By Carl NoMarks
SHAFTED by Keirnocchio once he attained high office, there are at least some Labour councillors left in West Cumbria who haven’t abandoned their socialist values, however utopian or electorally unpalatable these might be.
Solids have hit the extractor out West after Labour councillor Linda Jones-Bulman, deputy chairwomanperson of Labour-run Crumberland Council, furiously announced that she had quit Starmer’s party to fester on the Council’s benches as an independent.
LJB, one of those rare, mutinous politicians with a working conscience, gave it both barrels in her Dear John post to the party.
She told Facebook that the national Labour leadership has abandoned the party’s values and complained of it parachuting “yes men” into West Cumbria!
Who could she mean?
Step forward young Labour super-smoothie, Josh MacAlister, MP for Wherezit and Whozit, and widely known within educational circles as the Finest Headteacher In The World To Ever Hold A School Assembly.
Josh may hold high appeal among the corporate management classes in charge of Sellafield here, but it was as plain as balls on a bulldog that industrialist left-footers in West Cumbria Labour would soon tire of his slick ‘Diet Tory’ routine.
Quite nobly in this day and age, West Cumbrian Corbynistas are very big on having a local MP who goes into politics to help the impoverished masses of the West Coast, rather than, say, a person who might be tempted to use the ground troops here to secure a nice fat majority for themselves then swan off to London to strut their stuff.
The silken-tongued young MP can often be found on his feet in the House of Commons giving the cameras his best profile and MPs the benefits of his infinite wisdom whether they want it or not.
Recent Blair-like soundbites from Joshua include: “I’m in politics to be a problem solver, not a problem exploiter.”
McWhippersnapper may have a “problem” if the famously tribal West Cumbria Labour follows Linda’s suit.
It has also not gone unnoticed out West that Josh has obligingly voted with his Government, blunder or no blunder.
He has often forcibly defended these decisions, either in pieces to the camera that loves him or via long ‘I-know-better-than-everyone’ polemics in local “newspaper”, the Times & (Red) Starmer.
A wiser, more mature head who understood West Cumbria, might have kept their heads down when the Government was making unpopular decisions, but not Josh.
And the departure of Cllr LJB from local Labour matters also rips the scab off an old wound out West.
At the time of selection, there was much hoo-ha in Copeland Labour circles that the know-it-all’s in national Labour HQ had dismissed out of hand as a candidate, Whitehaven Labour councillor and long-standing local party organiser, Joseph Ghayouba, out of whose backside the sun here is generally doth deemed to shine.
Did JG not have the credentials to be chosen as a candidate because of his awful habit of, er, not being a Starmer yes man?
UNABLE to read the room, Josh’s young team recently circulated a poster of him listing his recent “casework wins” – complete with obligatory Cheshire Cat grin.
His stunning five results for West Cumbria include, er, sorting out a blocked drain, getting some street lights fixed, and helping someone get a school place.
As the now disillusioned LJB was very quick to point out – such grassroots matters are bread and butter for LOCAL COUNCILLORS and do not require an MP being paid £91,000 a year!
Ouch!
In her final analysis, LJB wrote: “The national Labour leadership urgently needs to reconnect with the values Labour members and voters believe in, or risk the rise of far-right politicians, inspired by Trump in America, who will implement austerity on steroids and take a knife to our already struggling public services.”
Wise words indeed, but will any local Councillor follow her and will the MP’s office only start listening when they do?
thecumbriachronic.co.uk 
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