All Knowsley Council Election results here.

We bet there are a few hangovers in New Labour Party quarters today - but then again - what's new there? - it was Thursday night last night. In Knowsley, New Labour were given temporary shelter from the worse of the meltdown, but overall they have suffered there worse ever defeat. It's been a good old clearing out of 545 labour deadwood up and down the UK and some here in Knowsley, Michael Murphy, the Mayor, is the unfortunate high profile loss. An opening for Keight perhaps? We will return to this in other articles which assess the situation and look to the future of politics here on Merseyside and beyond. The working class aren't finished yet. Our day will come. New Labours are ending. Hundreds of Labour councillors are joining Michael Murphy tonight in the losers club.

Statistics

Last year in 2003, Whitefield ward had a local election and only 908 votes were cast. This year 4273 votes were cast. Bear in mind that people made 3 votes but overall it shows an increase. In Northwood, a straight Lab V Lib Dem contest saw 2154 votes for Labours candidates and 1520 votes for Lib Dem. That's a bit of meltdown really. A 30.5% turnout in votes in N-wood, which can be compared perhaps to the 16% turnout last year in the neighbouring ward of Kirkby Central. Roby Ward saw 26.5% last year - whilst this year it jumps to 43%. Whitefield Ward had 16.9% voting in 2003, now we see 36.5%, a jump of over 50% in the numbers of votes cast, we'll never know if each vote was cast by one person though will we?. We should follow suit like Australia and simply jail those who cannot be bothered to vote. Howarth would never want to see this happen, for good reason! On that voting slip would also be a place to sign for 'none of the above'. It is likely that Kirkby would have seen bigger percentages anyway if we had traditional voting where candidates can return to 'doorstep politics' - maybe have arguments in the streets to entertain us. At least secret ballot boxes are free from the dark shadow of electoral fraud.

Howarths Way

George Howarth will find little comfort in the fact that Knowsley managed to return a Labour majority in Council. The overall results mean that there will be no general election this year, and time is not on his side. If (or when) the spill-over from the Iraq war brings bloodshed to the streets of the UK (as predicted by Blair and all those 'in the know') then Howarth's task may become impossible. Even today, we can read the news announcing that "9000 Britons may have been affected from Gulf War syndrome", New Labour always bury these articles. Campaigners say almost 200 soldiers who saw service in the 1991 Gulf War have killed themselves after developing the illness, which, not surprisingly has always been officially denied by Mr Howarth's mates in the Government. Kirkby's local election was NOT fought on the Iraq War, but when choosing MP's, people do tend to remember the things a government does as a whole. Howarth will make sure councillors up here pay tribute to him as if the Knowsley election victory was down to his dynamic personality and can be a lesson for New Labour as a whole, but in reality Knowsley's results are sobering indeed for New Labour.

Return of Keight

Kaiser Keight's back in, we could almost sense it coming anyway so no-ones really too surprised there. Keight just cannot stop himself - he'll be in there like Flint, trying to get himself elevated to leader again, or maybe he can take the deputy job and we can all pretend Ronnie Rounds cleverer than Keight and really running the show. One thing for Keight - he is a very clever man - far brighter than old Ron. They make a good double act with Ron as the fall guy. It's a pity Keight uses that God given intelligence to make deals with the devil and rob the poor old people of Kirkby of much needed green fields. But the clever can go either way - good or bad. Seems as he is so clever, maybe this old master of the written and spoken word, can inform us all here in Northwood about the use of £30 odd million of SRB money then? Only Cllr Brian Williams asked questions in Kirkby about this money - now were back to the cosy old Northwood of old were all the labour mob and there stooges, the phoney left wing, can rest assured that no investigations will take place. Or can they? Let's pray to God the police aren't members of the labour party. They arrested enough Knowsley Councillors to be on nodding terms with a few, but only the BNP seems to get the front page of the Echo.

Roby: Snob Capital of Knowsley

Huyton is a definite snob capital of Knowsley in parts; we only need look to the massive amount of Tory votes there in places like Roby. Roby is a middle class wannabe oasis in the midst of the working class heartlands, the domain of some of the fur coat and no knickers brigade, old Tory women with purple dyed hair, false teeth that fit, and bald men with orange tans in cardigans washing posh cars in the council built driveways. (Roby may get more funds per head than Northwood ) The Tories got half the votes new lab got - and beat the Lib Dems into 3rd place comfortably. If people are voting for the Tories they must have a few quid or be missing a few brain cells. In Roby it's a mixture of the two, although all are generally wealthy, especially the councillors. If they had an IQ as big as there bank account, we'd have some seriously clever chaps and ladies in Council chambers. Instead, we get the alpha male wolf (Keight) a few cunning sly snapping dogs, and a herd of bleating sheep in fear of the wolf and his snarling hounds of new labour. Roby has always been full of snobs and Tories and dodgy middle class business men and women. Why actually give them money out of council funds? They should be digging deep in there pockets for us! Huyton, or the posh parts, are robbing Kirkby and the rest of Knowsley - we're getting tarmac outside Quarry Green shops in Northwood whilst Huyton's equivalent would get fancy paving stones. I may go to Keight and Rounds wards to take photos of the luxury up there so we all know who is milking the cow the most as it were. Anyone with photos of any particularly posh councillor's house is welcome to submit it for publication.

No Real Change overall in seats

Overall there no change on the Council as in numbers, but sadly, as mentioned, Brian Williams (lib dem) has lost his seat in Northwood, replaced by a man who is likely to be a yes man like most of the councillors up here. Brian will be back though, and the Lib Dems can walk away from this election with the knowledge that they have made big gains in numbers of votes. Northwood, one of the UK's biggest Labour supporting wards, has shown a big shift. There's no rebels in the Labour party anymore, just a bunch of middle aged hangers on and old people dreaming of the time before Blair and a bunch of Union Jack waving middle class leeches joined up in there droves. Brian only lost by 60 votes, and given the fact we've just had the most potentially open to fraud ridden contest we've ever seen in the UK, we can only wonder had the vote been closer, perhaps 6 votes, would we not have had grounds to investigate? Would we not wonder whether 6 people had done the dirty? Many councillors who have lost by a handful of votes can rightly look to the mess created by Prescott and wonder would they have won in a proper election. Kirkby Times believes that the turn out may have been different in Northwood had we had a simple polling booth system, maybe less numbers, but with a big doorstep campaign - people may have been more keen to step out. With postal voting, it's all too easy for partners and neighbours and political activists to interfere. This is no accusation to what's gone in Kirkby, many people will be thinking the same thing. The police, in some parts of North England, are investigating allegations and cases of fraud. I personally believe that Kirkby would have very limited cases of electoral fraud, but even one dodgy vote could possibly swing elections. This is why we ought to never have another all postal vote.

Sonae

Given that Northwood has now got 3 New Lab councillors, the odds of Sonae remaining open for the next year is almost guaranteed. Why should the councillors bother to go against Keight, Round and Howarth? Several groups have been in touch who may like to protest at Sonae, to raise the stakes as it were, we need action not words - and we bet the new lab mob will stay well away and actually condemn any action that does take place. New Labour bought Sonae here - the new labour councillors get rewarded for following the orders of Keight and Round. They won't risk anything to stop this cosy relationship. All they do is talk, we've listened to new labour hot air since the day Sonae got here. Kirkby Times will be paying particular attention to the Northwood Councillors performance. And we also note Cllr Mark Hagans third position and also the new arrival of Terry Garland who got in for 2 years. Will he be getting a Garland around his neck from your favourite website for articulately making the case for closure of Sonae? Or will he be an obedient servant of the puppet masters of Huyton? Closing down Sonae, never forget, is simply clearing up the crap new Labour bought here. They'd claim it as a victory if it ever left. And they call other parties 'opportunistic'. Irony isn't dead at least.

Bnp, Greens, Lib Dems

Whitefield saw the biggest contest, and the BNP there trailed in last, although they may claim that 147 votes is way better than last time they stood which saw 83 votes. Almost a 50% increase with other similar increases on Merseyside. Maybe Kirkby's anti racist alliance may ponder that one. The Greens had a very good result, almost trebling there vote here, but have a couple of years work in Kirkby to convince the apathetic or fed up electorate, especially younger people who stayed away in there droves. The Lib Dems averages have rocketed upwards.

Freeloaders and swindlers

Most people don't vote because they've either been dumbed down so much they don't recognise the importance of it, and on the opposite scale we have many people who are wised up when it comes to politicians, many of us see them as a bunch of freeloading, lying, cheating, swindling, self serving scoundrels, a bit like Dave Tempest our former Labour leader. Careless greed got him caught, but he served his time in jail and others learned the lessons on 'grazing' off public funds here in Kirkby. Some councillors actually remember Tempest with affection - even held a minutes silence when he popped his crooked clogs. Come to think of it, Knowsley Council has been holding a kind of silence ever since the day that old Tempest was nicked in something like a scene from Z cars. So far, in England, it is not illegal to hold these opinions unless of course you start naming names and there still alive. So let's just say most politicians are as described above. That's why most people in Kirkby either tore up the ballot paper or did not bother voting. Approx 60 -70% never bothered, or found it too confusing. Hundreds in some wards are said to be missing from the electoral roll. How many in prison, or working away, or otherwise vanished? A quick survey turned up a high proportion of people here not registered. This, in turn, could mean calculations for funding here are based on false figures if the electoral roll is used as the indicator for population numbers.

The Web- Cast

Knowsley Council trail behind Kirkby Times which has long had video and audio content. We lead - others follow. Knowsley Council, or the people who actually run the technical side of things (most councillors are useless with computer technology) done a live Web-cast of last nights events in Huyton Civic Buildings, this means that a video feed from cameras was relayed to the Council website. This is a good idea and , depending on cost (which we all pay for), it is something that we should look at -introducing it for all elections as it went well apart from the fact that it was based in , you guessed - Huyton. Future Web-casts, perhaps of councillors answering questions from the online public, would be a veritable feast of mirth and amusement.

Ronnie Rounds Bitter Victory Speech

Ronnie Round threw his dummy out of the pram in his little victory speech on the Knowsley Council web-cast. After all the results were in, he was handed the microphone and after some awkward twitching and fiddling about he made a point of singling out certain candidates (who he never named) and accusing them of "Some of the nasties in the election material". Maybe he was referring to the eve of election Northwood leaflet calling the Lib Dem candidates 'shameless, opportunistic and unprincipled'. Northwood's New Labour councillors ought to be ashamed of themselves for that particular 'nasty' and Kirkby Times will be throwing those ill chosen words back in the direction they came from, and with evidence to back it up.

A dodgy cabaret comedian.

Round came across as some sort of dodgy cabaret comedian without a decent joke. Roundabout Ron, he of the permanent fixed grin, also half gloated due to the fact Knowsley, New Labours favourite council, had not suffered from any 'meltdown' as in losing seats. Actually, when he looks at the statistics in the cold light of day, he will see that compared to years past, new lab are failing drastically to win support and are merely hanging onto votes from the last of the generation of knee-jerk labour voters. Maybe no big meltdown as in loss of councillors this year Ron, not for YOU and your mates (apart from the unfortunate Lord Mayor - bye bye) - but overall - Kirkby Times prediction of Labour getting a battering across the UK has turned out to be right. Not all the results are in yet, but its looking like Labour are trailing in third position overall with the Lib Dems and even the dregs of the Tory Party making headway. The Red Rose of Labour is wilting, and will continue to do so. By the way, while the future of New Labour was at stake, Blair was off over in the USA making sheep eyes to Bush in the audience for the funeral of Ronnie Raygun.

Thanks - Send us the dirt

Kirkby Times would like to thank all the staff of Knowsley Council and the election workers who had to put up with the freeloading councillors up there in Huyton, which was subject to a web-cast. It must be hard work for those of Knowsley Councils staff who have to put up with the likes of Keight - but Kirkby Times would like to thank you all and ask any staff in Knowsley Council to bear us in mind if ever they should dig the dirt on our so called public servants here in Kirkby and elsewhere. Dig the dirt - send it in.

Other funny points -

Knowsley Chief Executive Steve Gallagher appeared on the web-cast both announcing results in his role as returning officer, and in a little preamble - a 3 minute speech - He looked like Tom O Conner, again, like Ronnie the Roundhead, with no jokes! Apart from the fact he's laughing at us all when he sees his wage slip. We get Sonae - this hero of Middle England gets performance related pay rises for 'serving' us. He's doing something to us, that's for sure, but serving is not really the word that springs to mind.

The Labour Brand

Commiserations to all the decent ones who lost - you look in the mirror and you'll know who you are. Have faith - Kirkby is a glitch - there's people here who'd vote Labour just because they feel its all the working class have - it's a brand name - one there parents and grandfathers were loyal to. But like any brand, its life is limited nowadays, only a few people in Northwood wear the labour brand with any real sense of pride or commitment. I rode around Northwood on the days leading up to the election and only spotted one poster for New Labour. 20 years ago, nearly every house displayed them in some streets, this shows that no matter how New Labour in Northwood try to tout this victory as 'proof' the people support them, the real proof is in the numbers of active Labour Part members in Northwood. I spotted 4 Labourites in Northwood out delivering leaflets. 2 were councillors for that ward, one was a candidate, the other (I may be mistaken) may have not even been from Kirkby! - which shows you that the Labour Party in Northwood is 3 blokes who use the brand name 'Labour' or new labour' to persuade you that there is actually more of them. The more you look at Labour the more fragile it seems. Take away the Unions support (and Unions must surely ditch them) and Labour could not even claim a link with the working class anymore. Our councillors here have shown time after time again that they are more than prepared to sell out the very community they came from. Check the 'land for sale' signs.