Dissatisfaction with Government narrowing the gap as Council Voting draws ever closer.

 

This week, as the hype surrounding vaccination dies down and TV news gets drawn back into a much more varied set of reports which after a full year of concentration on the single subject of the pandemic is refreshing indeed, we notice that the latest polling data is beginning to move back towards its expected long term position of a two party 50/50 split as May 6th Local Government elections loom ever closer.

Boris Johnson’s attempt to stall the decline in his Party's popularity by having his inoculation against the virus live on TV failed to gel with voters and the nine ball position of frozen pay for millions of essential  workers in the public sector and a miserly 1% for NHS staffs, the recorded loss of £38Bn as the Tories disposal of RBS stock out of public hands back into the clutches of their banking cronies continues and the Government supporting the huge rises placed on Council tax payers as local authorities struggle to manage the costs poured onto their services and the demands by the Tory Government to slash budgets past the level of no return, has led to a fall back of those supporting the Tories of 2.5% in a week.

After the close of play on the weekend polls we notice the right wing press revisiting Lord True’s report on slashing benefits, including the Triple Lock on state pensions, heating allowances, OAP Bus Passes and free prescriptions for the elderly in order to pacify their readers and however popular these cuts would be with small minded middle class voters they will not bode well for the polls over the next few weeks as Labour leans towards showing how well they will protect the older voters and Keir Starmer correctly linking business growth after 12th April with older persons spending power.

Locally across the North East, Labour Leaders and the North of Tyne Mayor have shown how well they can work together with the release of the North East transport plan which includes the finance to take the reopening of the AB&T Northumberland Line onto the next phase and begin planning the regions future growth even though the Tyne, Wear and Blyth freeport and jobs growth plan was snubbed by the Tories, leaving little hope for areas suffering endemic deprivation and poverty until the NE transport plan begins a further roll out beyond the AB&T Northumberland line such as the dualling of the A1 to the border with Scotland.