DERBY IS CRYING OUT FOR LABOUR

Following last week’s local election results, Derby’s Conservatives and Liberal Democrats should allow the Labour Party to take charge of the city.

The outcome of the elections saw Labour gaining three seats from the Conservatives and two from the Liberal Democrats, but the party remains four short of an overall majority.

Labour now has 22 councillors on the city council to the Conservatives’ 16 and the Liberal Democrats’ 12. But Labour has the moral authority to take charge of the council.

Across the city, Labour’s candidates secured almost 2,000 more votes than the Conservative and Liberal Democrats put together.

The only reason Labour didn’t win more seats is because of Derby’s electoral system. Unlike Nottingham and Leicester, where all out elections occur every four years, in Derby a third of the council’s 51 seats are elected in three out of every four years instead.

Derby stagnated under the leadership of the Liberal Democrats from 2008 to 2010 and hasn’t improved since the Conservatives formed a minority administration last year.

The city is crying out for a Labour local authority to stand up for Derby in the face of the massive cuts being imposed by the Tory-Lib Dem government.