Laurie Burton does not speak for every member (From Knutsford Guardian)

Laurie Burton does not speak for every member

2:10pm Friday 19th June 2009

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PLEASE allow me to congratulate Andrew McCreaddie for his comprehensive reporting of the European election results, combining the facts and figures with relevant comments from local people.

One of those people was Laurie Burton whose comments appeared in a story headlined: Brown must go, says Tatton Labour leader.

I do hope, however, that your readers will realise that although my good comrade Laurie is indeed the constituency chairman, he does not speak for all the party members in Tatton and that many, including myself, have very different opinions on the reasons for the collapse of the Labour vote.

Bizarrely, Comrade Burton is quoted as saying: People have had time to form an opinion of Gordon Brown, and now they’ve shown what they think.

As far as I can recall, there were eight names on the Labour list, Arlene McCarthy and Brian Simpson being one and two respectively, and the name of Gordon Brown did not feature anywhere at all.

As a loyal Labour Party member I, in the privacy of the voting booth, quickly found the Labour box and guided my pencil towards it ready to form my cross only for my pencil to find a life of its own as it drew back recalling how, back in 2003 in the European Parliament, McCarthy and Simpson both defied the settled decision of the larger group in which they sit in Brussels to vote for the illegal, immoral and imperialistic invasion of Iraq.

Where my pencil eventually landed is, indeed, my pencil’s business and no-one else’s but its final mark was based firmly on the voting record of McCarthy and Simpson and had nothing whatsoever to do with Gordon Brown.

As he gets older Comrade Burton needs to think things through rationally and maturely before bleating to the press and needs to realise that politics is not about personalities but policies. If we are to reconnect with our lost voters it is the policies which need to change, not the leader.

We could start by keeping our manifesto commitments to give the people a vote on the Lisbon Treaty and to keep the postal service in public control. Scrapping Trident renewal and the identity card scheme, pulling out of Afghanistan, commencing the public inquiry into the Iraq war and creating jobs by going full speed ahead with a public home building programme would all be ways of re-engaging with a bitter and disenfranchised electorate.

GRAHAM BROOK Brereton Road, Handforth

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