Morley Town Council nominees

Leeds has now published the candidate list for Morley Town Council.

There are 51 candidates contesting 24 seats and there will be elections in all six wards. (If up to the same number of candidates as positions are nominated they are voted in by default.) They will serve for four years and the next election will be in May 2011.

Seventeen of the existing 24 candidates are re-standing. After a bit of thought, I have worked out that those who are not restanding are:

John Chadwick (Labour)
Tina Fielden (Labour)
Myself (Independent)
Paul Jamieson (Conservative)
Keely Jamieson (Conservative)
Brian Judge (Independent)
Kath Sutton (Independent)

There are a grand total of 23 Morley Borough Independent Councillors, eleven of whom are existing Councillors. Only one of them campaigned as an MBI originally, as MBI was set up after the last Town Council all-out election four years ago (but before the first by-election three years ago). Four others were implied MBIs (as they were Leeds MBI Councillors) but it now looks like they have persuaded most of the other independents to join them in order to collectively fight the BNP challenge.

Eleven people are standing as Labour, four of which are existing Councillors.

There are twelve standing as British National Party (none currently on the Town Council, although we do have a City Councillor for Morley South).

There are five independents, two of whom are existing Councillors. Of the other three, one is Stewart McArdle (currently a Leeds City Councillor but up for election on May 3rd) and the two others are actually BNP Members if they are the people I think they are.

(As a sidenote, normally you are only allowed the word "INDEPENDENT" on the Ballot form description if you are not representing a political Party. Albert Slingsby, however, has managed to persuade the election office to put "INDEPENDENT FIGHTING PASSIONATELY FOR THE COMMUNITY" on the nomination. Good for him!

There are no Conservative or Lib-Dem candidates.

As to distribution of party candidates to seats, it is as follows:

Central ward (3 seats) MBI 3, BNP 2, Labour 2
Churwell Ward (4 seats) MBI 4, BNP 1, Labour 1, Independent 1
Elmfield Ward (4 seats) Labour 3, MBI 3, BNP 2, Independent 2
Scatcherd Ward (5 seats) MBI 5, BNP 1
Teale ward (3 seats) MBI 3, Labour 2, Independent 2, BNP 1
Topcliffe Ward (5 seats) BNP 5, MBI 5, Labour 3

So it can be seen that the big battle is going to be in Topcliffe, which is the ward I live in (and presumably where the BNP think that most of their City Council votes came from). BNP have fielded at least one candidate in every other Ward, Labour have not even fielded a candidate in Scatcherd Ward. Indeed, having only put forward eleven candidates, they will not be able to form a majority on the Town Council even if they are all elected.

The only thing we can say with certainty is that four MBIs will be elected to Scatcherd, the rest is anyone's guess.