In 2010, Liberal Democrat Ian Swales won the Redcar seat with a swing of 22% from Labour. He announced last July that he was standing down and in September local Councillor Josh Mason was selected to defend his 5200 majority.

It seems that while the Liberal Democrats in Redcar are working hard to elect Josh, all is not so well in the Labour camp where local leaders have been likened to North Korea and a neighbouring Labour MP has taken to using Freedom of Information legislation to find out what his party’s council is doing.

The Northern Echo has the story:

Labour lost what was once a safe parliamentary seat to the Liberal Democrats at the last General Election in 2010 but are still the largest party on the council.

Darlington Labour councillor Nick Wallis was called in to investigate strife between rival factions of the party in 2012 so the party could concentrate on winning the constituency back.

The resulting report was not made public but has now been leaked. Recommendations were made and followed-up but Cllr Goldswain, said the situation had actually worsened since 2012.

Last year five leading councillors have been deselected as candidates to stand for the council for not “showing a commitment to campaigning for the party”.

Two of them were cabinet members – Cllr Goldswain and Norman Pickthall – and both have had their appeals rejected.

Cllr Goldswain, who expects to be suspended from the party altogether for going public, stood by quotes that the party in Redcar “had gone to war with itself” and was “almost akin to North Korea”.

 

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