Do you really think that 12000 people switched allegiance to John Leech because he conned them? Any massive change of voting pattern of that nature in this election was caused by specific local issues. Just look at the places it happened. And it wasnt because John Leech conned us all. He didnt. We aint that stupid. I can only speak for the people i know around West didsbury. Most of us are highly educated, natural Labour voters, but thoroughly disenchanted with labour . OK, some of it was Iraq, and the high handed neo-presidential style of Blair. But a huge amount of it has been simple local issues, not national issues. You mention crime. We have some of the worst clear-up rates for crime in UK. People no longer bother to report petty crime, because the police can't be arsed to turn up for it. We saw yobs hunting with dogs down the old railway line in Didsbury. It took 2 hours for the police to respond. My daughter's car got rammed off the road on the Parkway. They told her to go round to Elizabeth Slinger Road to report it. We've reported kids on motorbikes down by the river half a dozen times. The police don't want to know. I reported something on Princess Parkway on 999. THe operator couldn't locate Princess Parkway on her map. She said it didn't exist! She asked me where Chorlton was! Crime figures go down when people stop reporting them because they know there is no point. Education? Look at the secondary schools round here. All below National average. KB got round that one of course by sending his lad to MGS. So did I, because they wanted to send my kid to a school in Moss Side because we lived all of 1.5 miles from Parrs Wood. We can afford to buy ourselves out of the pit. Pity about my son's mates at Cavendish Road who couldn't. Withington Hospital? The tories didnt shut it. Labour let it close, appointing some woman with false credentials to oversee it, if my memory serves me well. A fiasco. ~After that, can you blame anyone for not trusting labour round here with our hospitals? Metrolink? Where is it then? Should I go up to Lapwing Lane and wait for it to arrive? We've been involved with various struggles over schools, local developments, police etc etc, and on each occasion John Leech has pitched in to work on it - and REALLY worked on it, not just looking for photo-opportunties, whereas kb has either not shown his face, or stood by the party line or sent some anodyne ineffectual letter. And he paid a price for losing at grass roots. John Leech earned our respect and our votes. KB lost both.

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