Tag archives for Labour Party
Privilege to Serve
PAUL MCLAUGHLIN The Labour Government has held power for just over 100 days, experiencing a remarkable rollercoaster of highs and lows as new ministers navigate the intense scrutiny of a…
Councillor John Rankin Defects to Labour
John Rankin has joined the Labour Party and will take the Labour Whip when he next sits in the Hastings Borough Council chamber. The Conquest ward councilor was first elected…
Mayor Margi Takes Labour Lead
Following the local election at the beginning of this month, as reported in HIP 251, the political parties now represented on Hastings Borough Council hold numbers of seats as follows:…
IN WITH THE NEW
Green surge in council election shake-up HUGH SULLIVAN Hastings Borough Council will have 12 new councillors when it reconvenes later this month. Eight are Greens; four are ; Naz Montag…
What theParties Say:
Conservatives Labour has controlled Hastings Borough Council for the past 14 years, building up huge debts and mismanaging the town's finances in the process. Recently, the local Labour Party split…
Labour Pulled Apart
Rebel Group Quit Party But Still Lead Council HUGH SULLIVAN On 13 December a full meeting of Hastings Borough Council approved budget proposals for 2024-25 aimed at saving around £4m,…
How Green is Local Labour?
DAVID EP DENNIS argues that the environmental agenda of the Labour council in Hastings is at odds with the national policies of the Labour Party … potentially to the serious…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Bonfire Symbols Dear HIP, I went to the Bonfire night for the first time and was really impressed by the organisation and great family atmosphere of the event. However, I…
Can Jews Criticise Israel from within the Labour Party?
A placard carried by Hastings Jewish activist Katy Colley to a Palestinian rally in London last Saturday – see adjacent picture – went viral, and she was interviewed about it…
Ambulance Waiting Times Shock
Paul McLaughlin The wait for an ambulance in Hastings and Rye is the longest of any constituency in the whole of the South East, according to data obtained using a…
STORM OVER COUNCIL VOTES
Labour “power grab”or “far-right” gift horse? Kevin BoormanNew mayor Margi O’Callaghan and deputy Heather Bishop HUGH SULLIVAN Hastings Borough Council leader Paul Barnett started his regular column in the Hastings…
Tory Fear, Labour Cheer
PAUL McLAUGHLIN It may have escaped the attention of some folk in Hastings, but last week voters across England went to the polls in the largest round of local elections…
Who is being ‘driven out’?
Former member Kay Green shares some of what’s going on in the local Labour Party. Get in touch if you have an article you would like to write - Former…
Greens booted out of council cabinet
By Hugh Sullivan The coalition of Labour and Green party councillors, which has shared control of Hastings Borough Council since the local election in May, has fallen apart. The two…
Party Politics Get Personal Internal turmoil for both Labour and Tories
Following on from our lead report in HIP 204 that Cllr Maya Evans has been excluded from a “long list” of prospective Labour party candidates for the next parliamentary election…
Not on the List
Would-be Labour MP Maya Evans questions her exclusion A “long list” of candidates from whom one will be chosen to represent the Labour party at the next general election in…
Regime Change
Greens accept two posts in Labour-led cabinet At the first meeting of Hastings Borough Council since the local elections, Labour party chief Cllr Paul Barnett was voted back last week…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW
The Starmer Project: A Journey to the Right By Terry Eagleton Published by Verso Books, 2022, paperback, rrp £,available at Bookbuster, 39 Queens Road Review by Tim Barton With our…
Claire Carr Defects to Greens
Cllr Claire Carr, who was newly elected as Labour councillor for Castle ward at the borough council election in May, announced last week that she had left the party and…
Pride and Prejudice
Why Town Mayor was barred from LGBT+ event Last Sunday’s Hastings Pride festival was billed as a major event in the town’s calendar – the more so because of cancellation…
Local Labour Party Addresses Transgender Issue
Ten years on from its original adoption (see side panel), Hastings Borough Council has indicated that it plans to refresh the town’s Equality and Human Rights Charter, and last week…
Free food for kids
On 21st October a parliamentary motion to provide around disadvantaged children in England with £15-a-week food vouchers during school holidays until Easter 2021 was voted down by the Conservative government…
Antisemitism: Local and national
On 21st October Hastings Borough Council adopted the working definition of antisemitism developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). The working definition comes with eleven examples that are intended…
Kim Forward Becomes Leader Elect of Hastings Council
At a meeting of Labour party councillors on 17th February Cllr Kim Forward was elected by them to take over as their leader in the wake of Peter Chowney’s resignation.…
Disability And The Minimum Wage
What Was Actually Said The following exchanges – extracted and distorted across the national media – took place at the HIP Hastings Hustings at East Sussex College last Thursday evening…
GE2019: Question Time
Many weeks of national as well as local focus on voters in the marginal constituency of Hastings & Rye (Conservative majority 346 in 2017) should come to a head next…
GE2019
As the General Election approaches, the hustings are bustling, sleigh-bells ring in the distance, and spectres of Christmas past, present and future loom long over the upcoming winter - the…
GE2019: Under Starter’s Orders
Tory Candidate Named As Campaign Rother councillor Sally-Ann Hart has been selected by the Hastings & Rye Conservative Association to represent them in the general election scheduled for 12th December.…
Perry Sauce
If you’ve paid close attention to the past elections in Hastings and Rye you may have noticed the recurring appearance of Liberal Democrat candidate Nick Perry. He’s the one that…
Chowney Appears In Perry’s Scope As The First Pre-Election Torpedoes Are Fired
In an article printed in Hastings in Focus, Hastings and Rye Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate, Nick Perry, cited indices where areas of Hastings are highlighted as suffering from deprivation. He…
Bookbuster Book Review
Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party and Public Belief By Greg Philo, Mike Berry, Justin Schlosberg, Antony Lerman and David MillerPluto Press, rrp £ Review by Kay Green There…
Clearing The Electoral Field
Fight For Amber Rudd’s Seat Reduced To Three-Way Contest The local Green Party issued a statement last Sunday that it has decided not to field a general election candidate in…
Labour Roots
HIP’s political editor, Alan Bolwell, reports from a Labour Party drive in the key marginal of Hastings and Rye East Sussex College, Hastings played host to a local Labour Roots…
The Rights That We Secure For Ourselves
By David Francis No. This Supreme Court Judgement does not restore hope. It does not fill me with optimism. I’m not complaining about the spectacle of our Etonian overlords being…
Mann, Oh Man
David Francis reacts to news that former Labour MP John Mann has resigned from the commons to work as an ‘antisemitism Tsar’ for the government and been made a Lord.…
Fall Out
Amber Rudd’s Departure Leaves Electoral Gap For All Parties The decision of Amber Rudd, former Work and Pensions Secretary, to abandon both her ministerial position and her party allegiance has…
The Great Dictator
On the 28th of August, Boris Johnson announced his intention to prorogue parliament from the 9th September until the 14th October, shortly after parliament was due to resume from summer…
Brexit Party To Oppose Amber Rudd In Hastings
Nigel Farage’s Brexit party have appointed a candidate to contest the parliamentary seat of Hastings & Rye at any forthcoming general election. He is Tom Bewick, a former Labour party…
Maya
An interview with Maya Evans, Hastings councillor, peace activist and the Council’s new ‘climate change champion’. What does the role of climate change champion involve? My portfolio title is climate…
The Council Has Made A Commitment To Becoming Carbon Neutral By 2030. What next?
By Julia Hinton Back in February – thanks in part to pressure from the Hastings Green Party and our open letter calling on the council to declare a climate emergency…