rebuild the constituency’s biggest town centre. A serious mood of revolt is abroad among folk in Newton Aycliffe, a drab early 1960's settlement with a crumbling concrete shopping centre where promises of a new modern town centre have been blocked by rows with developers and Labour Councillors.

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Labour, long time the ruling local party in an area once dominated by coal mining, is hoping the decision to call a snap election will leave too little time for local anger to mobilise around one rival candidate, but try as I might I could not see any sign of the Labour team yesterday, perhaps they are staying under cover except when their are news persons are about

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A former Newton Aycliffe shopkeeper, Paul Gittins, is standing as an Independent in the by-election. The high profile individual has already commenced his campaign in the press if not yet on the door step.

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The Conservatives, with just one council seat in Sedgefield, have a weaker base but their candidate, Graham Robb, a public relations man, is also focusing on the failure to regenerate Newton Aycliffe town centre, proposing a public-private company is set up to rebuild it.

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All the campaigners apart from the Labour team threatens to embarrass Mr Blair with suggestions that he neglected his constituency during his ten years as Prime Minister.

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Even the Labour candidate concedes Blair's neglect of the constituency is a factor in this election. “It is pointless saying there is not a problem because there is,” Mr Wilson told The Times on Thursday as he knocked on doors of council houses in the ex-mining village of Ferryhill; in the full gaze of the press. “To be fair to Tony, he has been pulling people together on this for the last few months. People’s frustration was starting to show with himself as well. What I want to do now is take up the cudgels and sort this out.”

The prize for the most high profile candidate on Saturday goes to Toby Horton the UKIP candidate who was quite literally flying the flag for the cause of leaving the EU. An issue, incidentally, that Tony Blair supported back in 1983 when he was first elected as 31 year old MP.

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This Blog will give daily reports on the Sedgefield by-election. Journalists - particularly from overseas who require local briefings should contact the Editor on: 01740 629433.