Local and European elections

Elections for the county council and the European parliament took place last
Thursday (4th June).

As widely reported in the media the Labour Party was not expected to do well
and unfortunately we met those predictions.

In the county council elections across the High Peak we lost two seats one
in Buxton which was previously held by Barbara Wilson, and one in Glossop
which was previously Roger Wilkinson's, we did however despite in my view
some dubious last minute leafleting by the opposition hold Dave Wilcox's
seat.

Across Derbyshire the result were in a similar vein with the County Council
been lost to the control of the Conservative after been held by Labour for
28 years.

In the European elections despite the vote share for the Labour Party going
down, we retained the one Euro MP slot which had been held previously by us
meaning Glenis Willmott was re-elected to the European Parliament.

I'm sure that other the next few week's there will be much discussion on
what needs to be done next to reconnect, and I've no doubts that the future
of the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and perhaps local MP Tom Levitt will
feature within those discussions.