{"id":1615,"date":"2013-04-30T21:00:50","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T21:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/?p=1615"},"modified":"2015-01-24T16:33:56","modified_gmt":"2015-01-24T16:33:56","slug":"swansea-labour-party-8-cracks-appearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/swansea-labour-party-8-cracks-appearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Swansea Labour Party 8: Cracks Appearing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the risk of boring you with yet more news of Swansea Labour Party, I must pass on the latest I’ve heard. For it seems the comrades may have started falling out amongst themselves. To explain. Next Thursday, May 9th, will see the AGM of the\"Benito<\/a> council. Ahead of that fun gathering – do try to make it! – the various parties are holding their own AGMs. All is not sweetness and light within Labour ranks, for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n

To begin with, last year, when the current, inspiring crop of Labour councillors was elected there was a departure from procedure in the selecting of the cabinet. Instead of the Labour group electing the cabinet it is suggested that David Phillips, the Labour leader, selected the cabinet himself . . . so it was no surprise that the first cabinet member appointed was Sybil Crouch, or, as others know her, Mrs Phillips. There were many mutterings at the time, but so grateful was Labour to have regained control of Swansea that considerations of party unity prevailed. Nevertheless, many Labourites have borne a grudge against Phillips since that time.<\/p>\n

Another little issue over which Il Duce<\/em> has upset his cohorts is the length and terms of his tenure as Leader of the Labour group and, by extension, the council. Many of the brothers and sisters were under the impression that the Man of Vision was in place for a year, with his position to be reviewed, or possibly re-confirmed, at this year’s AGM. ‘Not so’, says he, ‘Nothing to discuss. I’m the king of the castle, and I’m staying as long as I want’. The mutterings now grow in volume. And other problems may be just around the corner, possibly partisans lurking in the shadows.<\/p>\n

\"lamp<\/a>Dennis James, the Lord Mayor of Swansea, died a couple of days ago. This will mean a by-election in his Llansamlet ward. Speculation mounts as to who will be the Labour candidate. One suggestion is a glorious return for Lawrence Bailey<\/a>, former Swansea Labour Leader who left under a cloud when porn was found on his council-issue computer, plus hundreds of letters to the Evening Post<\/em> which, although written by Bailey, purported to be from concerned citizens. Not universally liked, Bailey, but a shrewd operator.<\/p>\n

The other name I’m hearing is Bob Clay<\/a>, former Labour MP for Sunderland North, who moved to Swansea a few years ago. His wife, Uta, is one of the sitting Labour councillors for Llansamlet, so there would be a certain bookend symmetry in him also representing the ward . . . and of course it would fit with current Labour policy of having councillors who know sod all about the city. He has already been putting himself about with his involvement in the campaign against a second Travellers’ site in Llansamlet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then again, maybe Il Duce<\/em> has got another student lined up. Talking of which, the three student-councillors I criticised in an earlier post<\/a> have been tweeting much less frequently since that post appeared; and the tweets are of a more ‘mature’ nature. Did someone have a word with them?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the risk of boring you with yet more news of Swansea Labour Party, I must pass on the latest I’ve heard. For it seems the comrades may have started falling out amongst themselves. To explain. Next Thursday, May 9th, will see the AGM of the council. Ahead of that fun gathering – do try … <\/p>\n

Continue reading Swansea Labour Party 8: Cracks Appearing?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[202,125,201,53,194,67],"class_list":["post-1615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-labour-party","tag-bob-clay","tag-david-phillips","tag-lawrence-bailey","tag-llansamlet","tag-swansea-labour-party","tag-uta-clay"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3gS9T-q3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}