John Stevenson MP in his maiden speech

Carlisle’s new Member of Parliament impresses with his first speech. In his own words:


“We must decentralise. It is important that we take decision making back to the communities and allow local people to make local decisions for themselves. Whitehall has a role, but that role has become far too big. We now have the opportunity to return power to local people. I genuinely believe that elected mayors offer a way forward, because they bring transparency to local decision making and make people aware of who is in charge of their local community.”


Quite right, leadership by committee is a farce. Large organizations and towns need the smack of firm leadership; an elected mayor would give that.


Good for you John, what a contrast to the political pygmy he replaced.


(Mayor Giuliani, possibly one of the most influential mayors in modern politics. He showed that through leadership change can happen)

Ten years on, is Cumbria now enveloped in a curse?

This year is the tenth anniversary of the creation of the 'Cursing Stone' on the underpass between Carlisle Castle and the Tullie House Museum.

Has the past decade been one of prosperity, for Carlisle, Cumbria and its people?

• Floods: Since 2000, Carlisle, Cockermouth, Keswick and Kendal have suffered the worst flooding in modern history. The devastation caused cost hundreds of millions of pounds, multiple loss of lives and huge discomfort and pain for thousands of people.

• Pestilence:   Cumbria suffered more then any other when it came to the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001, millions of livestock were slaughtered

• Education: Since 2000 five of the four schools in Carlisle were so poor the government put them into special measures, and then we come to the University. An organisation for which anything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

• Economic Regeneration: In Carlisle, it looks like one gigantic streak of really bad luck, whether thats the airport, the university, rickergate, theatre or Botchergate, everything seems to be tainted with failure. We have become so used to it, that we have come to expect it.

So are we just being superstitious or are we living under a curse? So many things that could have gone well for Cumbria and Carlisle have not, and have turned out bad.

Smash it to pieces??

Is Carlisle 'closed for business'?

After years of discussion, years of negotiations, after repeated failures by a local farmer to stop Carlisle Airport, from, becoming an Airport, mr Gordon Brown has found a High Court judge as batty as he is.
What's the mentality of someone like that? The entire Stobarts group could now leave Cumbria, who's to blame?

Even now they try to feed us propoganda!!

This is from the Carlisle Labour Party Website:

"Michael has fallen victim to the general swing to the Tories. He lost to Conservative John Stevenson by just 853votes with a swing of 7.7% from Labour to the Tories."

http://www.carlislelabourparty.org.uk/index.cfm?fa=contentNews.newsDetails&newsID=544127&from=list

No Michael, the general swing was 5.2%, on that figure you would have won. It wasnt the general swing that helped John Stevenson get over four thousand more votes then last time, it was your incompetent campaign.

Well done.

A hint for future candidates. Dont stand for Parliament, as if you are campaigning for leader of the council. If people are really interested about what the Councils are doing, they would vote in much greater numbers. They dont. So why fill your campaign materials with council related issues?

Look through John Stevenson's campaign material and his focus, he was about putting Carlisle in the national context, not whining about (or bigging up) the local council.

Congratulations to John Stevenson, Carlisle's Conservative MP

Well done John, you ran a pretty good campaign. That was the easy bit, now you have to fill the big shoes of Eric your predecessor. Love him or hate him, he knew how to command press coverage and get what he wanted.
Be careful though John, if you want to fill his trousers as well you'll have to start eating a lot more pies.

Well, thank god that's over with!!!!

Lets all collectively pray we dont have another election in the next six months. I really cant cope with the tedium of it all. How could four weeks of campaigning feel so long?

I wish the new government all the best but it does kind of feel like we have endured a horrid pregnancy, gone through the 24 hour labour, and instead of a beautiful bouncing baby, we have ended up with a puppy that wont stop peeing and crapping all over the floor.