Julian Sturdy

Congratulations to Edward Timpson MP, our new Member of Parliament for Crewe and Nantwich following his election on Thursday in the by-election. 

I spent a number of days over in Nantwich helping to campaign and there was no doubt that the good people of Crewe and Nantwich were ready for a change. However, I have to confess I was not expecting the size of the victory that we achieved, it was a fantastic result announced in the early hours of Friday morning, which saw the Conservatives gain the seat  with a 17.6% swing from Labour. 

Reading the papers today this crushing defeat for Gordon Brown and his Labour Party has attracted some very bad headlines for him:

“Labour fighting for its Life: the Government has been put on notice after Labours mauling in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election.” Yorkshire Post

“Is this the end of new Labour. As Labour reeled from its worst by-election defeat for 30 years, the Cabinet yesterday launched a last ditch effort to save Gordon Brown.” Daily Mail 

Despite these damming headlines for Gordon Brown (and I am sure the Sunday Papers will be no better) this is only one by-election, a General Election whenever it is called will be a different ball game. But the tide is turning and there must be a lot of very worried Labour and Liberal MP’s starting to look over their shoulders and wonder what the future holds. A Conservative future led by David Cameron.  

Last weekend Susan Wade Weeks (Conservative Parliamentary Candidate York Central) and I launched a campaign to encourage shoppers in York to stop using plastic bags. The campaign entitled “Plastic Ain’t York’s Bag” was launched in York City centre with us giving away 1,000 Fair Trade cotton bags in exchange for shoppers’ plastic bags.

The cotton bags were warmly welcomed by shoppers who were queuing up to exchange their plastic bags for a more attractive and environmentally friendly alternative. In fact everyone was thrilled with the bags and very keen to play their part, we had an amazing response. Our message to everyone on the day was simple – just say no to plastic in York. As consumers we have a great deal of power. If we all decide together that we don’t want something, we can really get results. This was a great start.

Heavy winds earlier in the spring resulted in an appalling number of plastic bags being blown from landfill sites and decorating the trees and hedgerows in our area. We also know now that there is a growing problem with a whirlpool of plastic bags in the Pacific Ocean endangering sea-life. It really is time to try and tackle this growing problem which is what our campaign aims to do.

We collected over a thousand plastic bags which will all be recycled.

P.S. What a great result for Leeds United on Thursday night beating Carlisle 2-0 to get into the playoff final at Wembley next Sunday.