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Jubilant Tories: We're no longer nasty party
Nicholas Cecil, Political Correspondent02.05.08
David Cameron has buried the Conservatives' "nasty party" image, a jubilant new Tory council leader claimed today.
Councillor Bob Bibby also branded Gordon Brown "our 'pennies from heaven'" as the Conservatives cemented their grip on the South-East and made key breakthroughs around the country.
After the Tories won Bury council in Greater Manchester for the first time in 22 years, Mr Bibby said: "The way that David Cameron has turned the party around has made a huge difference - to be able to knock on doors and be welcomed in, be more approachable, be more human."
Admitting that the "nasty party" label had resonated, he added: "I remember when it was very, very difficult to canvass and knock on doors and now that has all changed round. And of course we've had our 'pennies from heaven' in the form of Gordon Brown, God bless him he has really helped us tremendously. I hope he continues to the next general election."
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The Conservatives had clinched five councils in the South-East by midday including Southampton, Basingstoke and Deane, Maidstone, Elmbridge and Harlow.
They had won 49 more local authority seats, with Labour down 33 and the Liberal Democrats down five.
Labour lost Reading to no overall control but held onto Stevenage. Arguing-that Stevenage is in the eastern region, Tory group leader in Reading councillor Andrew Cumpsty said: "This was the last authority in the South-East, outside London, under Labour control and now it's gone."
The Tories lost Colchester to no overall control. The BNP won a seat on Thurrock council which remained under no overall control.
Portsmouth remained under no overall control but the Tories increased their number of councillors by four to match the Liberal Democrats as the largest party with 19 seats.
Gerald Vernon-Jackson, leader of the council and the Lib-Dems, said: "It has been a disaster for Labour. We are down one but we have survived the Tory Party onslaught."
Labour was defending fewer than 100 seats in the South-East and was being cast further into the political wilderness.
Cabinet minister John Denham, MP for Southampton Itchen, said the partymust listen to the concerns of voters in the south of England to restore its fortunes.
The Liberal Democrats held Eastleigh and gained St Albans from no overall control.
Around 750 seats were up for grabs in the South-East region stretching from Oxford to Colchester and Southampton.
The Tories also stepped up their march in the rest of the country.
In the North, they won Bury and North Tyneside, the latter they had never held since the council was formed in the Seventies.
In the Midlands, they seized control of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's local authority of Redditch, as well as Nuneaton & Bedworth from Labour, and Wyre Forest, but they lost Coventry.
In Wales they were swept to power in the Vale of Glamorgan, and won West Lindsey in Lincolnshire from the Lib-Dems.
More worrying for Gordon Brown were shock losses in Labour heartlands including in Merthyr Tydfil, Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen, Wolverhampton and Hartlepool.
Reader views (2)
My worry about the Tory party and its leader is that I see Tony Blair and new labour in disguise! I have yet to be convince that they will care about the working class before helping the middle class and the upper classes. We live in the real world, these people don't and all they talk is statistics which does nothing for the working classes. My prediction come the general election is that the Tories could be in for a nasty surprise as there is a huge rise of disgruntled working class people who have lost faith in new labour and socialism, no time for libdem and have yet to see a whiff of conviction to make the working class people come in line with the other classes. Tories heed this warning!
- Joe Sardena, Swanley Kent
This is great news to see Labour getting what comes around goes around - I hope Ken Livingstone is kicked out with his mad polices and corrupt and allegedly sleaze ridden administration consigned to the history books. I think London could do with a change of leadership and if Mr Boris proves he is more than a cloud we could well be having a Conservative government on May 5th 2010, and Mr Brown's Major moment will become an enduring moment that Labour were reconsigned to the history books.
Brown lost because people are fed up with polices that hit Labour voters such as the abolition of the lower rate income tax it hits the poor, the elderly and non middle class Britain, and also the ever intrusive and paranoid grasp of the state to interfere and intrude in to its private citizens' rights.
Brown won't learn from today, because he is arrogant and a control freak, he will only learn on general election day when he is humiliated out of office. Me personally I can't wait for that day to come.
Good bye Mr Brown, for the rest of us it's the long good bye and the beginning of the end of this lame duck administration, tired and in need of going back to the opposition.
- Gabbygets, UK
