Stoke's Racist Lord Mayor

Ah, racism. How Stoke has missed thee. Nine years ago the British National Party were banished from the council chamber when, prior to the 2010 general election, Nick Griffin had proclaimed Stoke the jewel in the BNP crown. Well, sucks to be them. But the stench has never fully gone away. Every so often there's an unwelcome waft of the recent past when some councillor or another says or does something. For instance, the City Independents - when it was (ostensibly) the senior partner in the coalition running Stoke - put forward one Melanie Baddeley for the office of Deputy Mayor back in 2015. The problem was she sat for the BNP during their height and, at that point, had never accounted for racist past deeds.

A one off then? Perhaps. If you was feeling charitable, you could put this down to political naivete. There was never anything much holding the City Independents together, apart from the desire to be the Big I Am and antipathy toward the local Labour Party. Not long after Baddeley's appointment was derailed her co-councillor in the Abbey Hulton ward, one Richard Broughan of the United Kingdom Independence Party, made his presence felt after tweeting a "joke" about the deaths of 71 refugees in Germany. Can you guess what happened next? UKIP decided he was too much of a racist liability for them, and out the door he was pushed. Only to wind up sitting for the City Independents. He lasted until finding further controversy as a sex pest and a drunkard. He ended his political career as the sole elected official for Anne Marie Waters's For Britain. Thankfully Labour's Jo Woolner had the satisfaction of taking his seat last May.

Lightning sometimes strikes twice, okay? But how about three times? Cllr Jackie Barnes entered the chamber at a by-election in 2012 after issuing the most ridiculous manifesto I've ever seen. It fulminated against cervical smears, plagiarised crap Facebook memes, and had nudge nudge, wink wink innuendoes about "proper Stokies" littered throughout. Still, it got them the seat and I suppose it was logical it would serve as their programme for the 2015 local elections. Success breeds success, right? Five years on we're still awaiting the promised tea set and package tour. But hey, madcap peccadilloes and weirdo policies are no barriers to getting elected in Stoke-on-Trent. Anyway, to pull things back from this necessary tangent Cllr Barnes, who is presently the Lord Mayor of our fine city has added herself to the City Independents' ignoble record on matters racism.

Our so-called first citizen has excelled herself reposting fake news, sharing the "White Lives Matter" statue bullshit of the self-proclaimed 'Proud to be British' Facebook group, and the meme that did the rounds exploiting the memory of Lee Rigby - one that has been publicly attacked by Lyn Rigby, his mum. The Mayor's feed is peppered with this sort of nonsense, the usual "immigrants should be grateful" and whites under siege idiotics. Again, if one was charitable you could put this down to stupid boomer edgelording flipping the bird to the "you can't say that!" liberal in their heads, but then we have stuff about the golliwogs. When you consider all this together, the manifesto she stood on, and the dubious record of the City Independents on racism, the conclusion is obvious: she is racist.

The question is what the ruling coalition are going to do about it. This is not the first time racist posts and endorsements on Jackie Barnes's Facebook feed have been flagged up, but the City Indies don't care and neither do their Tory coalition partners. There is no electoral price to be exacted one year on from a famous victory, and so the eyes stay shut and the pall of silence seals independent and Tory lips. Pathetic. Damning. And for both parties, most revealing.

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Farewell Comrade Peggy

Peggy, our indomitable feline comrade and companion, passed away earlier today.

Before coming to us Peggy had led an itinerant life. She was unfortunate enough to have had three prior owners all of whom had to give her up. There was a relationship break up, work commitments, and someone who had to go into an old folks' home all in Peggy's past. And each time she ended up at Iris's Cats in Need, a fine and locally famous Stoke-on-Trent institution comprising a couple of charity shops and a cat sanctuary at the bottom of a garden in Abbey Hulton.

This was where we met Peggy. After the passing of our previous feline overlord, the Brilliant Comrade and Great Leader Charlie, a couple of friends were dropping off masses of his unused cat food at Iris's when one of them sent me a photo. This was of an older cat who'd been passed over for three or four months. This was, of course, Peggy - her already-given name. We went along to have a look and she was so friendly with us we just had to take her home. On the 21st August 2015, comrade Peggy entered the BC bunker. And the rest, until this morning, was bliss.

Within moments of Peggy coming through the door she was purring like an idiot and rolling around. She settled in as if she'd always lived here. And much to my surprise, I never knew a cat could be so affectionate and, well, soft. While Charlie was a little sod always up for a scrap and would bite you when he'd had enough fuss, Peggy was a soak for the good life, a complete decadent. She simply absorbed all the strokes, playing, and tickles - she couldn't get enough of it. She was also very intelligent and apart from an early spree of pissing on the kitchen floor and occasionally missing her litter tray accidentally-on-purpose, entirely remarkable. Peggy was easily the most vocal animal I have ever met. You could say something to her and she would chirp back, and this back and forth could go on and on and on. The only time she ever showed the usual kitty-type aggression was when her toy came out. She truly hated birds, so to have toys flying about the living room that approximated their movements sent her into paroxysms of rage. Yet within an instant, she could go from chewing the living hell out of what she presumed was an evil avian to rubbing around your feet and asking for tickles. She was very much a people purrson and loved our company.

Sadly, given her earlier history she wasn't without hang ups. She hated cars and especially detested going out in her cat carrier, we presume because of her earlier period of confinement for months on end and having got passed from one owner to the next. Thankfully she was spared the stress of a final journey to the vet's, and she was able to pass away peacefully and in comfort at home with her humans attending to her.

So long comrade Peggy, you are much missed.

NBIf you have a bit to spare in these difficult times, please consider supporting Iris's Cats. And if you're thinking of taking on a new feline friend, look no further!

Stoke Labour's Council Budget Victory

It was high drama over low pay at Stoke-on-Trent City Council last Thursday. For the first time in the council's history, and that of its predecessor authorities, a ruling administration had its budget proposals thrown out. There are lessons here for Labour beyond our city limits, and new opportunities for our party within them.

Despite Stoke's reputation for being a Labour city, during the last 20 years the party has had a less than certain grip on local government. From majority governing to governing in coalition to exclusion from power to coalition and majority again, Labour have been locked out of office since 2015 by a (nominally) City Independent-led coalition with the Tories, and since last May a Conservative-led coalition with the City Independents. Labour's current predicament, with none of Stoke's MPs, was long in gestation and suggests a lengthy and painful comeback ahead. There are no short circuits to this process. Leaflet drops and canvassing are necessary but by no means sufficient. As per elsewhere, the party has to fall back on the movement of which it is part and rebuild its relevance in day-to-day life, be it where our people live or where they work, responding to and leading on the issues that matter to them. Pleasingly, all wings of the party in Stoke have set aside the false opposition of party of protest vs party of government nonsense peddled by some and have taken the right road. Movement and party working hand in glove has meant inflicting a humbling defeat on a Tory council puffed up to the gills with its own arrogance.

Over the course of the last five years, the Tory-led coalition have responded to the budget challenges imposed by their government by cutting services to the bone, directly leading to the condemnation of the city's Children's Services by Ofsted. Meanwhile, money has been poured into a hotel for Hilton, build-to-rent properties (NB not council housing), and making sure the city's parks look nice. Not what you'd describe as a priority, but then again building things and sprucing the place up is central to local Tory strategy. And they mean to carry on as they have carried on. Facing another cut to the local government grant this year, the council were compelled to find ways of making up a £9m shortfall. Which meant, unlike Labour for all its faults when faced with a similar set of problems, the Tories decided to go after the low paid.

In addition to raising council tax by 3.99%, closing some council-provided services on certain days, and some job losses, a big chunk of the Tory budget proposal was a change to workers' terms and conditions. This would have meant an end to unsocial hours payments on bank holidays, weekends, and evenings. If you were salaried, like the better paid workers at the council are, then this makes no difference. But if you are hourly paid, like most low paid workers are, then this makes a massive difference. According to the local Unison branch, it meant some workers were looking at a 20% reduction to earnings. Considering the social care crisis this country is facing, driving down the wages of care workers even further is hardly going to address the gap. And so for the last couple of Thursdays, lunch time outside the Civic Centre has seen a lively protest of trade unionists backed by Labour. Working together they have come up with alternative proposals that would not mean the council's poorest workers have to bear the brunt of the continued assault on local government. Naturally, the much-hyped blue collar conservatism didn't feature in the Tories' thinking - heeding advice from above to carry on as normal - and stuck to their plan. Perhaps the idea of clashing with the local workforce pushed the buttons of Thatcher cosplayers in the Tory group.

And so we came to the day of the meeting itself. Protesters gathered and councillors were jeered and cheered as they made their way into the chamber. Likewise so many affected workers and their supporters crammed into the public gallery that an overflow room had to be made available so they could view proceedings. Once the debate got underway, it became quite a lively affair. Labour councillors got up and attacked the council for their boondoggle projects, including £117k recently spent on revamping a path at a long-closed golf course. Cllr Shaun Pender attacked the Tories for hammering the living standards of the lowest paid, pointing out some households could lose up to £8,000/year. The Tory response was as all over the place as it was desperate. Council Leader Abi Brown exhorted the assembled councillors to back the plan, otherwise the local authority would end up like Northamptonshire. Cllr Ross Irving, however, outdid himself by arguing that trade unions should not be allowed, and that it was not the council's responsibility that its workers should get by - if they can't afford to live off the wages offered they should get another job. Charming. And Cllr Dan Jellyman, unable to regurgitate that morning's Daily Mail headline or adapt it to fit present circumstances, chose to heckle and raise points of order - but true to form, only when female Labour councillors were speaking.

What electrified proceedings was the split in the City Independents over the budget. Casting aside his undeserved reputation as some sort of soft left-type, Randy Conteh lined up with the Tories to say voting down the proposals would lead to "reputational damage." If only he'd shown similar concern with local authority PR when the council unveiled its desire to fine homeless people £1,000 in the middle of its City of Culture bid. Lord Mayor and purveyor of 20 page manifestos fulminating against cervical smears and refugees, Jackie Barnes, chuntered incoherently about concerns over the terms and conditions but shamefacedly supported it anyway. Meanwhile, deputy council leader and leader of the City Indies, Ann James, was much more forceful in registering her opposition, and was followed in this by her fellow cabinet colleague, Joanne Powell-Beckett, in making the case against. It came to the vote and much to the delight of oppositionists and the workers watching, the plan fell with 19 for and 22 voting it down - six City Indies voted with Labour. Jubilation among Labour councillors was matched by pandemonium among the Tories. Cllr Jellyman confronted Cllr Sabrina Bowers of the City Indies and screamed obscenities in her face, while Cllr Irving berated Cllr Shaun Bennett for abstaining. This was handily edited out of the repackaged stream available online, but one of our members made sure it was filmed for posterity - warts and all.

With their budget in tatters, it's getting brought back again for another try before the 11th March budget setting deadline - presumably with the terms and conditions cuts made up from elsewhere. But this raises some significant questions for Potteries politics. Given the acrimony in the chamber, can the ruling coalition continue? Reading between the lines, it appeared the Tories and City Indies hadn't met prior to the council meeting to hammer out an agreed line. A symptom of the Tories running roughshod over their governing partner as per usual, but also a failure on Cllr James's part for letting them get away with it. Eager to avoid special measures, and the unmaking of their reputation for nous, the Tories will have to offer some concessions. Perhaps another cabinet position, perhaps grovelling apologies for sweary outbursts. Perhaps some cash for the package tour of Stoke-on-Trent.

Their crisis is the Labour Group's opportunity. Having finally proven able to split the independents from their Tory overseers, the party has to know what it wants to do next. We have established a section of the City Independents will go along with Labour when political leadership over contentious issues is provided, and so one would hope the text messages and phone calls have pinged back and forth over forming an alternative coalition. But should Labour? There is one school of thought that the Tories should be left to immolate themselves, carry the can for the mess and damage they're causing, and this puts us in a better position for the next round of elections. This idea is utterly defeatist. If the local party really believes this, why did we bother standing last May? If the Tories are as bad as we say they are, refusing to replace them looks unserious and shows, ultimately, that we're indifferent to the consequences of the bad decisions they make. Yes, the timing is not right. But the timing is never right. Therefore Stoke Labour should work on building a new coalition. It may involve some changes of emphasis and a change of personnel, but if that's what it takes to get the Tories out we should do it.

Simply taking control, however, is not good enough. We need to show we have learned the lessons of our previous stint in office. No more pretending to be managers and letting senior officers steer the authority's priorities, we need to act like politicians and therefore be seen to provide political leadership. This, among other things, involves continuing to shield the most vulnerable - be it council workers or residents - from the worst of the cuts. It means picking up where our old economic strategy left off which, for the most part, the Tories have continued with. Despite their fulminating against it at the time. We need to think about how power can be pushed outward from the council itself, to draw on, draw in, and expand the movement our party rests on. All our current leadership candidates talk about devolving power, so we should think about how we can do it ourselves. We need to learn from Manchester and Liverpool how Labour has managed to keep a tight hold on local politics despite suffering cuts of a similar scale. And crucially, we need to adopt the Preston model lock, stock, and barrel. Under Labour and early in the present coalition, there was a little bit of umming and ahhing about using this to underpin local economic resilience, but little to nothing came of it. This cannot be an afterthought - supporting the local economy has to run through every element of the programme. Are these magic bullets? No. But do they offer the best way of rebuilding the party if we work to split the coalition and form one of our own? Possibly. At the very least, there is nothing here any City Indie would object to.

Within the space of three months, the Tories have gone from all-conquering to getting humiliated by low paid workers working in concert with Labour councillors. There is an opportunity now for Labour to fatally undermine the cocksure confidence of the Tories and boot them out of office, but will the opening be grasped?

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Stoke Central Labour's Nomination Meeting

Stoke Central Labour Party met up this Saturday morning to make its nominations for the leadership and deputy leadership contests. Spoiler alert, we voted to endorse Rebecca Long-Bailey and Dawn Butler. When you consider how in 2010 the local party endorsed David Miliband, in 2015 it gave Yvette Cooper the nod and, despite voting to endorse Jeremy Corbyn in 2016, selected Gareth Snell over a Corbyn supporter in 2017 for the Stoke Central by-election, how did the party move to nominate two left wing candidates this time? Without the time nor the inclination for another blood and guts analysis of local politics, we should have a goose at what happened on the day.

In all, 61 voting members turned up, which was significantly more than the equivalent meeting in 2016. And the politics? With the leadership debate up first it was clear there was a mood for unity ... against Keir Starmer. Regardless of who was speaking, criticisms came from all corners criticising him for bouncing Labour into support for the second referendum. In the end, the fall out of Brexit for Stoke Labour proved too much and overrode the conditions of support that's causing him to scoop up nominations hand-over-fist in CLPs elsewhere. With a desultory three votes to his name, he at least managed to triple Emily Thornberry's tally. And so it quickly became apparent - folks were either speaking for Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey.

The arguments for Lisa came in two batches. For some, there was genuine enthusiasm. One comrade who was originally more favourable to Keir found Lisa's diagnosis of Labour's malaise compelling, and thought she performed very well in front of the media. Especially her Andrew Neil interview was assured and despite his best efforts, never managed to trip her up. Another comrade suggested her socialism was just the ticket because she offered a bridge between the north, where we suffered, and the southern (London) seats. He also said that she listened, which is a sign of a good leader. One suggested she was less likely to come a cropper in the media, and has that elusive (and nebulous) swing appeal.

The second set of arguments were motivated by what we'll clumsily refer to anti-Long-Baileyism. A recurring argument praised RLB for her contribution to the manifesto and that comrades liked her socialist ideals, but we have to row back from that (a position some disappointing melt used in 2015 to help secure the nomination for Yvette Cooper). Another comrade argued we needed someone who wasn't divisive and can unite the party, which is something Lisa can do and Becky (apparently) cannot. A couple of other comrades were more blunt. There's no point the left blaming the hurdles if that's the race you're in (though, it might be said, said athlete might be annoyed if members of their own team had put ground glass in their running shoes beforehand), and RLB will face the same. Another said Jeremy Corbyn was no good and we heard it time and again on the doors. The truth of the matter is people wanted sensible, centre policies, and as RLB carries on where Corbyn left off she won't be able to win.

In the arguments heard for RLB, one comrade pointed out that had the party united behind Corbyn as its members expected the MPs to then we wouldn't be in this situation, because Labour would have achieved even more in 2017. The fact of the matter is politics is now a clear case of them and us, and we have to stand up for us. Another emphasised the importance of the green new deal and, quoting Tony Benn, how we should never let the media choose our leader because it's only a hop, skip, and a jump from them determining our policies. Taking some sound advice, I held back until all the main arguments were heard and then had my three minutes emphasising three points: rebutting the nonsense about Labour needing to be more centrist ("didn't hear any arguments on the doors demanding benefits be cut and more of the public sector sold off"), criticising Lisa's pitch ("can't support someone who misrecognises a stark age division for a problem with working class voters and towns"), and endorsing RLB as the only candidate who gets this and has a strategy to win ("we don't need to build a red bridge between the north and the south, we need to build it between the generations").

The first round of voting gave us, in addition to the figures already mentioned, Becky 29 and Lisa 28. And following distribution ... RLB scooped the nomination by 31 votes to 30. Tight but a win is a win.

The deputy leadership debate was a less polarising affair. Again, there was an outbreak of consensus in terms of the brick bats the erstwhile deputy leader received, and how the next office holder must support and not undermine the members' choice. A few comrades wryly observed that they thought the field for this contest was stronger than the leadership. Again, applying the wait-and-see advice before speaking it seemed like Angela Rayner was going to walk it. Member after member got up to talk about her qualities, nous, fighting spirit, and roots in the union movement. Another comrade said he was particularly impressed with the performance of Dawn Butler and Rosena Allin-Khan, whereas Angela seemed a bit on the flat side. And another said this was a bit of a blind contest because we don't really know who the candidates are and what they might be like in position.

This is where I spoke in favour of Dawn Butler. As some members might not know who they're voting for, it's perhaps worthwhile opening out the contest for a decent debate. As Richard Burgon and Angela have already made it onto the ballot, I suggested that comrades might consider lending her their votes. I also said there were sound political reasons for supporting Dawn too - the Tories will be looking to scapegoat minorities so we need someone in the leadership that can call out Boris Johnson's racism and champion equalities. Also, Dawn isn't a factional player - she supported Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband while they were leaders, and stuck by Corbyn when the rest of the parliamentary party tried to come for him. If we want unity, here we have a candidate who has practised it throughout her Commons' career.

After hearing other members speak, we went to the vote. This time it was more emphatic. In the first round, Dawn was well out in front with 24 to Angela's 18. But then the joys of Labour proceduralism intervened. After eliminating those with fewer votes, on 27 to 26 respectively neither had 50% and after "redistributing" Angela's votes to Dawn she was left with 30, one vote under the threshold for endorsement. How annoying!

In all, not results I was expecting the CLP to come up with but welcome nonetheless. I hope other comrades looking to make the case for Becky and Dawn find this post useful.


NB Dawn Butler's nomination was accepted by the regional office.
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An Evening with Grace Blakeley

In and around North Staffordshire on the evening on Monday 20th January, around the 7pm mark?

Wondered why, over a decade ago, a crisis in the American housing market spiralled out and brought the world's financial system to its knees?

Tried making sense of it all but find the jargon around equities, securitised mortgages, and collateralised debt obligations completely off-putting?

And how we can avoid a crisis of this magnitude in the future?

Grace Blakeley, author of the excellent Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation will be in conversation with some bloke called Phil Burton-Cartledge to make sense of the crisis, what it has to do with Thatcherism, how the Tories were able to use it to justify their decade-long programme of cuts, and why democratic socialism is the answer.

Hosted by Stoke-on-Trent South Labour Party, attendance is free but you will need to register. You can do so via Eventbrite here. And our evening takes place at

Fenton Town Hall
Stoke-on-Trent
ST4 3BX

There will be copies of Grace's book going for the cheaper price of £10 on the night. It comes highly recommended!

How the Tories Smashed Stoke Labour

As the Tory tide proved unstoppable in dozens of so-called heartland seats, the blue wave rolled over Labour's three North Staffordshire seats and erased our party's parliamentary representation. In Newcastle-under-Lyme the thin majority of 30 became a safe 7,500 margin for the Tories. 2,349 in Stoke North was turned into its opposite and almost tripled. Stoke Central, the residence of yours truly, saw +4,000 become +670 for the Tories, and Stoke South, where I spent the election went from a marginal with a thin 663 Tory majority to a safe seat with 11,300 votes between the two main parties. What lessons can we learn from this rout, apart from never letting me be part of your campaign team?

Well, why not listen to what the victors have to say? In a series of tweets accompanying her appearance on Politics Live West Midlands last Sunday, Tory council leader and master mind of the party's resurgence in Stoke, Abi Brown, argued it came down to campaigning and canvassing, and Labour being entitled and complacent. The first is self-serving nonsense because while they campaign they are outgunned by the numbers even Stoke and N Staffs's CLPs can count on. No, the truth of the matter is the Tories always benefit from the structural bias in what passes for our national conversation. Her second point however cannot be dismissed, because her diagnosis is on the money.

It's not the case Labour has enjoyed unrivalled dominance in Stoke politics in the 21st century, but it is absolutely true the party has failed to adequately respond to it. During the 00s Labour fractured over the mayoralty, which ran the city from 2003 to its abolition by referendum in 2009, all the while losing ground to the so-called City Independents and the BNP. Dumped out of office Labour unexpectedly did much better at the 2010 local elections, held on the same day as the year's general election, and the boosted turn out put us back into office in coalition again. In 2011 Labour did even better winning the local elections and having an absolute majority in the chamber. And from there things went into sharp decline, losing two by-elections in Springfields and Trent Vale (a campaign I ran, so loss was inevitable) and another in Baddeley, Milton, and Norton. Come the 2015 general election we did not see a repeat of 2010 as the Labour council's perceived poor performance saw us lose council seats, and Labour's Westminster votes took a battering. The fun of the Stoke Central by-election, the performance at the 2017 general election, which saw the Tories net Stoke South, and Labour's duff showing in this year's locals all marked the slippage of Labour's control. Of a party, if you like, in long-term decline.

The structural issues and wider political issues of Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn's leadership were background factors here as they were in similar seats across the Midlands and Northern England. But what's going on above our heads and behind our backs does not mechanically grind out predetermined outcomes, there is always agency and there were plenty of opportunities Labour could have taken in the Potteries to avoid outright disaster on 12th December.

The first is undoubtedly Labour's ill-fated stint running the council between 2010 to 2015. Like all urban local authorities, George Osborne imposed stringent cuts to the local government grant with a view to forcing Labour councils to attack their own people, which some did reluctantly while others went about it with alacrity. Owing to a thin spread of acumen among Stoke Labour's councillors and, sad to say, in some cases a complete absence of Labour values and a political understanding, too many fancied themselves as petty managers and approached the cuts as an administrative challenge as opposed to a political problem. Partly, some were bewitched by the flashy, overpaid chief executive and red carpet for business talk. Others were flummoxed by the senior officers they were tied to and were, effectively, led by them. And in one particularly egregious case there was a hush hush affair between a councillor and a officer that was so secret everyone knew about it. And throughout Labour Group were utterly impervious to even a little bit of politics. I remember suggesting that perhaps the council should think about local sourcing, as per the Preston model a lot of folks coo about today, but the ridiculous answer came back that EU rules prevented it. Of course they did. So bad was the lack of a handle on the council was that just as the Springfields by-election was scheduled in summer 2012, without any political oversight the council announced it would be splashing out £55m to build a new HQ in Hanley (the city centre, for non-Stoke readers) straight after two years of tough cuts. A sound proposition if you're a regen manager, an absolutely catastrophic blooper if you're a politician.

After this point, the council was seen as uncaring and uninterested in listening to residents, and this mishandling was compounded by not one, but two entries to the Chelsea Flower Show. Sure, the local press always had it in for Labour, whether it was pushing fair or unfair criticisms and, incredibly, talking up the BNP in the 00s, but as a general rule one should not go into battle after painting a target on your back. And so Labour lost office to a coalition of Tories, City Independents, and a couple of UKIP supporters - one of whom later turned out to be too right wing and unhinged for the purple party, so the indies had him. And since then, Labour's efforts on the council have proven much less than the sum of its parts. Except for the coverage Stoke's Labour MPs attracted, and my friend and comrade Cllr Candi Chetwynd who was/is arguably in The Sentinel more than the (ex) MPs and the rest of the Labour Group combined, the party is almost entirely invisible. Instead of being allowed to make the running with shadow briefs, those with positions are held back and not allowed to say boo to a goose, and everything has to be done through the person of the group leader, Mohammed Pervez. It's almost like the party is in lockdown.

Unfortunately, in more recent years the MPs haven't done a great deal to make up for this deficit. Rob Flello, who was recently selected for the LibDems and then humiliatingly had his nomination rescinded by the national party, is close to one of the worst Labour MPs I've had the misfortune to meet. Stupid, lazy, spiteful, but with the entitled arrogance you come to expect from such people elevated to lofty heights, I know any Labour MP is better than any Tory MP but he certainly tested the adage to destruction. Paul Farrelly over in Newcastle-under-Lyme also vied with Flello for the worst MP title, arrogantly doing the whole EU stan thing in a decidedly leave constituency and rivalling him in petty vendettas and general uselessness. Gareth Snell, recently ex-of Stoke Central, was very good on local issues and knew the constituency well but, unfortunately, tried placating the Labour leavers while turning off a layer of Labour's core EU-friendly voters, just as I feared might happen. And Ruth Smeeth, who was also diligent on local issues and an active campaigner like Gareth, cratered her own foot, and therefore her chances, by spending the last four years telling every Corbyn sceptic punter on the doorstep that she couldn't stand Labour's leader either. Hardly the stuff of which vote catching is made, but I'm sure the Jess Phillips campaign can make good use of her tactical genius.

All the MPs contributed to this problem by virtually hiding from the public. The first constituency office I ever went into belonged to Mark Fisher, who retired in 2010. It was also the most absurd. If you went into a white goods store down a back street in Stoke Town, right at the back of the shop behind the counter was a door with his parliamentary plaque on it. And remember, this was supposedly a man of the left concealing his operation from constituents. When the blessed Tristram Hunt came to Stoke, he at least elected to have a shop front, albeit on the same out-of-the-way street. For his part Rob Flello's was tucked away at the bottom of a block of flats, which you wouldn't have known were there unless you were one of Labour's cognoscenti. Ruth also hid her super secure office down a back street in Tunstall, while Gareth elected to have his in Hanley's GMB building, once home to Stoke's home grown potters' union. And what did Jack Brereton do when he deposed Flello in Stoke South in 2017? He set up his constituency office in the busiest concourse in Longton.

And this is the problem. While Labour have played amateur hour for the best part of two decades, every step of the way the local Tories have proven much more politically astute and savvy. Abi Brown, who has run the council for nearly five years, knows she's a politician not a manager, and acts like one. She has fronted up all the positive publicity stuff, such as Stoke's city of culture bid and this last week has combined the City Council's announcement of the latest round of cuts with its capital investment plans. That means job losses and selling off local authority assets has been buried by news of their ambitious council house building programme, and the further development of the site Labour built the new council HQ on. Tories are gonna Tory, of course, and there have been cuts to the vulnerable, the scandal of the council's inadequate children's services, the proposal - quickly dropped - to tackle homelessness by fining rough sleepers £1,000, and dozens of other examples. Yet, as politicians the Tories understand that most people aren't bothered about local politics, that cuts can, effectively, be socially contained and targeted at those who largely don't vote anyway, and if Stoke is seen to be changing for the better, what with building sites cropping up everywhere and amenities like the city's many parks spruced up and returned to their Victorian-era glory days, people will notice. If you're a life long Labour voter untouched by cuts to local services, seeing how the Tories affect competent management and are appearing to turn Stoke's fortunes around, it makes breaking voting habits of a life time that little bit easier. And thousands did on 12th December.

Can Labour come back? Yes, of course it can. The national heavy weather will turn against Boris Johnson sooner or later, but if we're to win again in places like Stoke, local parties have to think about how the local and the national intersect, and how MPs and councillors are dependent on one another. It has to think about visibility, policy, and campaigning like politicians, and not as third rate managers and technocrats. The party must consider communications and properly building an alternative media infrastructure of its own complementing the traditional dependence on the local press and radio, and also the kinds of figures who are going to front all this up. None of this is rocket science, and each Labour member in Stoke and places like Stoke have a responsibility to contribute to rebuilding. It's time for Labour to be a serious outfit. Because if we let things carry on as they are, not only will the Tories keep hold of Stoke in 2024, MPs wearing blue rosettes will get returned in dozens of former Labour seats elsewhere too.

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On the Doors in Stoke-on-Trent South

The last time Labour had knocked on this address, the occupants were recorded as Tory and Against. Sucking up our courage we gently rapped on the door and a middle aged bloke came bounding from around the corner. We said we were from the Labour Party and started asking about the election coming this week. "I'll tell you who I definitely won't be voting for", he bellowed. We had but a moment to prep for an anti-Corbyn rant. "Boris Johnson!" came the reply. He hated how Johnson is a buffoon, how he lies, and how unfit he is to hold Prime Ministerial office. We got talking a bit more and he was frustrated with how shabby the country had become, the dereliction of its public services, the amount of debt heaped on students, and plenty more. This gent was a life long Tory voter and was, along with his wife and daughter, voting Labour in 2019. This set us up nicely for the most encouraging session I've been on in this campaign. People down as Againsts from the last time this estate was canvassed were turning Labour, and almost as good one Tory we found said he wasn't voting.

As Stoke-on-Trent watchers know, while Labour held on to Stoke-on-Trent North and Central seats by 2,359 and 3,897 votes respectively in 2017, the South seat went Tory with a 663 vote majority for them. This was the culmination of a hollowing out of Labour's support across the Potteries during the Blair years (much of what I wrote about the background to the Stoke Central by-election also applies). Though in this case, Stoke South was blighted by Rob Flello. To describe him as a lazy, no mark MP in the Change UK mould but with a sideline in homophobic bigotry would be flattering this useless oaf. That he was selected to run for the Liberal Democrats in this election only to have his candidacy quashed by national should tell you all you need to know. Also Labour took a battering in May's council elections in the south, losing six seats in the constituency. Throw into the mix the obliteration of the established parties by the Brexit Party in the EU elections, you're left with a paper impression of a constituency that has passed beyond the veil of Labour possibility.

Yet, it certainly doesn't feel like that on the doorstep. And the canvassing data is indicating a close run thing. There are good reasons to believe Stoke South might feature in the roster of Labour gains come Thursday. First off we have our candidate, Mark McDonald. Brought up by his mum on a council estate from Birmingham, he spent the early part of his career working as a porter and an orderly in a number of hospitals while putting himself through night school. Now a lawyer, he is exactly the sort of candidate the Tories would give their right leg for in a seat like this. Compare this to Jack Brereton, the sitting Tory MP who has never had a proper job and was chosen from a shortlist of one to contest Stoke South at the last election. Also, since getting selected about 18 months ago, Mark has thrown himself into two key local campaigns. The Tory-Independent City Council wanted to proceed with a housing scheme on Berry Hill fields, which is a large green space wedged between Hanley and Fenton. Labour successfully opposed the development and allowed Mark to become known among community activist circles across the city.

The second and more significant was the fall out of the City Council-sponsored Solarplicity scheme. This saw solar panels fitted to thousands of council houses and was aimed at cutting bills, and was entered into by tenants on a voluntary basis. However, it turned into a right dog's dinner. Complaints involved discount delays, crap work and damage to properties, and fraudulent sign-ups. As you'd expect, Jack Brereton has been entirely absent from the scene seeing as his pals are running the council. And, reportedly, constituents getting in touch with him have been told to take their concerns to the Citizen's Advice Bureau. Mark for his part has supported residents affected, organising campaign meetings and protests, and advising on councillors' questions. He's not the MP but already he's managed to do more for Stoke South than hapless Jack. And it has been noted by local residents, with canvassers reporting switches on the door because he has got stuck into campaigning. If only Rob Flello was as pro-active we might have avoided dwindling majorities and the loss of the seat.

The other big advantage is organisation. Whereas the Tories can only muster an occasional team of four, Stoke South Labour has benefited from an influx of activists. A number of comrades have commented how Corbynism has risen to the challenge of this election by turning out campaigners on a scale not seen for decades, and this is true. Not only have more than the usual local suspects come out, comrades from around the country have pitched up too. On Saturday, my team had members from Lewisham, Oxford, and Hereford. The weekend before it was local CLPs plus Liverpool and Calder Valley. Weekday daytimes regularly have two dozen coming in to help. According to one comrade active in Stoke South Labour since the 1960s, this is the biggest campaign she's ever seen mounted in the constituency. That means thousands of voters spoken over the five weeks, thousands of conversations about politics, about Brexit, about what Britain should be like, and thousands of people having their preconceptions about Labour challenged.

Every campaign has its highs and lows, and moments of weird. Canvassers heard one woman who was voting Tory because the numbers of immigrants was literally causing the UK to sink into the earth. The "striking ex-miner" who had decided to give the Tories a punt, but later turned out to be a work shop technician who bounced back and forth across the picket line as if it weren't there. The propensity of astro turf owners to vote Tory, and the happy strange of one old guy who basically talked himself into voting Labour when I canvassed him. If only they were all that easy! As for the Labour-Tory switchers on account of Brexit, yes, we've all found them. Most, it has to be said, were lost long before 2017 (like the "life-long Labour voter" who hadn't voted for us since 2005), and those who were new switches were overwhelmingly older voters who swallowed Johnson's Get Brexit Done nonsense. From my chats, the one thing these older voters had in common was a certain divorce from politics. This is different to the you're-all-the-same stock response of a place of naive cynicism, but rather betrays an expectation that politics is a service like any other. For this layer of voters, they voted Labour previously because they did alright by them and now, for whatever reasons, they identify with Brexit it was relatively easy for them to switch to the Tories. This, of course, is implicit within liberal democracy itself. We are encouraged to have a consumer relationship to politics and so it's unsurprising that millions do, but matters aren't helped by the Labourist tradition's legacy. You know, the idea you should come out and vote like good worker drones every four or five years and get on with your lives in the mean time while your MPs make everything better for you. At least Corbynism and its manifesto represents a partial break with this top down and, ultimately, alienating politics.

I digress. Having had my fingers burned too many times, there are no predictions to be offered here. The question is whether the strength of our candidate and the power of our campaign can overpower the pull of Brexit, and the Tory advantage in money and media coverage. And it's obvious we can. The dynamism is with Labour, and with four days to go before close of poll we have a real opportunity not just to take back the seat, but also reverse our party's decline in so-called traditional seats. If you haven't had the chance to help yet, it's still not too late to join in!

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Not Pulling the Trigger in Stoke Central

Choo choo! The Reselection Express is pulling into the station, but how do we reach our desired destination? The record so far is much more miss than hit. Diana Johnson in Hull, acting as if a minor royal has died, that Margaret Hodge was triggered by her CLP is on the hour every hour on BBC News. Luminaries like Harriet Harman, Tom Watson, and David Miliband have whinged and moaned about it. Tough. When you're one of the most consistently awful Labour MPs, you can expect years of scabbing on the membership might catch up with you. How she will manage in her first selection meeting for 25 years will be interesting, and one hopes the good members of Barking find Hodge wanting and choose someone else.

With far less fanfare and away from the media's gaze, Stoke Central Labour Party completed its trigger ballot process this last week. And as you can surmise by the absence of headlines, our MP Gareth Snell made it through the three branch meetings with barely a scratch. Many congratulations to Gareth. How he did, despite being a regular Brexit rebel and even abstaining on the vote to seize control of the order paper to, um, prevent a no deal Brexit, offers plenty of salutary lessons for MPs fretting about their own trigger ballots ... and Labour activists who'd like to see them face a full reselection meeting.

The first is something no sitting MP can find a fix for if they haven't done it: a hands-on and consistent approach to local campaigning. As noted previously, even for self-interested reasons it pays for MPs to not only take an active interest in their CLP, but position themselves as organisers of it. And this is what Gareth has done since his election at The Battle of Stoke Central. Unlike his predecessor, who did campaign but was fairly hands-off when it came to helping out councillors, Gareth regularly organises joint door knocking and leafleting sessions on a rotating ward-by-ward basis. And so the party's messaging is getting out, both MP and councillor are getting their faces known on the doorstep, casework is picked up and, unsurprisingly, quite a few people feel obliged and want to thank him for backing them. As one Corbyn-supporting comrade told me after our branch's trigger meeting, he felt voting for reselection would be like doing the dirty after the regular campaigning support he's provided. It's not exactly string theory, then. If you support your local party and its activist efforts, it in turn will support you. Wherever the MP doesn't show their face or is a bit of a Chris Leslie or a thwarted heir apparent, their distance will work against them and triggering reselection becomes much easier.

The second is organisation. MPs who organise properly will win, and those who don't won't. The same goes for the members who are pushing for reselection. Having sat and participated in many a selection meeting these last nine-and-a-bit years, it always tickles me how many members come out of the woodwork who are never seen from one selection meeting to the next. And that was true of my branch meeting. Lifts had been arranged and new faces emerged. Clearly there had been an effort put together to boost turn out, which of course is what you'd expect. Those who argued for reselection were not so organised - not even a Momentum email went out to its supporters living in the constituency. Therefore, if you want to win your reselection no one is going to do the organising for you. Two years on from the general election, the mass membership won't simply turn up to the meeting unless an effort is made to mobilise them. Additionally, some thought has to be given to how the reselection is approached. The guys, and they're mostly men, who kick up a stink in every constituency or branch meeting, have a tendency to make long-winded speeches and are what you might euphemistically describe as a "bit Marmite", these comrades should not be leading the charge. Indeed, a period of silence on their part would be most welcome. Instead, comrades without obvious axes to grind, have a bit of moral authority, or indeed tend not to speak too much in meetings, these are the best advocates of the reselection case. Not enough Labour people read a room before they speak, but if you're serious about winning people over you need to learn to.

On the arguments themselves, I can't say it was easy making the case for reselection in my branch meeting. I've spoken highly of Gareth in the past, have known him for yonks, and we shared an office for two-and-half-years working for the blessed Tristram. I was at his wedding, he was at my 40th. And so arguing for a vote where your friend might lose his job is never pleasant. Which is why reselection as a matter of course is more preferable than the hard job of arguing for a negative, and why our friends the Labour right cling to the trigger ballot process like a security blanket. In the three minutes allotted to members to debate the merits or otherwise of reselection, I made three points making the case for proceeding to a vote. The first was on the basic accountability of the process, that all of us have regular job appraisals and so MPs shouldn't be any different. The second, anticipating the most common argument likely to come up, was how the reselection process is not a distraction from the job at hand but part of tooling up the party prior to the imminent election. When members participate in selection meetings and have a hand in choosing their candidate, they can feel ownership, feel like the party has re-engaged them and be more likely to get involved in the campaign. This is reselection as necessary renewal, as a positive good for all seasons. And the last pertained to the politics of Gareth's approach to Brexit. While it is the case the constituency voted leave, like elsewhere the majority of Labour's voters did not. The problem of accepting any Brexit short of a no deal is this does not placate those ex-Labour supporters who haven't voted for the party for a decade or more, while running the risk of alienating remain voters who, at the very least, would life a soft landing and not the hard exit of Theresa May's miserable deal. In other words any Labour MP who does this in a marginal seat is running the risk of triangulating defeat. Other arguments put for reselection focused on specifics of casework, and the poor look of having a MP regularly at loggerheads with the party on the defining issue of the moment.

And the arguments against reselection? They were as you would expect, and have no doubt got aired and will be aired at every trigger ballot meeting wherever they take place. Gareth has a good local record. Gareth is very supportive. Gareth is a good campaigner. We haven't got time for a selection with an election due. Some comrades even said they agreed with all the points but, ah, "now is not the time." And these were not all on the party's right by any means. Such is the advantage of incumbency. Had the trigger meeting taken place a full 18 months before an election, the same argument would surely have cropped up then too. Having good lines and political positions argued persuasively stand more of a chance where the constituency party has a lively programme of policy development and political education, precisely because the distraction argument draws on uncertainties about the situation, the anxiety of who might be the candidate if the MP is deselected (will they be any good? Are they a decent campaigner?), and the rightful instinct of wanting to take the Tories on above all. This is politics working at the level of the doxa, the unthought, unarticulated, but very much felt. In my branch meeting, my attempt to get round this - a combination of talking up the positives to chase away the fears, coupled with political critique raising serious concerns with local strategy - wasn't enough to break inertia and loyalties. Depending on the MP though, other arguments that reach into the gut might work. For instance, bringing it back to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership and asking assembled comrades if they think their MP is going to cooperate with/back him to become the next Prime Minister in the event of Labour winning the biggest party prize or getting a majority in the next parliament?

These then are the lessons from the Stoke Central trigger ballot experience. If you want to win, you need to organise, act persuasively, make a positive case for reselection where possible, think about how you're going to limit the efficacy of now-is-not-the-time, and arrange arguments appealing to the stomach and the heart as well as the head.

Why Labour Went Backwards in Stoke

Everywhere you look there's carnage. Petty ambitions and broken careers lie scattered across England's shires as the Tory party suffered its worst set of local results since 1995. Yet there were a few outliers. You know, bits of the electoral map seemingly sealed off from events elsewhere. In those places different rules, different political physics were in play and the Tories didn't suffer at all. In fact, they did rather well. And one of these peculiar places just had to be sunny old Stoke-on-Trent.

As predicted the Tories made progress, and certainly much better than either they or I forecast. Representation more than doubled from seven councillors to 15, making gains at the expense of their City Independent allies and Labour, who fell to 12 and 16 seats respectively. And the popular vote made for some grim and sobering reading for anyone who wants to paint Stoke red again. Counting only the top vote in multi-seat wards, in the Stoke South constituency the Tories ran away with 9,372 votes vs a mere 5,369 for Labour and 4,058 for the permutation of CIndies and independent Independents. In Stoke North Labour topped the vote with 5,986, vs 5,337 for C/Indies and 4,744 for the Tories. And lastly, Stoke Central saw Labour come in with 6,540, and 4,798 and 2,663 votes going to City Independent and Tory candidates respectively.

Central was also the only constituency where there were no Labour losses and came out with a net gain, albeit of one in former fash stronghold, Abbey Hulton. The successful CIndie down there was ex-BNP'er Melanie Baddeley, proving some voting habits die hard. Nevertheless, Labour's Jo Woolner did the city a favour by taking out the ridiculous Richard Broughan. Elected in 2015 as a UKIP councillor, he has since passed through the CIndies before settling in the openly fash For Britain. Potteries politics watchers will remember him for making light of the death of 71 refugees in Germany, as well as his unfortunate habit of "accidentally" sharing details of his sex life on Facebook. Getting hauled before standards more times than the rest of the council combined also counts among his achievements.

There were further Labour consolations in the north of the city. Dave Conway, the former (nominal) council leader was forced into retirement by David Williams. Ever the modest man, I understand Conway had an English Heritage blue plaque fixed to his property marking his personage, which I think speaks for itself. It was also a delight to see the back end of "Friend of the Stars" Alan Dutton in Burslem Central. Elected twice previously as Labour, he defected to the CIndies in 2015 because he "didn't want to sit on the sidelines". That didn't stop him from periodically asking if he could rejoin Labour. Still, running this time on a policy platform of "I'm a Stokie, and Labour's candidate is from Nottingham" (Jane Ashworth is actually from Rochdale), no tears will be shed for the political passing of this small-minded runt.

Surveying the new intake, one name does stand out - Shaun Bennett for the CIndies. Once upon a time a ubiquitous internet presence on matters pertaining to Stoke and politics, Shaun was a Tory activist who got deselected for opposing the Labour-led grand coalition that ran the council between 2010 and 2011, and a long time ago took it upon himself to defend a Tory MEP's homophobic comments. He's sure to provide a little colour around these parts over the next few years, and prove difficult for a renewed Tory/CIndie coalition to manage. Apart from Shaun, the same old dim bulbs make up the dozen CIndie councillors. Who, in case you need reminding, includes a woman who stood on a manifesto calling for the banning of cervical smears, another who thinks the NHS should be abolished and, of course, a registered child sex offender. Even that is no barrier to political advance in Stoke-on-Trent.

What of the Tories? As far as they're concerned, if it isn't broke why fix it? The same group of activists have taken the Tories from also rans to the leader's office in less than a decade, scooping up the Stoke South parliamentary seat along the way. Consistent campaigning, which is tough for a party who could hold its association meetings in a matchbox, consistent messaging, disciplined organisation, fronting up all the good news stories in the local press and leaving the bad to their coalition partners, they have proved to be the canniest operators in town hall. Yes, sure, when the editor of the local rag is a Brexit-frothing right winger more concerned with grabbing a selfie with Tory group leader Abi Brown than holding her or her party accountable, your passage to success is smoothed down somewhat. Also helping is their breaking into local Muslim community politics, recruiting mainly in the south of the city. Whether this is a case of ideological commitment, or a cohort of young(ish) men wanting a slice of the council pie hitherto blocked by older, Labour-affiliated community leaders is only something they can answer. But it is possible this could become a future source of tension, especially when they set about dismantling what is left of council-administered social security infrastructure.

How then to explain Stoke's anomalous results? How have the Tories bucked the national trend? As argued many times before here, the Stoke electorate is more sophisticated than the Brexit Central and BNP land-style headlines we've seen over the years would lead you to believe. In 2015 plenty of voters showed a willingness and an understanding of split ticketing depending on the election. There will be people who on Thursday voted for the CIndies, will support Farage's Brexit Party later this month, and go for Labour at the next general election - and would argue their seemingly inconsistent choices are entirely consistent. The second point is there has always been a substantial, if at times latent, right wing vote. As late as the mid 90s there was a Tory association bar in Stoke town centre. The rise of the BNP during the 00s was only partly thanks to Labour's breakdown under Blair and Brown. Of relevance was the collapse of Tory party organisation. Effectively, where the established right wing party was absent right wing voters preferred to plump for the far right as opposed to Labour. I'm sure these developments and the local party then being chaired by one Gavin Williamson is but a coincidence.

Local elections also favour the Tories because of the profile of the people who vote in them. Older voters are more likely to vote generally speaking, and doubly so in elections where the outcomes are perceived not to matter as much - something Stoke's Tories have cynically but astutely capitalised on. Older voters disproportionately vote for the right all across the developed world because the acquisition of property over time has conservatising effects, and even where that is absent the experience of retirement is analogous to an atomised, petit bourgeois location. This helps explain why as British politics is in flux, we see a turn to the right in a number of old industrial towns and cities. The institutions that helped glue these communities together and kept elements of class consciousness alive have collapsed. The pub, the post office, community centres, bus routes, their closures and withdrawal has exacerbated these tendencies. Without what Chuka Umunna, in a rare helpful moment, called the "foundational economy", a politics based on symbolism, values and belonging "beyond" the specificities of every day life - nation and nationalism, nostalgia, and in Stoke's case, an idealised (and backward looking) city/community identity - is more likely to catch on than either the managerialism of the centre or the bold politics offered by the Corbynist left.

Set against these seismic shifts, what could Labour have done differently to effect a different outcome? There are some operational criticisms to be made. For example:

* In the north a no hope seat - which should have been obvious from canvass returns - was prioritised when diverted resources might have avoided Labour's narrow loss in Burslem Park.

* Patter matters. When faced with an anti-Corbyn punter on the doorstep, there is an ingrained habit of some to nod along and say they think he's a load of rubbish too. If you think that's going to get Labour any votes, you don't know the first thing about party politics.

* Labour's local manifesto was fine, but its main points could have done with unveiling long ago and been hammered at every opportunity for a year and a half as opposed to the last few months.

I'm sure there are others those closer to the campaign would have as well. However, most crucially Labour's campaign, with one or two exceptions, did not leverage its huge advantage: the membership. Over the course of the campaign, apart from some assistance organised by the MPs' offices most candidates have had to rely on themselves and a couple of friends and family members. The invitations to campaigning sessions have gone out, but the membership were largely absent. Instead of blaming them for "laziness", Labour has to ask why. It's partly cultural: deliberately choosing small and uncomfortable rooms for meetings, having chairs berate members for not turning up regularly, continuing on with a boring, unwelcoming culture of ever-so-important business, the fact of not involving members suits some thank you very much, and public bellyaching by people who should know better all conspire to keep the membership immobile. This is counterproductive.

A more welcoming party, a more participatory party can help bring through new activists and good candidates, but not all members are ever going to be involved. But if they feel part of it, feel inspired enough to identify with it, they will do the party's work where they are - encouraging colleagues to vote Labour, encouraging family members to vote Labour, encouraging friends and acquaintances to vote Labour, of bedding the party into the fabric of everyday life. The antidote then to dissolution, of the pressures that, for the moment, work to the Tories' advantage in post-industrial towns is to not chase and pander to the phantoms filling the social void but instead seek to fill it with a community, a politicised community of our own. It can be done, and it must be done. Otherwise the Tories will reap the advantages of this shift, and come the next general election take not just more councils, but more parliamentary seats in places like Stoke.

Stoke's Two Nation Toryism

The local elections are well and truly underway in Stoke-on-Trent, and in 2019 these are something of a novelty. For readers who don't follow the ins and outs of Potteries politics (what's wrong with you?), Labour is the challenger party to a council coalition of self-styled "City Independents", a UKIP councillor and your friends and mine, the Conservatives. How then have matters gone since they took control in 2015?

It is a truth commonly acknowledged that Stoke's Conservative Party won't win any Mensa prizes, but the fact their politics and governing strategy has steered the Independents these last four years tells you all you need to know about the calibre of the governing coalition's senior partner. With the stepping down of former Council Leader Dave Conway and his replacement by Ann James, it's a case of nothing having changed down the civic. In the original coalition talks to keep Labour out, the Tories were given the deputy leadership - naturally - and it seems the pick of cabinet positions. So of course they went for the portfolios covering economic development, regeneration and heritage, because these are considered the sexy responsibilities in local government, don't often generate bad news, and present plenty of positive coverage media opportunities. For instance, if a pottery goes under - which has recently been the case with the 200 year old Dudson factory - you don't need to say a thing. It's "challenging markets", poor management, or some other excuse. But any new investment into the city can be hailed as a vote in confidence in the council's strategy. Or if there's new building going on, up pops Cllr Dan Jellyman in a hard hat.

Let's look at another recent example: Stoke's City of Culture bid. Leaving aside the problems with the City of Culture initiative generally, and control-freakery issues with the city's pitch itself, it was nevertheless universally seen as a Big Good Thing locally. It put Stoke on the map and allowed the city to project itself as something other than the capital of Brexit. or a city well known for a long-running flirtation with the BNP. Yet, where were the City Indies when all this was happening? Deputy Council Leader Abi Brown fronted it all up, purposely excluding Ruth Smeeth and Gareth Snell - Stoke's two Labour MPs - as well as her coalition partners. And, of course, the City Indies were too dim to see the Tories were taking them for mugs, and getting all the good press and the photo ops.

Consider further the condemnation by Ofsted of the City Council's inadequate provision of children's services, something the report notes has gone downbank markedly since 2015. Ofsted says there is nothing wrong with the dedication or professionalism of social work staff, but they were not "being supported adequately". Management oversight is poor, there is no prioritisation, and caseloads are too high - all codes for a department less than adequately resourced at a time demands upon it are rising. What defence have the Tories offered? Nothing, their Stoke website literally reports 'nothing found' when searching Children's Services. Of course, they have an element of plausible deniability - because they left all the bad news-generating departments to City Independent cabinet members, they can hold their hands up and plead the "nothing to do with us, guv" line. They are in fact as culpable as their friends - they're the ones sitting round the cabinet table nodding this stuff through and putting kids in danger.

To be fair to the Tories, if I was an unscrupulous careerist saddled with a befuddled gaggle of independents whose 2015 manifesto was full of racist dog whistles, plans for a tea set, and a package holiday tour of the Potteries (complete with menu), I'd probably take advantage too. When a rival party offers themselves to you as a meat shield for all the shitty things you want to do, you'd be a fool not to take them up. And Stoke's Tories are no fools.

The strategy has, up until now, worked for the Tories. The local rag, The Sentinel, has barely uttered a single critical comment about leading councillors - a far cry from the days prior to 2015 when shafting Labour was de rigueur in the paper's offices. Is this because, on the whole, the Tory-led coalition have a savvier media strategy, or have not put a single foot wrong? It's a mystery, but of one thing I'm sure - I definitely do not think this has anything to do with Abi Brown and Sentinel editor, Martin Tideswell, occasionally sharing chummy selfies with one another at work and at play. The shrewdness of the Tories has paid other political dividends too. They have offloaded a certain amount of historical toxicity. Avoiding all responsibility for the city's woes, they have built up a position that saw them poll very respectably during the Stoke Central by-election (partly aided by their position as the party of Brexit's delivery), and subsequently building on this in the general election across the city's three seats, capturing Stoke South in the process. And as proof of their consolidation, for the first time in decades they have found enough members to stand in all 44 council seats in May's local election. A lesson in how well you can do when you play your advantages right.

There is another element to the success of Stoke's Tories, and that's its two-nation approach to local government. Stupid coalition partners and a friendly, uncritical press can only go so far. If you look at their local manifesto, it betrays an understanding that most voters don't really know what councils do. As long as the roads aren't a mess, parking is sorted, new buildings are getting built, shabby town centres are sorted, the bins carry on getting collected as is, and council money doesn't appear to be egregiously wasted, then a great many voters don't really care - hence why turnout for local elections everywhere are always depressed. The Tories are capitalising on this. Their flashy regen strategies, which include using council money to build a Hilton-franchised hotel, and a nearby Stalinesque block of build-to-rent private housing give the impression that the city centre is on the move. Never mind it's precisely because children's services have been left to rot that this is possible, the Tories have made a calculated assessment - as they have done with stripping back SureStart centres, and support for the homeless - that voters will put baubles and bricks before the blighted lives of the city's most vulnerable residents, because they don't have to pay the consequences of their policies. In other words, they are courting one group of voters and attempting to appeal to them while purposely and pointedly ignoring those they consider worthless, up to and including making their lives even harder. There's compassionate conservatism for you.

The question is whether the Tories will record another advance at these elections. Well, they have deftly manoeuvred to ensure nothing bad has stuck - we'll see if Labour running hard on the children's services scandal will have an effect. And, as we saw in 2015, Stoke's regular electorate is quite sophisticated and it's unlikely the local Tories will get flak for May's Brexit incompetence. The sad truth is given their savvy, their easy ride in the press, their shiny programme, and the character of the voters who tend to turn out for local elections, they are well placed to increase their councillor tally, particularly at the expense of the self-same idiotic allies who've enabled them.

John McDonnell in Stoke

As part of John McDonnell's tour under the theme of Transform Your Town, he and the shadow treasury team came to Stoke to listen to what we think our local problems and priorities are, as well as talk about Labour's plan for Britain and what strategies we thought were useful for tackling the city's problems. About a hundred people squeezed in to the Hope Centre in Hanley for a series of talks and workshops on our programme for the city and the country.

After Annalise Dodds kicked off proceedings, John pulled together some key stats about Stoke-on-Trent. The weekly wage in Stoke South constituency, which was originally going to host the event, currently stands at £478, as compared to the UK average of £550 and London's £650. 5.5% are registered unemployed, 10,435 people are in the process of being moved on to Universal Credit, 764 people have to cope with the bedroom tax, and 17,938 pensioners benefit from the protections afforded by the triple lock - a measure Labour is committed to keep. In the city as a whole, 30.4% children live in households in poverty and last year, Stoke's fifteen food banks gave out 111,946 supplies. Additionally, 13.8% of city households are classed as living in fuel poverty, and the City Council's spending power has fallen by 27.5%. Public services have similarly suffered. There are 129 unqualified teachers in Stoke's classrooms while 3,465 schoolchildren sit in classes of 30 or over. Staffordshire Police have lost 556 officers while robberies are up 27% and violent crime has increased seven per cent. 19% of patients in the Stoke Clinical Commissioning Group area have to wait more than a week to see a nurse or a GP, and overall public spending stands at £8,969/head - compared to £10,323 for London.

Gareth Snell, our MP for Stoke Central, came next. He said that behind the numbers is a Tory attempt to tear at the social fabric that was built up by previous Labour governments and local authorities. Nationally the Tories take money from deprived communities, and locally the Tory-led council have cut services to the most vulnerable - homelessness services, and drugs and alcohol recovery - to fund their priorities. And yet, despite Stoke's problems, the city is rich in social capital. Despite the Tories undermining of city infrastructure and making a bad situation worse, communities have kept together and look out for each other, and beginning with Labour taking back control of the council in May both are a good basis from which to transform the city.

Mark McDonald, Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Stoke South said that since he'd moved to the city, he was struck by the pride people had in the place and its heritage. But it was being neglected by its council. He noted the old Woolworth's in Longton and many other abandoned buildings in the town - an indictment of a city council (ironically) determined to coral all investment into the city centre. Encountering a young family at a local food bank, he talked about how the child's eyes lit up when he saw two shopping bags of food. We have to change things, which is why we need a new radical economic plan. Therefore he was proud of Jeremy Corbyn's and John McDonnell's work on this. The 2017 general election saw Labour's manifesto dominate the media and it shook the country up. The next would build on it.

Lastly, local activist Becky Sergeant talked about the disengaged young people she met at work as a FE lecturer. They were alienated because sources of aspiration, inspiration and hope were lacking. Because of Stoke's industrial heritage, the old culture of it suiting local employers for young people not to do well at school has hung over. For example, of the 382 schools considered underperforming in terms of GCSE results, five of them are in Stoke-on-Trent. To turn this situation around, a culture of education needs a belief in something better. This means a campaign to bring schools back into local authority control, focus education by listening to communities and local businesses, and lastly listening to teachers - they're the professionals who know best. And this will provide a firmer foundation for a better economy.

We then moved into our groups to discuss some of the problems confronting the city. Our table came up with something of a grim list - the obvious increase in homelessness in Stoke (and, sadly, our first (and hopefully only) death this winter), cuts to youth services, bedroom tax and universal credit, debt, the expansion of cashpoint charging, cuts to policing, internal transport - particularly the dysfunctioning bus service across North Staffordshire, and cuts to early years. In the feedback we had to pick one to talk to, so we chose youth services and young people. The kinds of problems we're seeing: despondency, a growing gang culture, these are part of a legacy of Tory/independent failure over closing youth services and redirecting funds into building a new Hilton Hotel and vanity projects. The Tory solution is to demolish the post-apocalyptic (literally) East-West shopping precinct and bus station and build a central youth facility there. An idiot move that not only replicates the huge YMCA complex a stone's throw away, but is a recipe for a battleground for the emergent rival gangs. Such is the political calibre of the city's Tory councillors.

Other tables fed their challenges in too. These included addressing poor health, air quality and life expectancy, opportunities and graduate retention, the spread and geographic patterning of food banks, valuing all work and not fetishising received wisdom on "social mobility", underemployment, and addressing the mental health crisis.

Presiding over the afternoon session, Lyn Brown introduced John on Labour's plan for Britain. On each of the tables, there were flyers branded John McDonnell: Strong Principles, Sound Economics. And this is definitely what we got. John's discussion opened with the plan for a National Investment Bank. This involves keeping the Royal Bank of Scotland in public ownership as the NIB's basis, and its responsibility would be overcoming the bias against the regions by working with networks of regional banks. It would be governed by a strategic investment board to guide productive investment, and overcome the tendency of existing productive industry of investing profits not back into innovation, but property and land speculation.

Significantly, John was at pains to say Labour's programme wasn't a revisiting of nationalisations of the past. This was structural reform, and that means democratising services. The public ownership of water, energy, rail and the Royal Mail would mean experts, workers and consumers coming together. To embed democratisation further, the programme foresees a doubling of the cooperative sector (a target he thought was too modest) as a means of empowering workers and building long-term thinking into the economy. Co-ops, after all, tend to be less mercenary and short-termist than private business, particularly in the notoriously short-sighted culture of British capital. He also talked up the creation of a Ministry of Labour and the introduction of sectoral collective bargaining as a lever for redistributing wealth.

Additionally, Labour was committed to a proper national living wage at £10/hour. Greater protections for private tenants and more social housing, with half of the million new homes to be built by a Labour government being council housing. There was a reiteration of the pledge to introduce free childcare for 2-4 year olds, and an industrial strategy that would look to grow high value production. This is inseparable from ambitious targets to draw 60% of energy from low carbon or renewable sources by 2030, and and immediate pledge to grown Research and Design to three per cent of GDP. This combined with sectoral industrial strategies, the creation of an ecosystem of policies supportive of business, the embedding of the National Education Service, and strategic use of government procurement would contribute to reversing off shoring.

While this is exciting from the narrow standpoint of technocratic managerialism, this is very much a political programme. Each of the underpinning principles - economic justice, equality and diversity, and environmental sustainability throw down a gauntlet challenging existing vested interests, clusters of power, and piles of unearned wealth. For John, this represented a transformative programme that offers hope and a better future. In a number of ways, the damage the Tories have done has wound the clock back to pre-1945 levels of destitution and social dislocation. Summing up, he concluded that getting this programme through isn't a matter of electing Labour MPs and letting them get on with it - nodding towards efforts and democratising the party, he said that when we next get into government we all go into government.

Ruth Smeeth as the MP for Stoke North put some local context to the plan, noting the situation the Tories have foisted on the city completely unacceptable. Last summer, the Holiday Hunger programme served 16,500 meals to schoolchildren. Regarding a luncheon club she helped set up, 176 people in her constituency turned up when she and volunteers were expecting "about 25". Money and economics in Stoke North means 31% of kids living in poverty, and foodbank use going up 46% since the introduction of universal credit. Efforts aimed at rolling this back begins with the return of a Labour council this May, she concluded.

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay for the workshop session but overall this was much better than the usual talk/Q&A. With political education a perennial problem in all Labour parties, a focussed crowd sourcing of ideas like this in the framework of national policy (clearly explained!) made for an extremely useful event.