Jack Sargeant wins Alyn and Deeside by-election

The son of a sacked former Welsh Labour minister whose death sparked a by-election has won the vote and will succeed his father as an AM.

Jack Sargeant, 23, won the Alyn and Deeside assembly by-election for Labour with a majority of 6,545.

He said: "I'm looking forward to going down to Cardiff Bay and standing up for the people of Alyn and Deeside."

The seat in Flintshire became vacant after Carl Sargeant was found dead at home in Connah's Quay on 7 November.

Speaking on stage after the result was announced at Coleg Cambria in Connah's Quay, Jack Sargeant said:

 "We still are devastated by dad's death.
"This is a by-election we shouldn't be fighting. There are questions still to be answered. But tonight is not the night for those questions to be answered.
"Despite the tragic circumstances, this is now an opportunity to start a movement to change politics. Let's go back to traditional Labour values and look after those who can't look after themselves.
He said he wanted "a kind message in life in general, not just in politics.
"Let's be kind to each other - a message I learned from my dad."

Previous result

Alyn and Deeside by-election, 2018

Welsh Assembly Election 2016: Alyn and Deeside

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Jack Sargeant	11,267	60.7	+14.9
	Conservative	Sarah Atherton	4,722	25.4	+4.4
	Liberal Democrat	Donna Lalek	1,176	6.3	+1.8
	Plaid Cymru	Carrie Harper	1,059	5.7	−3.3
	Green	Duncan Rees	353	1.9	−0.5
Majority			6,545	35.3	+10.6
Turnout				29.1	−5.9
	Labour hold		Swing	+5.3
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Carl Sargeant	9,922	45.7	−6.9
	Conservative	Mike Gibbs	4,558	21.0	−7.1
	UKIP	Michelle Brown	3,765	17.4	+17.4
	Plaid Cymru	Jacqueline Hurst	1,944	9.0	+1.4
	Liberal Democrats	Peter Williams	980	4.5	−3.1
	Green	Martin Bennewith	527	2.4	+2.4
Majority			5,364	24.7	+0.2
Turnout				35.0	−2.0
	Labour hold		Swing	+0.1

Speaking before the result was declared, Clwyd West Conservative AM Darren Millar said it would be "an endorsement of Jack and Carl Sargeant's family". 

"I don't think in any way the Labour party or Carwyn Jones can claim credit for what I think will be a clear win for Jack Sargeant," he said.
Carl Sargeant was Alyn and Deeside AM from 2003 until his death.
Sacked as cabinet secretary for communities and children amid allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women, he was found dead four days later having apparently taken his own life.

As Nation Cymru's Ifan Morgan Jones pointed out Yesterday

On paper there’s nothing particularly interesting about today’s Alyn and Deeside by-election.

It’s a solid Labour seat and they will win it comfortably. Their main challengers are the Conservatives but their campaign has been largely invisible.

The only party to make any noise have been Plaid Cymru, who have a decent candidate in Carrie Harper. But this is one of the (if not the) weakest seats in Wales for them, and if they increase their vote to double digits it will have been a good night.

One thing I’ll be looking for tomorrow morning is where the UKIP vote goes. They came third in 2016 with 17.4% of the vote, but aren’t fielding a candidate this time.

But this election isn’t really a battle between Labour and Conservative or Labour and Plaid Cymru. It’s in fact another proxy war in the ongoing Corbynite v Centrist battle within the Labour Party.

It must be disappointing for Plaid . It may not have been promising territory   and unusual  circumstances for them but to fall below the Liberal Democrats when they had a vigorous "send a message" campaign .

To what extent the  votes that did not go to Jack Sargeant, were affected by Brexit is unsure  and where the majority of 3,765 Ukip votes from the previous election may have gone to the Tories . the Lib Dems may be seeing a slight indication that their Remain message may be at last hitting home in some quarters.


However Labour will find it hard to see this as an endorsement  of  the government in Cardiff Bay and First Minister  Carwyn Jones who is under siege from within   his Labour group may be not be exactly relishing adding to his rank's  a new AM whose candidacy that seems to be based on revenge,

Trump unites us to defend NHS.

Great intelligence  is not a requirement of World leaders but at least we can hope that they at least surround themselves with men and women who at least know what's going in.

Though as  Mikhail Gorbachev. once said

Gorbachev has 100 economic advisers. One is smart, but he doesn’t know which one.

Still you can imagine a US President at least asking someone one is going on before he makes his ridiculous tweets

As the Washington Post reports

 President Trump  took a swing at Britain’s beloved National Health Service on Monday, tweeting that Britons were marching in the streets because their universal health-care system was financially strapped and dysfunctional, and got a swift rebuke from the British prime minister.

“The Democrats are pushing for Universal HealthCare while thousands of people are marching in the UK because their U system is going broke and not working. Dems want to greatly raise taxes for really bad and non-personal medical care. No thanks!” he wrote

But the thousands of Britons who took to the streets over the weekend were marching in support of the NHS and calling for greater government funding.

Trump's tweet about Britain’s universal health-care system — once said to be the closest thing that the British have to a national religion — provoked ire from across the political spectrum, including from British Prime Minister Theresa May.
A spokesman for May said that

 “the prime minister is proud of our NHS, that is free at the point of delivery.” The spokesman said that funding “is at a record high and was prioritized in the budget with an extra 2.8 billion pounds. In the recent Commonwealth Fund international survey, the NHS was rated the best in the world for a second time.”

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt responded:

 "I may disagree with claims made on that march but not ONE of them wants to live in a system where 28m people have no cover.

"NHS may have challenges but I’m proud to be from the country that invented universal coverage - where all get care no matter the size of their bank balance."

Theresa May backed her health minister's comments, and a spokesperson said she is proud of the NHS.

In some ways it resembles a family who may disagree amongst themselves but who unite when someone says "something about our Gladys".

But lets face it Trumps claim that the NHS was financially strapped and dysfunctional, is true.

It is his argument that it is because it is  universal health-care system that is fundamentally wrong.

Those who from the Tories like May and Hunt  who claim to be supporting the NHS from Trump's criticism . should consider their deliberate privatisation of the NHS and reverse it immediately.

We don't need a government  that defends the principle universal health-car, when it is attacked by a right wing US politician.

We need governments in every UK legislature  to work for the principle  of the NHS and not sell it of to the likes of Richard Branson, who will run it much worse than it is now and if they find it is not making them a profit abandon it.

Plaid should avoid joining a "Dark Rainbow" opposition.

What can we make of  Plaid Cymru AM Adam Price  announcement that Opposition parties in the assembly are entering a "new phase" of co-operation in scrutinising Welsh Government,

Mr Price said the opposition will soon establish a "common front" on a range of issues.
The Labour-led government has a working majority in the assembly but recently lost three opposition-day votes.
The leader of the Welsh Tories last month said he wanted to work with other parties.
The UKIP Wales leader Neil Hamilton said that he was prepared to co-operate even if it meant he would 

"vote through things in which fundamentally I don't believe, but which are better than the other alternatives".

Which is interesting  but does in contrast Mr Price claim that: ]

"Where there is legitimate reason to challenge the Welsh Government, not opposition for opposition's sake, but where we would be failing to do our job if we weren't to do it, then I think we will see increasingly... a common front on a whole range of issues."

 Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies says his door is still open to any party who wants to work with the Conservatives.

"I don't have any ideological reasons why I cannot work with other parties in this institution, because to me the ideological reason why Wales sadly hasn't delivered in the first 20 years of devolution is the Labour Party," .

Many Plaid supporters   may be  worried that Plaid are seeking to form some kind of "Dark Rainbow"  coalition in opposition  with the Tories and Ukip.

Though it seems Adam Price hopes that Plaid and the Welsh Conservatives could work together over  issue like the proposed M4 relief road.
His theory could be put to the test on Wednesday during a Plaid-sponsored debate on the M4 relief road, calling for an assembly vote on the financing of the project once the public inquiry concludes.
Mr Price said that while his party has a different policy to the Tories, the parties "possibly" both agree that the assembly should have a vote following the end of the inquiry.
He added that the two parties "may find common cause with some rebel members of the government backbench as well". 

Some Labour backbenchers are known to oppose the M4 relief road project.
Labour won 29 seats at the last assembly election - leaving it short of a majority.
Despite adopting two other non-Labour AMs into the government, absences on the government side meant it lost opposition votes in January.

But it shows a major problem for Plaid

Labour have led the Assembly since its inception and it seems that the only way to replace   them is some kind of "Dark Rainbow" coalition with the Tories and another party,

There are those who argue that going  into opposition would reinvigorate Labour and see them coming out of the sort of lethargy that has been the impression of Carwyn Jones's government.

But the evidence from Scotland where they have lost three elections in a row is that they will still be little more than a branch of the London HQ.

Another example of problems of Parties in opposition can also be gleamed from the latest Holyrood budget .

As the New Statesman points out
 

The responses were predictable – the Tory Opposition argued that the block grant from Westminster is sufficient and that the tax rises should therefore not be blamed on austerity, but on SNP policy choices and its failure to grow the economy. It is certainly true that the economic forecasts published this afternoon by the Scottish Fiscal Commission make for grim reading. It predicts the economy will grow at less than 1 per cent a year until 2022, just 0.7 per cent in 2017 and 2018, rising to 1.1 per cent in the fifth and final year of the forecast. This is driven by an outlook of low productivity in Scotland over the period.

For Labour, it wasn’t enough. Their firebrand new Corbynite leader Richard Leonard was loud, red-faced and for some reason bouncing on the spot like a over-sugared toddler as he criticised the budget, leading the finance minister to remind him he was already being amplified by the microphone on his desk. Leonard accused the SNP of a lack of real radicalism in the face of continued austerity, which he says is having a serious impact on local services.

At least  Labour and the Tories are unlikely to form their own "Dark Rainbow" and the Greens seem more likely to support the minority Scottish Government for now.

Plaid may be walking into trouble if they are seen as collaborating with the Tories but  even the most ardent Corbyn supporter   can claim that Labour in government in Wales are a shinning example of socialism.

We need to replace Labour's  hegemony not only in Cardiff  Bay  but throughout Wales the problem for Plaid in particular is what they would do differently.

May out in May?

 Ahead of the English council elections in May it is extraordinary  that it is a Conservative run council which may be responsible for Tory losses that could trigger the challenge to Prime Minister Theresa May

Northamptonshire County Council said on Friday it had brought in a "section 114" notice, banning new expenditure. 

The leader of the council forced to ban almost all spending said she warned the government the authority was about to "fall over the edge of the cliff".

Heather Smith, Conservative council leader, said it was the "perfect storm" of increases in demand for services and reductions in government funding. 

"We did warn that we would become unsustainable,"

 "We have been warning government from about 2013/14 that, with our financial position, we couldn't cope with the levels of cuts we were facing.

"Before Christmas, I wrote to the secretary of state to say we were about to fall over the edge of the cliff because we can't just increase council tax.

"We've been in what you might call a perfect storm of huge increases in demand for our services at the same time as significant reductions in funding from central government."

It is the first section 114 notice - a provision of the Local Government Finance Act - issued in about 20 years but Prof Tony Travers, from The London School of Economics, believes others could follow.

He said:

 "I think there are others that are quite close to Northamptonshire's position and, with so-called austerity continuing into the next decade, I would be amazed if Northamptonshire was the only council to get into these circumstances."

Years of freezes  or low council tax have meant that council have relied on the Block grant from the UK government or via the devolved governments meant that  to A potential 12.5% rise in council tax in Pembrokeshire will not be blocked by the Welsh Government a potential 12.5% rise in council tax in Pembrokeshire will not be blocked by the Welsh Government will come as shock to the residents there.

Even opposition councillors if they are honest find it hard to attack cuts knowing that if they were elected they would be faced with the nightmare of balancing the books knowing full well that they may have to hike council tax at least until the budget before the next election.

Have any council leaders proposed  that  their highest council tax rise when in power just before they face the electorate?

Or any opposition leader call for an higher council tax to raise revenue rather than make cuts?

The blame lies with both Labour and Tory/Lib Dem  governments over the years  who have cut finance to lock authorities or deny them the means to raise it themselves and even if they were to the ruling group fear being voted out.

The ongoing Tory cuts have seen councils everywhere cutting services to the bone a policy which has been helped by the fact that when the local council closes  your local library it is the Town Halls who are blamed not central government.

To what extent the news that a Tory led council has been forced into  what almost resembles receivership  may finally lead to blame  finally being placed where it belongs and the Tory government in Westminster

If this becomes the case then my prediction of "May out in May" well be the case.

UKIP AM Michelle Brown facing week's expulsion.

There will of course those who will claim that the case of  UKIP AM Michelle Brown who is facing a week's exclusion from the assembly without pay over a racial slur she used to describe a Labour MP " is another story of

  "Political Correctness gone mad"

But in a week when Darren Osborne, the man who drove a van into a crowd of Muslims near a north London mosque has been sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 43 years behind bars. It shows that Politicians  (as all of us) have a duty not to racially insult others.

Darren Osborne, 48, was found guilty of murdering Makram Ali, 51, after deliberately ploughing into a crowd of people in Finsbury Park in June.

There has been a spirit of denial from  the media claiming that
Osborne, had became "obsessed" with Muslims in the weeks leading up to the attack, having watched the BBC drama Three Girls, about the Rochdale grooming scandal.

However maybe they should exam their role in the radicalisation of a right-wing white terrorist as Osborne should be described

That is whymembers of the standards committee, including party colleague Gareth Bennett, are right in ruling Michelle Brown she committed a "severe breach" of the code of conduct.

Ms Brown made the comment about Chuka Umunna in a private phone call in 2016.

A spokesman for Michelle Brown said she would appeal. She has apologised for any offence caused.

The spokesman, alluding to occasions where Mr Bennett has drawn negative publicity, added:

 "Michelle Brown is not likely to take any lessons at all on political correctness or conduct, from Gareth Bennett."

The recommendation of the standards committee, and the results of an investigation by the standards commissioner Sir Roderick Evans that prompted it, have come to light after its report was leaked to BBC Wales.
It will be up to assembly members to decide whether to endorse the exclusion in a vote in Senedd. It is thought to be the first case of its kind.


Ms Brown called the MP for Streatham, Chuka Umunna, a "coconut" in a phone call in May 2016 to her then senior adviser Nigel Williams, which he released a recording of to the Daily Post newspaper last summer.
In his investigation the standards commissioner found that the term "coconut" fell below the standard of conduct required of AMs.
He said the point that Ms Brown was making - that, despite Mr Umunna's heritage, his privilege upbringing meant he had no greater understanding of the lives of ordinary members of the black and minority ethnic community - was "within the range of points that a politician is entitled to make".
But he said that fact remained that "Ms Brown, in making her point, resorted to using a term of racial abuse".

There is i admit a long way from Ms Brown's racial slurs to  Finsbury Park, but people like Darren Osborne do not need any further encouragement to come to a conclusion that there are elected representatives   and  above all newspapers like the Daily Mail, Express and Telegraph on their side.

Corbyn seems to back Carwyn's absence from byelection.

Just how long can Welsh First Minister carry on ? I am not a betting man but I would recommend checking the odds that he will resign before Prime Minister Theressa May.

It could be that he is only waiting for next weeks  Alyn and Deeside result to be announced before he steps down.

Yesterday UK Labour leader  Jeremy Corbyn was forced to come upp with the banal  clain that Carwyn Jones is "getting on with his job as first minister"  when he was asked about the Welsh Labour leader's absence from the campaign trail in Alyn and Deeside.

Mr Corbyn visited the seat to support Labour's by-election candidate, Jack Sargeant, who is running to succeed his late father Carl as the local AM.
Carl Sargeant was found dead after apparently taking is own life.

It was four days after Mr Jones sacked him from his cabinet last November.
He had denied allegations of improper conduct towards women.

Asked if he thought Mr Jones should come to the seat before polling day, as other Labour AMs including Welsh Government ministers had done, Mr Corbyn told BBC Wales:

 "Carwyn is getting on with his job as first minister.
"I've a good relationship with the Welsh Government and the Welsh cabinet and I'm here today supporting Jack. I'm delighted to be here."

Mr Corbyn said he was

 "very supportive of what the Welsh Government has achieved in housing and health and in education, and we are taking that message to the doorstep.

Really he attacks the SNP governments record in Scotland when it is clear it is far better than his own parties running  of said housing health and in education.

I advise Mr Corbyn not to go to Scotland again with  his attack on Nicola Sturgeon when he is supporting  a worst preforming government here.



 Nearly everybody expects  that Jack Sargeant will win on Tuesday, but whatever the result it will not be good news for our First Minister.


Mr Sargeant did not take part in a BBC Wales TV hustings with other candidates on Tuesday and I think that we are entitled to wonder if he did not want to be pressed on what is relationship with Carwyn Jones will be if he  joins the Labour group in Vardiff Bay.
.
Mr Corbyn - who criticised Theresa May for not participating in leaders' debates last year - said Mr Sargeant was

 "out door-knocking and he was out talking to people".

Since the programme was live  can any one  in Alyn and Deeside let me know if they were canvassed by Mr Sargeant late on Tuesday night .

Even the most fervent supporter would not like having canvassers knocking on their door at 10:30 PM.

Did a Robin mistake HOC for the pits of hell.

An unusual visitor has been spotted in the chamber of the House of Commons.

With less than an hour to go before Prime Minister's Questions started, the SNP's Kirsty Blackman spotted a robin looking down on the famous benches and caught it on camera.
Journalists also noticed the bird, as officials plotted how to remove it.
A Commons spokeswoman said: 

"A robin has been spotted in the chamber and the situation is being deal with. It is not expected to impact on House business."

Well it actually  led to a number of MPS behaving like a bunch of adolescent  schoolboys as you can see when Plaid Cymru's  Liz Saville Roberts was trying to ask a question  from the BBC report here

 Maybe Ms Roberts'  should have reminded particularly   those on the benches opposite on the Welsh Legend of how the Robin got its redbreast.

It is said that a single Robin gathered a drop of water in its beak and flew all the way to Hell, to drop it on the sinners below in order to ease their suffering  no matter how small it was,

Fir its action, the Robin's Breast were singed and thats why he has a red breast.

You could see this as a metaphor that  even the smallest kindness  can be made .

It could be that yesterday  the Robin  was trying to emulate its ancestor and mistook the House of Commons for Hell.

Mind you I imagine many of those MPs who have been voting for the cuts in welfare to many of our citizens should remember the above legend, as the day may come when they will be desperate to see a Robin again and its small kindness  as they burn in hell.

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