The Heaton & Lostock Labour Party
A Members' Branch of Bolton West Constituency Labour Party

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Annual Report 2007

1.    Introduction

In 2007 the Heaton & Lostock Labour Party has continued to be a successful and active Branch, making a significant contribution to the Party’s activities not just in our own Constituency but in Bolton generally.
Attendance at Branch meetings has been rather lower than in the past and we were unable to get a quorum for our meeting in November, the first time that this has happened all the time I have been involved with the party in Bolton.  Hopefully this doesn’t signify a loss of interest by members.  Nevertheless, we’ve had a variety of guest speakers and discussions covering a wide range of topics.  Our finances are still healthy, enabling us to make another substantial loan to the Constituency Party which, we have been promised, will be fully repaid. 

The main political event of the year for us was the local elections.  We were as successful as we are ever likely to be in Heaton & Lostock, coming a good second to the Tories with a fair sized swing from the Lib-Dems to us.  In Bolton generally we made further gains which have strengthened our position as the largest party and our own Clifford Morris continues to be Leader of the Council.

Nationally, it wasn’t a particularly good year.  We revived somewhat when Gordon Brown finally took over as Party Leader and Prime Minister from Tony Blaire, with Harriet Harman as Deputy Leader but dipped down again as the Tories revived and we lost ground due to a number of factors such as the Northern Rock crisis, further allegations of sleaze over Party donations and a general uneasiness about the economy.

The Lib-Dems elected yet another new leader and, although Nick Clegg doesn’t seem to be much of a threat, David Cameron has propelled the Tories into a sustained opinion poll lead which, if repeated at a general election would see them as the largest party and Bolton West with a Tory MP!

However, our year was overshadowed by the saddest event of all, the death of Anne at the end of June and later as June Corner and Ella Finch passed away too.  Words cannot say how we were all affected and I just hope that those of us who remain can live up to Anne’s ideals and carry on the work that she was so committed to.

Because we’d cancelled our meetings in July and September the Bolton Local Government Committee, with the Branch Officer’s approval, selected our Candidate for the 2008 local elections and this was endorsed when we met in October.  Although we have to concede that Heaton & Lostock isn’t winnable in the current political climate, it’s important that we get as many Labour votes as possible in this ward to show the opposition that we are a force to be reckoned with, even in what is regarded as “Tory heartland” territory, but also to hold onto and hopefully build our vote for the next General Election.

2.         2007 The Year

2.1       Nationally

When looking back at a year it’s too easy to forget what happened early on and concentrate on the last couple of months.  But there were some highly controversial issues.

2.1.1     January

One of the major problems we have faced continually over the last couple of years, and which rumbled on throughout 2007, was the question of party funding and where our money comes from.  In January Downing Street aide Ruth Turner was arrested in connection with the then “cash-for-honours” inquiry and the whole damaging affair rumbled on throughout the last months of Tony Blair's leadership, being ignited again when Gordon Brown took over after revelations of unlawful acceptance of donations.

Manchester was named as the location for the UK's first supercasino, surprising everyone, who had expected Blackpool to be the “lucky recipient”. The decision caused uproar from not only Blackpool but also Greenwich, but the selection later proved an irrelevance, with supercasinos one of the first targets for the new prime minister's reviews.

Few predicted how erratic the opinion polls would prove to be in 2007. Labour began the year on 32 per cent support, eight points behind the Tories on 39 per cent. The Liberal Democrats, led by Menzies Campbell, were on 19 per cent.

2.1.2     February

The cash-for-honours inquiry rumbled on with Tony Blair himself being interviewed by police and it was rumoured that David Miliband might stand against Gordon Brown for the party leadership.  Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn stoked up speculation of a coup by urging Labour to conduct an "open participatory debate" about its future.

The Conservative leadership hit its own problems with David Cameron once again questioned about his past drug use, amid allegations he had smoked cannabis at Eton.  He insisted politicians were entitled to a "private past" before they entered politics.

2.1.3     March

Northern Ireland went to the polls on March 7th with Ian Paisley’s DUP becoming the largest party on the unionist side and Sinn Fein taking over from the SDLP as the largest nationalist party.  The deadline for the restoration of power sharing was missed but by May Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness had agreed to divide power as leader and deputy leader respectively. In one of the truly historic moments of the year, the two former advisories were pictured together for the first time and relations have been harmonious in Stormont since.

The Iranian National Guard captured 15 Royal Navy personnel in the Persian Gulf and after a few days, one of them appeared on state television to confess to "trespassing" in Iranian waters.  On their return to the UK in early April it seems that the Navy allowed some of them to sell their stories to the media, which caused uproar and probably bitter feelings from those who, later, were not allowed to do the same.

The government slumped to a low of 27% in the polls with the Tories approval rating rising above crucial 40% more the first time since the beginning of the 1990s.

2.1.4     April

April was a pretty quiet political month.  After the debacle surrounding the sale of the naval personnel’s stories we continued to suffer in the polls and Tony Blair urged the party to "hold its nerve". Momentum continued to gather around Mr Miliband as a potential challenger to Mr Brown, but he warned he would not be seduced or bullied into running.

2.1.5     May

In May we were faced with not just the local elections but those for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly.

Not too surprisingly, we finally lost control of Scotland with the SNP emerging as the single largest party, taking 47 seats to our 46.  Alex Salmond was ultimately declared first minister after Jack McConnell was forced to accept he had been ousted from the top job.  However, polls showed the public were still opposed to the SNP's ultimate goal of an independent Scotland and with opposition politicians on both sides of the border wedded to the union the SNP's hold on power was not to go unchallenged.

We also lost seats in the Welsh assembly, emerging with just 26 out of the available 60. However, Rhodri Morgan was eventually allowed to remain as first minister, albeit leading a coalition with Plaid Cymru.

Although we did very well again in Bolton again, the local elections held across England and Scotland were not at all good for us, especially as the Tories made inroad, especially here in the north. The Tories are now the dominant party in local government, controlling 165 councils to our 34 and the Lib-Dem’s 23. Five are controlled by other parties but 85 (including Bolton) are now regarded as having no party in overall control.

These election results were particularly stark, coming ten years after we had celebrated the 1997 landslide election victory. Having achieved a decade in power, Tony Blair finally confirmed on May 10th he would be standing down as Labour leader and prime minister triggering a leadership contest. John Prescott also confirmed his intention to stand down as deputy leader.

David Cameron clashed with his own party over grammar schools. As he, an Eaton old boy, attempted to distance his party from selective education a number of well known Tories spoke out in favour of grammar schools. After challenging his party to modernise or risk becoming relegated to a "debating society", Cameron was eventually forced to say that the next Tory government would build more grammar schools in areas where the 11 plus still survives.

2.1.6     June

The race to be our party’s deputy leader got underway and it proved to be the most interesting part of the leadership handover.  Six candidates eventually stood but no challenger to Gordon Brown came forward and he was named Leader on June 24th, Harriet Harman winning the election for deputy.

Tony Blair stood down as Prime Minister on June 27th, leaving the House of Commons to a standing ovation.  Gordon Brown accepted the Queen's invitation to form a government the same afternoon and promptly launched into a mantra promising "change", an end to spin and a return to a government that would "listen and learn".

2.1.7     July

No sooner had Gordon Brown appointed his first Cabinet than Britain's first female Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, faced a terrorist threat, with failed attacks on London and Glasgow.  Gordon's literal “baptism by fire” was followed by a near-Biblical introduction to running the country as he faced flood and pestilence, in the shape of foot and mouth disease in Surrey and heavy rain which has ravaged the country in June persisting throughout July.

However, the government won praise for the speed of its response, whilst Cameron, took part in a photo-op in Rwanda at the same time as his Witney constituents were bailing out the flood waters from their homes.

2.1.8     August

The way in which he’d dealt with the attempted terrorist attack, foot and mouth disease and the floods resulted in support for the party soaring and there was speculation of a snap general election, encouraged in no small part by unofficial briefings from the Prime Minister's own staff.  After undermining his rivals with his "parliament of all the talents", Gordon seemed poised to obliterate the Tory party with an early vote and many Tories began to openly speculate about David Cameron's future.

Support for the Liberal Democrats dwindled over the summer, following on from poor local election results and continued questions over Ming Campbell's leadership.

2.1.9     September

The credit crunch that had hit America in the summer finally washed up in the UK in September when the Northern Rock Bank was forced to apply to the Bank of England for emergency funding, prompting a run on the bank and queues outside branches as savers tried to get their money out.

In the Conference season, Gordon Brown faced down TUC dissent over public-sector pay, in a stand-off that rumbled on uncomfortably throughout the year.  The Lib-Dems' week at the seaside was dominated by speculation over Sir Menzies' future and the Tories were hit badly by the new Prime Minister's popularity, falling to 31 per cent in the polls.

2.1.10   October

By October, the Conservatives were beginning to cancel our summer opinion poll lead, attributed in part to their promise of a cut in inheritance tax which was gratefully seized on the Daily Mail and the rest of the right wing press and Cameron's "unscripted" Blackpool conference speech. One poll placed the Tories on 43 per cent as their popularity reached that of Margaret Thatcher's heyday.

In mid-October, Gordon Brown finally rule out the possibility of an autumn general election, which we probably wouldn’t have won anyway, although he denied this, insisting that he simply wanted more time to set out his vision for government.  Nevertheless, the Tories accused Mr Brown of "bottling it" and the prime minister began his own autumn of discontent with the first in a series of highly uncomfortable exchanges at prime minister's questions.

Meanwhile a dismal 11 per cent rating for the Liberal Democrats in one poll was followed five days later by Sir Menzies' resignation. Nick Clegg, hailed as the media favourite and Lib Dems' answer to David Cameron, took on Chris Huhne in a two-month long leadership contest.

2.1.11   November

Labour continued its slow slump down in the opinion polls throughout November, although optimists duly noted that it was not as bad as during the final weeks of Mr Blair. With the botched snap election already looming embarrassingly behind Mr Brown, the government was undermined further by a series of minor scandals, including the news thousands of illegal foreign workers had been cleared for security jobs.

This, however, paled in comparison to the revelation that two computer discs containing the personal information of 25 million child benefit claimants had been lost in the post. Later other reports of lost data were confirmed and of us were left wondering why it wasn’t also reported that all the data losses could be attributed to private companies to whom the work of generating and looking after it had been “outsourced”.

Another scandal hit us when it emerged the party had unlawfully accepted more than £650,000 in donations channelled through intermediaries for the wealthy property developer David Abrahams. Scotland Yard once again began investigating the Labour party's accounts and the party's general secretary resigned.

The Conservatives could barely contain their glee at Labour's downfall, but it was acting Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable who won the best press for his criticism of Mr Brown, mocking the prime minister's transition from "Stalin to Mr Bean".

2.1.12   December

In December the Lib-Dems elected their new leader - Nick Clegg, as predicted, became the third leader in as many years.  But with only just over two-thirds of the Lib-Dem membership bothering to vote, it remains to be seen whether they will recapture the political imagination.

By the end of 2007, the opinion polls looked much as they had 12 months ago but this gave little indication of the frenetic change in fortunes that had been seen in the summer. An end-of-year poll placed the Conservatives on 40 per cent, Labour on 32 per cent and Liberal Democrats on 16 per cent.

It had not been the best of years for us and many of us are starting the new year with the theme running through our heads – “Things can only get better”!

2.2       Locally

2.2.1     The 2007 Local Elections

Out of the spotlight of the world stage we continue to work away at local level as best as we can.  We successfully completed our fourth year as the Heaton & Lostock Labour Party and carried out a very successful local election campaign with our members helping out in several other Bolton West wards.

In the month or so to local election day on May 4th we fought the good fight and I was delighted to come a pretty good second to the unexpected Tory victor!  In 2006 the Lib-Dem vote had gone down by over 5½% and last year they lost another 2.3%.  So, after a “wobble” in 2005 it looks as if we have re-secured our traditional second place!
  John Gillatt (Labour) 908 +2.45%
  Bob Allen (Conservative 3,199 -0.15%
  Jonathon Evans (Liberal Democrat) 538 -2.3%
  Total Votes 4645 43.88%
Overall in Bolton we did amazingly well, considering the very disappointing results for Labour nationally.  We gained two seats, the Tories gained one and the Lib-Dems lost three (on top of the four they lost in 2006).

At present the Council is:
 As a result Labour continues to have de-facto control of the Council with Heaton & Lostock Branch member Cllr. Clifford Morris as Leader.

At the Branch AGM in January several familiar faces appeared once again - Graham was elected Chair; John, Secretary; Noelene, Treasurer; Bob and Leilia, Vice-Chairs, Pat Membership Secretary; Rafiq, Bob, Terry and Clifford CLP Delegates; Terry, LGC Delegate; Rafiq, REC Delegate.

I very much hope that all of these who are able will continue to serve the Branch in 2007 as I think we have a very good and effective team.

2.2.2     Our Membership in 2007

We’re now getting quarterly membership updates from the Party’s Membership Unit and their records show that at the end of 2007 we have five fewer members than at the same time last year and the rate of decline has slowed very appreciably.  Maybe we now have just the totally committed members.

2.2.3     Fund-raising

Following Anne’s death we cancelled this year’s summer barbecue as we thought it inappropriate and none of us felt at all like being involved in what has traditionally been a very happy and fun occasion.  I very much hope that we can re-install it this year.

The Branch's main fundraiser continues to be the Heaton & Lostock Labour Party Stakeholder Society (100 Club).  It makes a major contribution to our funds although the membership has slightly decreased overall this year.  Nevertheless it has enabled us to make a loan of £2,000 to Bolton West CLP, which they have promised to repay, and fund our own local election campaign.  The current monthly prize is £94 and the theoretical annual contribution to our funds is at present just over £1,000.

Our Treasurer will give a full financial report separately but it seems that our funds remain healthy at present.

2.2.4     Branch Meetings

Branch meetings have been rather less well attended than in the past and it’s hard to really understand why that’s the case.  However we're very fortunate in that several members continue to offer their homes as venues and my special thanks to Alan and Joyce, Pauline, Leilia, Anne and, of course, Graham for both the use of their homes and their hospitality.  We look forward to continuing to rotate our meetings between members’ houses in 2008.

We would like to continue the practice of Branch meetings being occasions for us to participate in political discussion and debate and 2006 was another good year in that respect.  We managed to have either a speaker or a topic for debate at most of our meetings:
  January Ruth Kelly, MP The Year Ahead
  March (early) Cllr. Ebrahim Adia Developing Bolton
  April (late) Trigger Ballot Parliamentary Re-selection
  June Cllr. Clifford Morris The Year Ahead
  September Ruth Kelly, MP Making a Difference
  October Cllr. Nick Peel Keeping Bolton Moving
  December Gary Titley, MEP The EU – Treaty or Constitution?

Most gratifying has been the vigour and enthusiasm with which members have entered into the discussions regardless of whether or not there has been a speaker.  We are very pleased to once again have Cliff Morris with us this evening and we hope to have similar high quality speakers and discussions throughout the year.

Members are urged to think about the topics they believe we should be discussing and all suggestions for guest speakers will be most welcome.  Between myself and Graham we can persuade to get almost anyone along to talk at our prestigious Branch meetings!

2.2.5     Heaton & Lostock Online

Unfortunately I’ve not managed so well at keeping the Branch's Internet Web site (http://www.boltonwest.org) up to date and I hope shortly to move it to a new hosting organisation as I’ve run out of the free space that comes with my own Internet connection.

We've had almost 14,000 visitors since the counter was reset in July 2001 with 3,000 hits in the year just gone (~2,500 in 2006) and not all of them were me!

3.         Thanks

As Secretary I’m happy and proud to have served the Branch for yet another year but it would have been impossible for me to carry out my job without the help and support of very many Party members.  I would therefore like to especially thank Graham, Leilia, Bob and Pat, the members who deliver the Branch meeting notices month on month, those who’ve hosted meetings in their homes during the year and all those ordinary members without whose help we would have been a pointless debating society.

Most of all, and as always, I'd like to thank Noelene, my wife, who has not only performed the role of Treasurer but has supported me throughout the year and guided me when I’ve gone astray!

Thank you and best wishes for 2008.


John Gillatt, Branch Secretary
January 2008





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