Salford residents voting in the upcoming elections have been urged to keep in mind the difference between national and local government and those who run them by City Mayor Paul Dennett.
Nearly a decade of the 46-year-old’s life has been spent in charge of a local authority dominated by the Labour party, which controls 50 of the 60 seats across Salford’s 20 wards.
Wearing a hard hat and a high-vis jacket outside Ellesmere Park High School in Eccles for the burial of a time capsule marking the school’s £4 million expansion, Dennett told Salford Now there is “always concern” that Westminster politics will dictate elections closer to home.
“When there’s a national Labour government, and you’ve got a Labour council, there might be an impact from the national government on what happens locally within communities,” the Labour council leader said.
“This isn’t anything new. If you look back in recent history, it has been something we’ve always grappled with.”
It is nearly two years since the general election in which Labour secured the largest landslide this century with 411 seats and 33.7% of the popular vote. The party’s triumph was reflected locally as Labour trio Rebecca Long-Bailey, Michael Wheeler and Yasmin Qureshi all comfortably won seats in the Commons.
Now, Labour head into the local elections fourth in the opinion polls, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose favourability rating has collapsed to -42% since he moved into 10 Downing Street.
It is against that challenging backdrop that Dennett hopes to “remind” local voters of the good work he feels the party’s councillors are doing.
“It is really important we talk about the importance of local government. I’ve long said that local government is the poor relation of the British state and there is a difference between what Westminster and Whitehall do and what we do within the local city council.
“For me, getting out there, being in your communities, talking to your residents, talking to families and our communities about what really matters to them and then trying to translate that into a local policy offer and ultimately a mayoral manifesto, then delivering on that,” he added.
“It’s about demonstrating to our residents and electors that we listen to them and we deliver on the things that matter to them. As members of the Labour Party, we have to get that message out there and communicate what we have achieved over recent times.”
After posing for photos with a shovel and helping to bury the archive of children’s poems and newspaper cutouts, Dennett highlighted what he sees as his Labour authority’s biggest recent achievement, one he hopes voters will remember at the ballot box and that will stand as his legacy.
“We are in the middle of a cost of living crisis and the work we’ve done to become an accredited living wage employer and putting nearly £40 million into care workers’ pockets, I think that’s quite an achievement since we’ve been working at the living wage and since we’ve been working for our carers who do a really important job in the city of Salford.
“We are supporting people with disabilities, supporting some of our young people with special educational needs and disabilities and importantly supporting our elderly across many communities in the city of Salford.
“Our carers really matter and the work that they do is so valuable, it’s right and proper that we recognise that in their pay packet.”
(centre) took a trip down memory lane, returning to the site of his old high school.
Meanwhile, the time capsule burial was a trip down memory lane for Wentworth High School alumnus Michael Wheeler.
Returning to the site of the old school where he was Head Boy, the Labour representative for Worsley and Eccles was optimistic that Salford’s historic foundations would hold firm under mounting pressure from rival parties this May.
“We have got a lot of really good, really hard-working councillors that deserve to be elected. We have good candidates who will do an excellent job for this community. So, from now until those elections, it may all be out supporting them and campaigning hard.”
He echoed Mr Dennett, noting that: “To see this as a national election would be doing councillors and the hard work and the years of service they have given their communities a real disservice.
“People should look at the track record of the councillors and candidates that are on their ballot paper and vote accordingly.”
