05/05/2013 Sunday Politics North East and Cumbria

End-use for us to be reckoned We will be dissecting the that by-

election win for Labour and trying to make sense of the results across

the North-East. With me to discuss a tall, and will be speaking to the

leader of Northumberland council who kept his seat despite calling

his home town a dump. We have been back to see the

collieries in County Durham. First up, the first woman ever to

be elected to represent South Shields in Parliament. Emma Lewell-

Buck took the seat with a comfortable majority. The former

social worker was clear what message she thought voters were

sending to the Government. I was pledging change. I will fight for

jobs for our young people, I will fight for growth in the town centre.

I will take the fight to the Tories on cuts they are making to hard-

pressed families. Labour gained 11 seats on Cumbria County Council

mainly at the cost of the Conservatives. Norma Redfearn's

victory means that not a single council in the north-east and

Cumbria is controlled by the Tories. The Government picked up a terrible

mess from the last Labour government. It has been difficult

for them, they have had to make some very hard decisions. I think

local government and everybody else have had to cut their cloth

accordingly. The defeated mayor of North Tyneside. UKIP arguably made

the biggest waves with a strong second place in South Shields.

According to their deputy leader, it puts them in a good position for

next year's European elections. is showing UKIP is not just a

southern-based party. We can come into the North and Paul excellently

as well. It bodes well for the European elections next year.

for the Liberal Democrats, seventh place in the by-election just ahead

of that Monster Raving Loonies was a truly shocking result. More

damaging, the loss of 15 council seats in Northumberland. In Cumbria

the Lib Dems but the trend and gained one. It has been an OK day,

but it is really only to plan. We anticipated making a few gains, and

it has come to fruition. The rare sight of a contented Lib Dem.

Voters in County Durham did turn to youth in the face -- in the shape

of the 19-year-old Thomas Nearney who became the youngest member in

Durham County Council's history. The sky is the limit. At the moment

that the focus is definitely on doing all I can and being as

accessible as I can. Plenty of political experience and wisdom

around the table. That by-election result and the Windsor North

Yorkshire, you have to accept that UKIP are taking votes from the

Conservatives. They are taking votes from all over the place. We

retain under our eight seats in the Scarborough Borough of. Regain that

UKIP made were from the independence. The Labour Party were

pushed into third place by Scarborough Borough, and the Lib

Dems came trailing in fifth. They won seats in North Yorkshire, not

in Durham when they were up against Labour. If it was the Conservative

and Liberal Democrat vote that collapsed in South Shields. We need

to look at why people voted for UKIP. People get disgruntled with

the Government in power. A lot of them do not like the message. They

like the anti-Europe, anti- immigration message from UKIP.

have cut immigration by a third and a probing with the tremendous

deficit. If people look closely at the policies have you kept, they

may not see a resonance with them. In terms of the last election, they

were promising 125 billion in increase spending but had no means

of its Ben -- paying for. They want to go back to smoking in pubs.

need good keens in the county elections, but you're only winning

in areas where Labour has always one in the past. In some respects,

I feel as if I am dancing at someone else's wake. Labour had a

good gains across the country. But I would like to say a couple of

things about UKIP. I spoke to people on the doorstep who had

already posted their postal vote and voted UKIP. These were Labour

voters and they told me they were protesting against the

Establishment, feeling as if they were not being listened to. They

told me very clearly, come the general election, we will be voting

Labour. Labour did not lose one single councillor across the

country to UKIP us. Do you accept it may not just be about protest.

Some of their messages may appeal to Labour voters. We have to take

those things very seriously. Some people who are voting for UKIP were

saying to me, we will not vote for them and a general election, but we

need to make our protests because we feel the three main parties are

not listening to us. Quite an achievement for you, given all that

was going on, to hold on to your seat. What you put that down to?

all put a lot of hard work in, and I guess having a higher profile and

having done the work, and knocked on hundreds of doors was enough to

push me past the finishing line. Even though you have a bit of a

nasty publicity. I did. But I was able to stand in front of people

and explain the context of the comment and what I actually meant

was about the retail offering in that time I belonged to. Your party

to go real hammering in the Northumberland and Durham. The

result in South Shields, do you have to accept some parts of the

north-east see your party as dead? No, I do not accept that after all.

We are part of the Government and governments never do very well in

parliamentary by-elections. Conservatives got fired in South

Shields, you were seven. I except a was a bad results, but you need to

think about UKIP, in the past we were seen as the anti-establishment

party. We cannot claim to be that any more because we are part of the

Establishment, we are part of national government. Robert, what

does your Prime Minister need to do to see off the UKIP threat question

mark we need to listen to the reasons that people voted for UKIP.

In many ways the voted for them because they cannot vote for the

traditional receptacle for protest vote which was the Liberal

Democrats. By and large, certainly on the doorstep... Should

Conservatives look at UKIP policies? Certainly not. Perhaps

they could be stronger on immigration or Europe. People blame

the European Union, but sometimes it is the European Court of Human

Rights. On the doorstep I heard people say they were going to vote

UKIP, but at the general election they will vote for us. We have a

big challenge in the European elections because people's votes

are not wasted. And I think UKIP will mount a major challenge at

that election. Labour, the people you have got to defeat to go into

government, the mayoral election in North Tyneside was a bad defeat for

the Conservatives. That is true. My seat was taken by Labour with a

five and a half 1000 majority in I did not expect the Conservatives

to be topping the poll in Scarborough and Whitby, but we did

quite comfortably for. That is the point, Labour are not making the

progress that the needs. You need to look at these county council

elections, it they have never been our heartland. We have never won in

places like the southeast or the south-west, in 40 years. Even with

everything that is going on you were not beaten the Conservative us.

In 2009, the Tories lost 200 -- gained 244 seats. We have been

gaining in places where we need to win. In Derbyshire we had to take

it, and we did. We also took Harlow, seeds in Cornwall and Norwich.

These are all places we need to win. We could have done by ETA.

mention before something needs to be done to tackle this perception

that none of the main three parties are talking to people about their

concerns. What can Labour do about that? One of the things people are

saying is that Labour are not listening to our concerns. There

was a real perception that politicians cannot change our lives.

Austerity has really hit the north- east, people are really feeling it.

Shouldn't they be turning to you in their droves? No-one should be

thinking about voting for UKIP, they can all vote for Labour

because you were fighting austerity. In my area it was almost impossible

to get any more seats. Labour took 94 seats. You could not do any

better in that and this is the part of the world hit harder by

coalition policies. Jeffrey, how long can you party continued to

lose counsellors? Your party can keep taking the is kind of losses.

I have been doing this for more or less 40 years, and I have seen just

about everything you can see. This is a really bad time for us, but it

will turn around. Will it? This is different. You got into a coalition

with Conservatives. In areas you are competing with Labour the

evidence is that voters do not like that and they will not forgive the

use. They may not, but being a committed Liberal Democrat, I have

to believe if we express our views to enough people, then it will

become what people want to vote for. Would it be easier if you began to

unshackled your cells from his coalition before the next election?

I think it is important we carry on in trying to deliver the economic

prosperity that everyone has cravings. Even if the cost is more

councillors losing their seats in the next couple of years. Obviously,

I do not want to see that happen, but the reality is that we are in a

whole. The country is in a whole. We have to stop digging and get

ourselves out of the predicament we are in. The Labour Party are not

actually saying anything different to what the coalition are doing. I

do not know what the Labour Party would do to get us out of the

situation. None of this year's election results were quite as

surprising as events in Hartlepool 11 years ago when voters shows by

man in a monkey suit to run the Northern farmers have a new ally in

their dealings with the big four supermarkets. Farmers can report

any supermarket which tries to force them into accepting unfair

prices. South Tyneside councillor David Potts has died aged just 30

after hospital treatment for Further cutbacks have been

announced by Cumbria police. Five times will only open police

stations front counters for part of the day.

The first and last a elected mayor of Hartlepool has left office after

local people voted to scrap the role. His career began in 2002 when

he steered it as Hartlepool's of Best wishes to Stuart Drummond for

his future. 20 years ago this week centuries of

coal-mining came to an end in County Durham. A programme

announced by John Major's government seal the fate of many

coal pits. 20 years on, what has happened to the men who work there

and how has the economy coped. Smart, new housing in South Shields.

Estate agents might call it a desirable area, but it hides a

secret. You could perhaps be anywhere in

the country, but almost hidden away next to this new estate there is

something else. It is part of the North East's industrial heritage.

All that remains of an old colliery. 20 years ago this month it closed.

It is very sad. I felt my future was here. When I came here I

thought, I will get my retirement out of this. I certainly had its

faults that may be my son would take the job up. The last four pits

in the County Durham coalfield. In the start of the 90s may employ

nearly 7,000 men. In late 1992, John Major's government announced a

pit closure programme. This is an awful decision, but I am afraid it

is unavoidable. Miners went to London to rally the Government, but

it was to no avail. Both Keith and Jimmy eventually found work but say

there is a big gap in the north- east economy for. We have this

economy where we rely on call centres and distribution centres.

That does not require skills. Nor does it give opportunities. At the

Pit, you could rise up through the ranks. The archive images contrast

sharply with what it looks like today. Yes, another housing estate

and a pretty smart looking one. You might say, the very picture of

prosperity. After the shock of the end of the County Durham coalfield,

was the gap left in our economy really that they? In 1992 there

were 4168 people claiming jobseeker's benefits in the Eastern

District. The latest figures show that figure has fallen to 3408. But

economists say we need to be cautious. There has been a decrease

in people claiming unemployment benefit, but that does not account

for people take him out of the labour market altogether. People

claiming sickness benefit. There is huge changes in the structure of

the working market. Also the type of jobs, quality of jobs and rates

of pay. For some, the closure of Durham's Pitts was an opportunity.

Tim is now a maths teacher, but he started his working life at a

colliery. I got a big push to say, you really need to try and do

something else because the mines are going away from us.

Shipbuilding had gone, it was difficult. Without the help of a

lot of people, especially the family, I would never have made it.

I tried to pass on to my students, the enrichment of my life was

getting through those harder times. I want them to know what they can

do and get out of life if they tried. Some have moved on from the

pits, others mourn their passing. But 22 years on, there is no going

Would you accept that these places have recovered and in some ways

look better? There are a number of issues around that, environmentally

people in my constituency are constantly fighting battles against

open cast proposals. Instead of having deep mines that employed

people with good, well paid jobs, we're getting applications to scour

the entire landscape. Local people do not want that and are constantly

fighting against it. Environmentally there have been

improvements, though we have got to get that into context. If we had a

longer discussion we could talk about what is region needs, in this

structure, jobs and dignities. Too many people never had a proper jobs

after the mines closed. -- this region needs infrastructure. People

want jobs that bring in decent money that will feed their families.

At the moment, it too many young people are going the way we did in

the 1980s. We're losing a generation of young people who are

unemployed. Robert, at the time the Conservative Government insisted it

would not lead to mass coal imports and depending on other countries

for our energy needs. That was obviously wrong, was a short-

sighted? We were in the ear of North Sea gas and had our own

resources. -- in the year round. These days people may need to

retrain and redeploy themselves into different jobs during their

working life. The Secretary of State for Transport is a former

miner. In my constituency we have a planning application for a new pot

- mind which will create 1000 jobs. Do you think people are prepared to

go down a deep mine? The modern ones are much different to being in

a coal mine, you drive around and Land Rovers at the bottom of the

pit. It is an altogether different thing. The effect on the overall

economy will be tremendous. We have Nissan in Sunderland, we have new

industries coming in creating jobs. Miners did not want their sons to

go back down the pit, they wanted them to get an education. Jeffrey,

is the north-east a better place without these pits, or of our

communities damaged? It is 20 years and a we are lacking that social

cohesion that these mines give our communities. We have an enterprise

zone on the estuary, and National renewable energy centre, but I

think one day we are going to have to go back and get whatever coal is

there. Will we ever see deep coal mines in County Down Again? I think

they have been largely flooded now and it would cost a fortune to get

them right. However, as fossil fuels disappear, as you lose things

like all in, the call, and they understand we have more than was

ever taken out, that becomes more and more valuable. You can see more

reports on his pit closures and their impact on Look North next