Politics. It’s always been something I’ve been interested in. From badly drawn logos of parties I wanted to win in my early teens to multiple student politic elections. Local politics, has a special place in my heart. Maybe it’s doing My Melton for 4 and a half years. Perhaps it’s because I binged watched the Handforth Parish Council car crash and all it’s follow up sequels. Either way, it’s something I’ve found interesting. Which meant, I naturally, live streamed the results of the recent Melton Borough Council elections on the My Melton Facebook page. What happened at said ceremony has caused leaders to resign and now lots of scrambling behind the scenes. So here’s a post dedicated to helping you make sense of the next steps on the road to council control.
Part 1: The decisions made before the campaign trail began.
Picture Source: Jaggery
Prior to the 2023 local election, the Tories had majority rule of the council for 20 years. The leader of said council for the past 6 years was a guy called Joe Orson. He’s a Tory, which is important to note because we’ll touch on it during part 3. In Orson’s time as leader, he set up the cabinet with the intention being to improve decision making and accountability. This decision, has been deemed contraversial with many oppotion parties and independents attacking the cabiant and it’s limited members during the campaign trail.
In addition, there have been multiple articles from local press covering the issues between the borough council and the Tory lead county council regarding the bypass. Aka, the road that is going to solve all our problems, apparently.
Another controversial decision was the bid for the leveling up fund. Which granted £14 million to The Stockyard (that’s the Cattle Market for those of you unaware of the brand change) compared to £1-£2 million for the town. Now I have my OWN opinions of this, which boil down to, there shouldn’t be a divide between the Stockyard and town centre but there isn’t enough being done by the people with millions of queens (or is it kings now?) in the bank account to help marry the two. With the council’s very own Discover Melton brand, missing out a variety of events hosted that include Melton’s live music scene and alternative entertainment for those who want something over than £145 a night log cabins and food festivals. My personal opinions aside, the decision has divided a lot of Meltonians both residents and business owners.
The last big decision that was highlighted in the campaign trail was the 2 million pound hotel proposal. Said proposal would consist of a large portion of the council’s newish Parkside building being converted to a hotel, the which would be let out to a certain travel hotel company that begins with T and rhymes with Bavel Hodge. Once again, questions were asked about the 2 million pounds and whether a hotel right next to The Harboro was actually a good idea.
This then takes us to the campaign trail itself…
Part 2: What might have lead to the downfall of the Tory council?
Ever since I started My Melton, I always knew election season was going to be a bit chunk of time and social media feed. The reasoning behind it is that I am very mindful that people need to know about why they are voting for. I know, what a concept right? Showing voters that the candidates are more than a robot with a ribbon slapped on it.
Now, what I am not going to do is turn around and say that if certain people were just as quick to arrange their own Q&A slot as they were to tap their social media fingers in the comment section of posts, their party might have won. Even if I can now smile about my 80% councilor success rate. What I am going to say is that people like people. Let me explain what I mean.
If you was to look up an article on how to get more followers on social media. At least 9 out of 10 articles will say that potential customers (or in this case voters) would to support businesses that show there’s an actual nice human behind that #FoodPorn post. They want people to reply to them when they have questions. Heck, they might even laugh when you make a comment about you humming the Jurassic Park theme whilst reading a Twinlakes post about dinosaurs visiting the park.
So when potential voters aren’t seeing questions being answered on social media. Or there is a lack of person to ask questions to when a leaflet is plonked on their doorstep (or in my partner’s case at the bottom of the stairwell). They don’t vote a particular way because they don’t know about the person being their councilor. They just see a leaflet. Leaflet’s don’t represent people for 4 years, human beings do.
Also, the people that got elected over the Tory candidates, in a lot of cases, are people who were doing things for Melton before they got the title of councilor X. They were event organizers filling in gaps that professionals with bigger budgets should’ve been looking at. They campaigned to keep vital health services in Melton. They helped set up things for the youth of Melton. If you see people who actively want to make things better, you’re going to want to vote for them.
You also have to bare in mind that national politics often plays a part in local elections. Yes, I know they cover very different issues. The truth, however, is that people often use a non-general election to express their opinion about the local election. In the last MEP election, the East Midlands was predominately made of Brexit Party MEPs because locals were annoyed that Brexit, in their minds, wasn’t being done fast enough. In 2023, it’s over 1000 seats being lost nationally and a loss of 12 seats here in a council that has been Tory ran longer than I’ve been eligible to vote. It’s why the national media followed the reaction to these results with great interest.
Part 3: Now what?
Since the announcement of the results, Joe Orson has since resigned as leader of the council with the new Tory group leader being Malise Graham. With the loss of so many councilors being a reason behind this resignation. Whilst the Melton Times has been covering this story, alot of people are going to be slipping and sliding into those DMs. Here’s why.
Due to the Tory losses and gains from independents, Labour and Lib Dems with the Green Party keeping their one seat, the council is now in a state we call “no overall control” (or NOC). This is because a party must have 50% + 1 extra seat to control the council. In Melton’s case, the magic number is 15.
The next stage of the election aftermath is to establish a working group. This a group of councilors that make up the magic 15 that are the main group. Everyone else would be deemed opposition. Now the Tories have 11 people in their party group, so they would need to bring over 4 people to make that magic 15. Now this DOES NOT mean that said 4 people have to now be part of the Tory party or they change parties, they are just part of the 15.
What could also happen is that all the independents (who have 10 people), Labour (who have 5), Green (who has 1) and Lib Dem (who also has 1), team up and make a group of 17. Thus making the Tory party the opposition group. Which would be a big turn of events given that 2 weeks ago, they were running the whole show.
So how easy would it be for the Tories to get that magic 4? Some argue that the ex-Tory independents would be most likely to add to the numbers. However, local articles that were published during the campaign trail stated said members were bullied out of the party. Not the best look if you want said people on your side.
A lot of the other candidates both independent and party expressed that they disliked the cabinet system. Which leads to an interesting situation. One can’t bribe someone with a special role on the cabinet unless said bribee is willing to justify why they are joining something, they spoke so actively against during the election campaign period.
Also there’s more parties at play if the independents bring Labour, Lib Dem and Greens into the working group. They probably aren’t going to agree about an issue in some instances. This is something that the independents have acknowledged and welcomed during their campaign due to the increase in discussions and accountability. Still, critics will potentially argue that it’s better to have a united front on the council side than it be fractured. Especially, on the back of the last 4 years and all the controversy that came with it.
The bottom line is, as I’m typing and scheduling posts and you’re reading this blog post, deals are being made. What they look like, I can’t say. Mainly because I don’t know. What I do know, is that once those deals go public, the parties involved in said deals will need to answer the questions presented to them, instead of a simple post and run.
Whilst we keep an eye out for leaked DMs, why not follow My Melton on all of the various social media platforms. This week’s What’s On Guide is now live to help you plan what to do this weekend.
Until next time folks.
Kelly