While Councillor candidate Martin Tolman made excellent progress in Lyndon as a result of his and the members' extremely hard work in Solihull, Labour clearly suffered in our target wards within the Meriden constituency to both the Green Party and UKIP.
First, I want to say I'm hugely disappointed on behalf of David Jamieson, Nick Stephens and David Cole. I have huge admiration for how incredibly hard they worked in their campaigns, let alone Nick and David Jamieson as superb Councillors - many people told me on the doorstep how much they appreciated their efforts as Councillors. I was humbled by their campaigning efforts and we will need their expertise and help to carry on the political fight.
While I am hugely disappointed, it is clear to me that many voters are frustrated with the main parties, and this seems to be the reason for the insurgence of the UKIP and Green Party vote.
However, there is lots to fight for. We now have to explain that UKIP is the party that pretends climate change isn't happening, which wants to charge people to visit their GPs, and which wants to raise taxes for working people on average and low incomes and lower taxes for rich people sometimes earning hundreds of thousands. This is not a party with a plan to improve economic growth. It is a party that holds to its core strong Tory type ideals which suit the needs of the wealthy. Labour needs to get this message out - Farage is not standing up for the majority.
We also need to communicate that the Green Party does not have a substantial and coherent plan for the country's economic situation. A vote for the Greens at the next General Election will only help the Tories to stay in power.
Conversely, Labour have concrete plans. Unlike UKIP who promote tax cuts for wealthy people, Labour will reverse the Tory tax cut for people earning over £150,000. Labour will also support working parents with more free child care, reverse the Bedroom Tax which disproportionately harms disabled people and costs the state more, build many more houses, cap private rent increases, create fairer tenancies, promote the living wage (which is the wage people need to survive), offer a jobs guarantee for people out of work long term and protect against certain problems associated with immigration such as employers paying foreign workers below the minimum wage, public sector workers not having sufficient English skills and agencies only recruiting from abroad. Further, Labour will put a stop to the increasing privatisation of the NHS by repealing certain NHS service tendering provisions in the Health and Social Care Act.
We also need to set out that only the Labour Party has the ideas and influence to form a powerful government, and this is why a vote for the Green Party, which many believe do not have realistic economic solutions, is a waste.
I know the Labour members in Solihull and Meriden are up for the challenge. Again, let's tell people what UKIP are really about and promote the real solutions being put forward by Labour who have a proper plan to get things right.
