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A lot of very angry people protesting at having to pay for parking at our beauty spots. Wonder if this will have a big affect on the voting on Thursday?

Where the Government has manipulated the situation so that the Government takes the money but the Council takes the blame.

Wirral has lost something like £450 per household due to Government manipulation.

Our Council isn't brilliant (during both Labour and Conservative terms) but our main battles at the moment are above that level (The EU and Our Government). Voting on local issues will not change much, voting on national issues could.

I know a lot of people are thinking of voting Green Party instead of Labour but that will only split the vote and empower the Conservative Government even more. We need to have this Government get yet another clear message that they cannot carry on taking money off the majority of the population and give it to the few.

Local councils and cities have been fleecing motorists for years, long before any "austerity".

I recall back in the 90s when Manchester city got rid of the rule where you could park on a single yellow line on Sundays. Instead you had to park in marked pay and display bays. However, many were free on Sunday. But then they started introducing Sunday charging.....

If Wirral council was so cash strapped, why are they loaning their reserves to other councils?

If the charges are necessary for income then why did they drop plans for the £4 flat parking rate?

Don't blame the government for bad local management. Remind me again how much has been spent on the Hoylake golf resort? Or the council newspaper nobody sees?

Agreed and also what amount are WMBC now contributing to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority ? You can't join a club for free these days and do WMBC just stand at the bar and survey, or do they reap any rewards for becoming a member ! ?

Conversely, don't let poor local government obfuscate the snide, robbing, lying national Government we have!

Can't find the figures now, though I saw them last night somewhere; I think the local turnout was just above 30% which is pretty miserable, considering how many people seem to be discontented about various things at the moment.Don't know how that compares to other areas. What hope have we for real, truly representative democracy if two thirds of people in Wirral won't even vote? Especially women, in this 100th anniversary of the first step towards Votes for Women. I've always voted, even if it's been a case of voting for the least worst option. I regard it as a hard-won privilege; I wish more people did so.

Edti: Just found the info on the Council website. Turnout across Wirral averaged out at just over 36%, varying from 24% to 45%. Come on Wirral, we can do better than that!

I have always voted, as a matter of conscience and promoted the same for others. Women died for us to have the vote, and if we don't vote, we can't complain . Maybe yesterday was a 'new message' from 'women' who can carry a lot of power for change, not the activists who go out to disrupt with their banners !

Yesterday, for the first time, I didn't vote ! We have nothing to vote for. There has not been one piece of literature through the door, not one candidate knocking on the door, and we pay for these morons who feel unable to even realise that they should be serving us, the community, and not the other way around. That means ALL of US within the community and fairly.

We have our Council blaming everything on the Tories we've been hearing the excuses since 2010,and it has worn thin now. The Tories seem to be letting them get on with it. UKIP are finished anyway, and Lib Dems seem to have left the country.

I've always voted, my mum always said women like her grandmother fought for the right for women's votes. We only had a couple of leaflets off the Labour party. My youngest son didn't vote as he didn't know who to vote for or any of the issues, I keep telling my kids if people don't vote it will be taken off us.I noticed some areas were trialling voters needing to take I'D and were being turned away if they didn't have any

If a local Councillor ever knocked on my door I'd probably have a heart attack from shock so they would lose a vote . Could it be that they don't call as there's no parking allowed outside & they don't like walking.Whatever I still voted just don't know the person I'm trusting to sort out the Councils mess !

Surely the onus is one you ... who YOU want to represent you. I can't believe the number of people you have the attitude that "they haven't knocked on my door so I'm not voting for them. Their door knocking skills is totally irrelevant to the skills you want to be representing you.

There is no way a Councillor can visit all the houses in their constituency and I'm sure their time can be better spent doing council work than cuddling babies etc.

Generally their is not much canvassing in safe constituencies, they help out the constituencies that are borderline.

If one does appear on your doorstep, ask them if they would turn down a greater than inflation rise in their allowances. These are voluntary roles and they have gradually shifted them into an occupation with crazy increases in allowances.

Not a case of 'they haven't knocked on my door, so I won't be voting for them '. It's a case of not even being informed of who any of the candidates are, absolutely nothing ! I still don't know who was standing. I would llike to know the reasons why we should be voting for them, what to expect if we do vote for them and basically, what their CV is, and anything else important enough .

I have no intentions to vote for anyone that I know nothing about. Would you ? There hasn't even been one voting placard that I have seen in and around the area , not one ! So I wouldn't know who is likely to represent me, and don't always vote for the same party either, unlike the hard core who never change due to tradition.

" My mum voted X , and me dad, and me gran and me granddad, so I'll do the same for eternity and our Susie will do the same and so will her ten kids because we'll make 'em, it's our tradition ! "

Maybe that is why the turn out is so low, lack of canvasing in safe areas.

If I was interested enough I could have gone online and looked, can't argue with that, but there are still many without internet, there are still many young people who will have carried on their lives without even realising.

As D.D pointed out Canvassers are thin on the ground. No point knocking on doors where political parties have 'evidence' that the householder will (they assume) vote for them ie being a party member, for example. Equally, the opposition party will not, generally target you either because they 'know' where your loyalties lie.

The 'targets' are the unknown/ the un-decided.

I struggle with this post. On one hand it seems we have your support for the historical successes of the Suffragettes. 'Women died for us to have the vote'. These women broke the law numerous times- they smashed windows, they blew up post boxes...all manner of direct actions intending to raise the profile of their Cause.Yet, you seem more offended by 'banner waving activists'?

Of course, I appreciate that you may think that that is all modern activists do, but Marches/ Rallies etc are a tiny part of political actions.

As for this- " My mum voted X , and me dad, and me gran and me granddad, so I'll do the same for eternity and our Susie will do the same and so will her ten kids because we'll make 'em, it's our tradition ! " I would take Cools advice.

This: 'Elephant in the Room'

It's a shame the media are so biased - here are the actual results:

* Labour take 600 more seats than the Tories
* Labour hold twice as many councils
* Labour make gains, Tories hoover up UKIP vote and STILL make losses
* Labour had a huge swing to take Plymouth Council in the true blue South West
* Labour took Kirklees, a council we haven't held since 1999
* Labour has the best result in London since 1971
* In Westminister and Wandsworth, Labour has more seats than at any time since 1986
* Labour hold a record number of seats in Croydon, Ealing, Redbridge and Waltham Forest
* Labour failed to take Barnet - yet Labour have NEVER won Barnet under any leader
* Labour are the largest party in Trafford, meaning the Tories now hold no councils at all in Greater Manchester.

This is a step forward and yet more progress on our General Election performance - so much so that if this was repeated at the next GE then Jeremy would be our Prime Minister.

As usual don't believe all you hear and read in our main-stream media.

Spread the word, get the facts out there. Because sadly the media can no longer be relied on to do so.

As I said the onus is on you, if you want to be represented. They are volunteering their services as Councillors, they aren't selling you something. You have the internet, you have libraries, there are newspapers, they have party offices, you can find out the information.

imagine if every new Scout Leader had to go round to each house of (at least) the scouts, it doesn't work that way, you go and see them.

Any campaign funds they get are donations, do you expect others to donate when you don't in order to fund pamphlet's to you?

I'm sure you buy a lot of things that haven't been advertised to you which you don't question but then you question volunteers for not advertising?

Granny is well known for her exuberant researching of topics and subsequent findings. All Avenues exhausted blah...blah. Very strange.

Total nonsense. Why does Corbyn and other leaders of political parties wiz all over the country at election times ? Do we have literature promoting our different political parties then ? Yes of course we do.
The onus is on the candidate if they want our votes. They choose to represent, they pay the deposit to do so, and they need to advertise their services or their promise of , like any other brand of goods.
I did canvassing for political parties for years with leaflet drops, so I know it's possible.
The awkward thing is, people have lost interest and if the donations are so low, it should be asked why. Maybe they'd get more donations if they were out and about canvassing .
Greenwood made a point, and I answered with my own reasons, for that I do not need to be lambasted by anyone, and if there isn't any engagement in the next local elections, I won't vote then either, as it could be Tony Blair in a nuns outfit for all I know.

@ Rude .p.s. STFU !

The £39m spent at the last general election by political parties could have been much better spent on social needs.

We have gone from a nation of do-ers to a nation of people that need mollycoddling.

According to Barnet Labour Party:



Everyone was expecting it to fall, even the Tories. You can blame Labour's anti-semitism and Corbyn's weak leadership to tackle the matter for that.

You can cry "media bias" and "fake news" all you want, but the 'besmirching of his good name' seems, largely to be from lots of his supporters (and in some cases his camp) trying to create a 'woe is me, the media are so evil' campaign which has been bought into hook, line and sinker.

But the Conservative party has more anti-semitism than Labour, they just have more newspapers in their pocket.

I don't think its Corbyn's supporters besmirch his name, its a very very small number of his opponents in his party namely the Blairite MP's. Those MP's aren't politicians they think that getting into power at whatever cost is the most important thing.

How anybody can say Corbyn is weak having faced such a massive onslaught is beyond me. While some in powerful positions would like him out the way he is nowhere near the position where has any need to resign, he is still the politician with the highest number of supporters in Europe.

Never before have we seen the media so focussed on the opposition leader when the actual leader (May) is possibly the most ineffective Prime Minister we have ever had. She has not done anything good, nor anything well, she is even too scared to appear in public, unlike Corbyn who is publicly here, there and everywhere even though the media say the opposite.

And in exchange for the media's faithful behaviour, the Government has dropped the second Levenson enquiry. Yet another act of destroying democracy.

"very very small number"?

From 2015 to 2017 80 MPs have sat in Labour’s shadow cabinet. The number is no doubt higher now.

That's a shocking figure and points to problems not with the 80+, but Corbyn.

I don't think anyone is doubting he's not a "good" guy.

He's a good speaker, a good backbencher.

The problem is that he isn't leadership material, and never will be. His career has been on the sidelines, an "armchair expert" if you will. His ideas just don't pan out and wouldn't work in the real world - such as returning utilities to state ownership, giving free travel to under 25s and so on.

He's been fast tracked to leadership as an initial joke, and a wave of student support, nothing more. He's not the right man to lead the party. Chuka Umunna or Alan Johnson should have taken over from Miliband.

And because of this the Labour party is now split three ways:

Old Left Labour (Kinnoch era)
New Centre-Left Labour (Blair era)
Corbyn Left Labour (persent era)

And each supporter can't abide the others because they feel that they were the ones for holding the party back or causing it to lose its way.

I'm not ashamed to say I voted for Labour in the early Blair years. But the Iraq Wars and Brown turned me away from them. And as long as they have Corbyn as leader I won't support them, and I'm not alone. Just Google "why I won't vote Labour" and see countless others.

And I pity all the Labour MPs who realise this too - and if they dare to stick their heads above the parapet they're deselected in favour of a Momentum candidate.

Yes, a very very small number of opponents, he has the biggest number of supporters of all politicians in Europe, they far out-way the idiot MP's that mistakenly believe they are there to look after their own present and future jobs, not the country as a whole.

There are a lot of countries looking at returning utilities to the state, there are also many who weren't daft enough to give them away in the first place. The Government is there to ensure a sound and stable infrastructure, how can they do that when the infrastructure is at the whim of foreign companies and Governments, even with UK owned companies we see all the big Government contracts going breasts-up.

The student thing was fake news, the statistics showed it to be completely false despite the Guardian trying to perpetuate the myth recently. The students had very little influence on Corbyn becoming leader, of students that voted at the general election a high proportion voted Labour BUT not many students voted so again their overall influence was low. The stats are around, I haven't got time to dig them up again but they have been posted on WikiWirral before.

If you want statistics, the more educated people are, the more likely they are to vote Labour. This is not what the media or the Tory party like to portray but they also don't like to portray that Tories Governments borrow more money than Labour Governments either.

Yes, I believed in Blair in the early years but what a con that turned out to be, ending up with a party that statistically was more right wing than Thatcher.

I have to agree with you Gibbo.I voted for Tony Blair because he seemed the best to lead the country but how wrong were we!...I know I would never vote Labour while Corbyn is the leader. He says all the right things but in reality will never work as you say.. utopia land , rob the rich give to the poor, sounds great but the days of Robin Hood are over. All in all I'm pretty dissalusioned with all of them at the moment.

The tory Government are doing the opposite on the grandest scale ever, we are a rich country but over 90% of the population wouldn't know it. Its a crazy level of theft, one day it will be fully exposed how much the Government has been involved in this corruption.

How much do you want a year, £50,000 a year is easily obtainable by everyone in the country without hurting the rich of this country at all.

How ? or do you mean by way of a universal basic income from the Gov?