Over the last 15 years or so, the Consett area has gone from solidly Labour for municipal purposes, to highly competitive. The same has happened in the area in and around Langley Park and Witton Gilbert.
But between the two, Lanchester has gone in the other direction, moving from highly competitive local elections, to the fiefdom of the one old man who controls the Labour Party here.
Last year's Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates for the County Council did not even live here, nor did they put out so much as a leaflet. For two seats, those parties put up only one candidate apiece.
Each of them also put up precisely one, albeit local, candidate for the Parish Council, both of whom were elected with my votes. I also voted for Labour and Independent candidates, and for two with No Description.
12 of my 15 choices were elected. But that is the point. There were 15 seats to fill. 15 people were bound to be elected. Yet there was precisely one Conservative candidate for whom to vote, and precisely one Liberal Democrat.
Nor, come to that, were there enough Independent or No Description candidates to have taken control, even if we had all been elected.
That Liberal Democrat, Martin Walker, is starting to look like the last hope where the County seats are concerned. In his forties, he has already been highly active in a number of local causes. He could take the second seat next time.
The alternative is an uncontested election, possibly the first of four or five, and perhaps even the first of six or seven, at which the aged Ossie Johnson and whoever he happened to name as his running mate were elected unopposed until he was over 80, or over 90, or even over 100, because no one of any real calibre could be bothered to go through the humiliation of being beaten by them time and time again.
I have known Ossie since I was a small child. I was a Parish Councillor and a school governor with him for many years. Until last year, on the issue of the Teaching Assistants, I had never missed an opportunity to vote for him. But I have no idea what startling achievements have given him the ability to wipe the floor with all comers at the polls, and now also to guarantee the second seat to anyone of his choosing.
Even within the Labour Party, two entire generations of potential Councillors for this Ward have already been lost. Jude Considine, whom I barely know so this is nothing personal, is older than either Neil Fleming or me, yet it is 15 years since he and I were both screwed over, one way or another. A third such generation is now in the process of being lost, too.
I am no Lib Dem. I am a staunch Brexiteer in the old school of Peter Shore. More broadly, I am especially suspicious of that Whig tradition. But I was proud to vote for the Teaching Assistants' champion, Owen Temple, for Parliament last year.
And I would be proud to vote for Martin Walker, to give back this Ward at least something resembling the pluralism and competitiveness that it used to enjoy, and which it has bizarrely lost while the communities round about have gained it.
If that does not happen in 2021, then it never will.
12 of my 15 choices were elected. But that is the point. There were 15 seats to fill. 15 people were bound to be elected. Yet there was precisely one Conservative candidate for whom to vote, and precisely one Liberal Democrat.
Nor, come to that, were there enough Independent or No Description candidates to have taken control, even if we had all been elected.
That Liberal Democrat, Martin Walker, is starting to look like the last hope where the County seats are concerned. In his forties, he has already been highly active in a number of local causes. He could take the second seat next time.
The alternative is an uncontested election, possibly the first of four or five, and perhaps even the first of six or seven, at which the aged Ossie Johnson and whoever he happened to name as his running mate were elected unopposed until he was over 80, or over 90, or even over 100, because no one of any real calibre could be bothered to go through the humiliation of being beaten by them time and time again.
I have known Ossie since I was a small child. I was a Parish Councillor and a school governor with him for many years. Until last year, on the issue of the Teaching Assistants, I had never missed an opportunity to vote for him. But I have no idea what startling achievements have given him the ability to wipe the floor with all comers at the polls, and now also to guarantee the second seat to anyone of his choosing.
Even within the Labour Party, two entire generations of potential Councillors for this Ward have already been lost. Jude Considine, whom I barely know so this is nothing personal, is older than either Neil Fleming or me, yet it is 15 years since he and I were both screwed over, one way or another. A third such generation is now in the process of being lost, too.
I am no Lib Dem. I am a staunch Brexiteer in the old school of Peter Shore. More broadly, I am especially suspicious of that Whig tradition. But I was proud to vote for the Teaching Assistants' champion, Owen Temple, for Parliament last year.
And I would be proud to vote for Martin Walker, to give back this Ward at least something resembling the pluralism and competitiveness that it used to enjoy, and which it has bizarrely lost while the communities round about have gained it.
If that does not happen in 2021, then it never will.
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