LCC’s 2023 Virtual Coast & Country Conference
Keynote Speech by Lord Mandelson Our Candidates LCC policy pitches for Country and for Coast
The Long Campaign
Part three of John Haywood’s journey In my previous two blogs I described the build-up to the 2019 local elections, when Labour had three town councillors elected in Ringwood, and…
You make your own luck
Part two of John Haywood’s journey Cllr John Haywood In the previous instalment of this blog, I covered the 2015-2019 period of local campaigning in Ringwood. At the 2019 local…
Taking the opportunity, of boundary changes and palpable unpopularity!
James Coldwell Chew Valley, the largest and most rural ward in North East Somerset, may not be a Labour stronghold. Yet at this year’s branch AGM members left upbeat and…
Labour’s offer to communities of the Country
The LCC team Communities of the Country may not have always been seen to be electorally important to Labour, yet without some support from these communities, without some reflection of…
Labour’s offer to communities of the Coast
The LCC team As we approach our annual Virtual Coast & Country Conference this Saturday we recognise the real opportunity of it being the last before a General election, and…
The Power of the Coast
Jess Asato and Keir Cozens With the right political leadership and the right investment, our coastal communities can provide the quality jobs of the future – and power Labour’s ambition…
Devolution is the Key to Getting Our Buses Back on the Road
Peter Swallow, Chair of Ealing Central and Acton Labour Party and researcher at Durham University Research carried out by the Labour Party has laid bare the staggering cuts to bus…
A National Care Service, for everyone
Ben Cooper, Senior Researcher at the Fabian Society In 2009, the idea of a National Care Service was born. Since those dying days of the last Labour government, the party has repeatedly re-committed…
Who decides for communities of coast and of country?
Hywel Lloyd, LCC Co-Founder As Parliament returns we have the prospect of two imminent by-elections and a conference season dominated by the ebbs and flows of framing the general election…
Listening to, and speaking for, communities of coast and country too
The Labour:Coast&Country team In much of our engagement for the NPF we have found that many citizens of coast and country communities are frustrated at being unheard, at being done…
Out of bounds for Labour?
Cllr John Haywood For many years, when I meet Labour people and tell them about the politics of the New Forest, especially the west of the Forest, they are amazed that there…
Investing in every Briton’s future: £28bn and all that
Hywel Lloyd, Co-Founder As Labour approaches the sharper end of the Parliamentary cycle, with a general election thankfully in sight, we are seeing the firming up of ambitions, pledges, and…
Local Elections 2023: Miles and miles, across a complicated ‘landscape’
John Clark I’d been active in the Labour Party in London since 1967 and then in Suffolk since the first Lockdown in 2020. I moved my virtual self to Suffolk…
Chocolate from the West of England: An eggs-amination
Dan Norris, Mayor of the West of England As you tuck into your Easter Egg, did you know that this year marks an egg-tra special anniversary? Because 2023 is the…
Labour: Winning for Communities of COAST & COUNTRY too
As Labour heads towards a manifesto for the next General Election we have been working with our wider network, and those who’ve signed up to the CPTNetwork, (that’s kindly supported by…
Ending the rural digital deserts
Samantha Niblett, Vice-Chair (Membership) of Erewash CLP and Founder of Labour Women in Tech I don’t always agree with the Country Land and Business Association but it has a point…
Labour needs a SeaWall Taskforce to win and deliver for coastal communities
Cllr Polly Billington, Endorsed by Labour Coast & Country for South Thanet As a child, one of our family New Year traditions was to pile into the car and drive…
Water is our most precious resource: No excuse for sewage in our rivers and seas
Jessica Toale is a Councillor in Westminster and the Co-Chair of the Labour Foreign Policy Group The UK is blessed with some of the world’s best beaches – even if…
What can you do as a Labour Town Councillor?
Report from National Association of Local Councils Conference 2022 Jonathan Wallcroft is a Town Councillor in Keynsham; and LCC’s Field Organiser for the CPTNetwork. I had the pleasure of attending…
October NPF Report — Alex Mayer
Alex Mayer is an LCC supporter and member of the NPF for the Eastern Region This week saw the first full meeting of the new National Policy Forum in a…
Rural communities are facing a triple blow in the cost-of-living crisis — Kerry Booth
Kerry Booth is the Chief Executive Designate for the Rural Services Network. The Rural Services Network, a membership organisation representing English rural councils and other rural services providers has recently…
Politics Returns — LCC at LPC22
While we wait, with some trepidation, for this week’s imminent announcements from a government without mandate, conference in Liverpool gives all the Labour family an opportunity to show it is…
Winning Rural England – Cllr Chris Hinchcliff
Chris Hinchcliff is a Labour Councillor on North Hertforshire district council and works for CPRE. Across England, roughly 24 million people live in rural communities, or in urbanareas with a…
Winning some Towns of England, in June, in 2022 – Ant Reid
There is a by election happening in Tiverton and Honiton so political pundits have been busy googling the place, and many in the Labour Party have been gearing up to…
Coastal Jobs Crisis – Jayne Kirkham
The hospitality sector was decimated by Covid, then faced having to get back on track between lockdowns and is still struggling with staff absences due to Covid. Jobs are often…
The most important town council by-election of the year – Hywel Lloyd
This Thursday, May 12th, sees a by-election in Tiverton, yet it isn’t the one you’re thinking of…. It is the by-election for Lowman Ward of Tiverton Town Council, a seat that is only…
NALC opens nominations for Star Council Awards 2022
By Niamh MacElvogue, Communications intern, National Association of Local Councils The National Association of Local Councils (NALC) has opened nominations for the Star Council Awards 2022. As the only awards…
The cost-of-living crisis in a rural community – Cllr Kate Ewert
Kate Ewert, Cornwall Councillor for the Rame Peninsula and St Germans. I am fortunate enough to represent the beautiful coastal and rural community of the Rame Peninsula and St Germans…
A view from Rutland – Cllr Leah Toseland
Back in November 2021 there were headlines in the local papers and even on BBC News saying ‘Conservatives shocked as Labour win first seat on Rutland County Council in more…
Worthing – town politics transformed – Paul Falcini
Anyone joining Coast and Country’s campaign day in Worthing on the 2nd April has the opportunity to be a part of making history; Labour taking control of the town for…
Laying foundations for the future: No “no-go” areas. – Claire Hazelgrove
As Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Skipton and Ripon, a seat we came third in in 1997, I was under no illusions about the very likely outcome for me and us…
View from Bradley Stoke – Cllr Angela Morey
It was a rainy grey Wednesday last January when scrolling through Facebook I saw a post: Vacancy for a councillor in Bradley Stoke North. Friends started ‘tagging’ me to tell…
The View from Southend – Cllr Ian Gilbert
Southend-on-Sea has much featured in national headlines of recent time. The murder of Sir David Amess shocked the nation, and even now it is hard to take in that such…
Empowering coastal communities through marine citizenship – Pam Buchan
In a recent Ocean Conservation Trust and DEFRA public survey, only 19% of people have heard of and feel they have some understanding of the term marine citizenship. What is…
Some thoughts on being a parish councillor – John Barnes
In May, I was elected onto my local parish council in Wiltshire. Rather unusually for a parish council in this area, this was through a contested election; parish councillors are…
Coastal Housing Emergency – Jayne Kirkham
A number of councils in Cornwall, including mine in Falmouth, have declared Housing Emergencies. There is a massive problem here. It was recently reported that there were 69 properties to…
Labour’s North Shropshire Campaign – Fighting to represent a rural community
A guest post from the North Shropshire Campaign Team Labour’s Ben Wood, born, educated and living locally, is fighting a vigorous campaign, frequently visiting the many market towns and villages…
A view from the Coast and from the Country in 2021 – Pam Buchan
As is becoming traditional at the Labour: Coast & Country virtual conference, the 2021 conference opened with a view from the coast and from the country. This year the views…
Why I Guest Edited a ‘Rural’ Edition of Renewal Journal
I grew up in a village on the northern outskirts of Greater Manchester. The Guardian once, to my horror, called it a ‘villagey suburb’ but as a teenager it felt…
LCC at Party Conference – Sun Sept 26th /Mon Sept 27th both 1pm – 2pm Friends’ House
We look forward to seeing many of you at conference, not least at one or other of the LCC fringes – both at Room Three, Friends’ Meeting House, Ship Street BN1 1AF…
Why I’m speaking to Labour Coast & Country Conference | Dan Norris
My passion is bringing people and communities together. Since being elected as Metro Mayor in May I have represented a varied area from the world-famous urban centres of Bristol and…
Why be a parish councillor? | Jonathan Wallcroft
North East Somerset Constituency is, largely, famous for our MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. The combination of the name of the constituency and our representative belies the fact that this is a…
How we won the West of England | Jonathan Wallcroft
One of the bright spots of a dismal night for Labour in 2021 was Dan Norris’ crushing triumph in the West of England metro-mayoral election, by a 59-41 margin. This…
Let’s make the beach safe for all | Paul Richards
Coastal towns are looking forward to the summer with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. On one hand, after a terrible year, the hoteliers, B&B owners, campsites, bars, restaurants, and…
Social care for coast and country | Mary Wimbury
In our second manifesto response, Mary Wimbury explores how to set minimum standards of access for all public services and essential utilities through the lens of her work and experience of social…
Cambridge on the Coast? | Andy Westwood
A former colleague recently tweeted that “what UK really needs is Cambridge on the Coast; a new University for the Coast…” Certainly, we need something. England’s coast is largely poorer…
Our manifesto for the May 2021 elections
The elections taking place across Great Britain on 6 May will be decisive for the country, and for Labour. Ahead of the vote, Labour:COAST&COUNTRY has prepared a manifesto for our…
Starmer re-commits Labour to the countryside | David Drew
Ian Cawsey – MP for Brigg and Goole when New Labour was in power – once told me of a story regaled to him by an old farmer in his…
Labour’s opportunity | Elliot Green
Labour has an opportunity. For too long failure in the coast and country has been expected, and consequently the energies of the party have ignored the potential of our non-urban…
Regenerating our Coastal Towns | Gill Cookson
Centuries ago, when transport for goods and travellers was most conveniently done by water, people settled in coastal towns. Later, sea ports attracted major industries like ship-building and mining. Later…
Winning in Rural Constituencies | Derbyshire Dales CLP
It can be hard to stay motivated as a Labour Party in a Conservative Parliamentary stronghold like Derbyshire Dales. We have and likely will always have, a Conservative MP, we…
Keeping Seaside Blues at Bay | Lord Bassam
The House of Lords report on ‘The Future of Seaside Towns’ published 18 months ago seems almost as relevant today as it did then. Much has happened in the intervening…
“Back British farmers,” Keir Starmer tells Boris Johnson | Elliot Chappell | LabourList
Copied below is a LabourList article by Elliot Chappell, you can view the original post on the LabourList website here. Keir Starmer has demanded that the Prime Minister “back British farmers”…
Key Findings of the Virtual Coast & Country Conference 2020
As Labour once campaigned and governed because Every Child Matters, so now we must campaign to govern, because Every Job Matters. That means a focus on coast and country as…
Labour:Coast&Country’s Annual Gathering @ Connected
Join us on Sunday 20th September from 1pm to 2pm on Zoom for our regular lunchtime fringe event bringing together coast and country party members and advocates. We’ll continue our…
How Starmer’s Labour plans to prioritise rural and coastal communities | Sienna Rodgers | LabourList
Copied below is a LabourList article by Sienna Rodgers following our Virtual Coast & Country Conference on Saturday 5th September, you can view the original post on the LabourList website…
Building Back Better on the Coast and in the Country | Alex Mayer
This weekend will be the first ‘first weekend of September’ in many years when I will not be in the pretty Norfolk village of Burston. This important date in the…
Labour must stand with Britain’s rural workforce | Hywel Lloyd
In these extraordinary times, the opportunity to imagine other times and places, to daydream, or to simply enjoy the imaginary worlds of TV and radio, have been a solace to…
Join us for our Virtual Coast & Country Conference!
The countdown is on to our first ever Virtual Coast & Country Conference on Saturday 5th September from 10am till 2pm, check out the agenda and RSVP below: 10:00 WELCOME. Hywel Lloyd, Co-Founder,…
Lessons from Waveney | Sonia Barker
In the below post, Sonia Barker – the Waveney Labour Parliamentary Candidate in 2017 and 2019 – sets out her thoughts on the last two general election campaigns and what’s…
Developing Labour’s Rural Policy | Cllr Pam Buchan
In July the SW Co-op Party and Devon Labour Campaign Forum in Devon held their summer conference focusing on Labour’s rural policy. Speakers included Luke Pollard MP, Shadow Secretary of…
Rebuild in Coast and Country | Rachel Reeves MP
It was a privilege to join Labour Coast and Country recently to talk about how Labour can rebuild support in towns, rural areas, and coastal communities. Currently, the electoral map…
Virtual Conference | SAVE THE DATE!
We’re delighted to announce that we’ll be holding a Virtual Rural Conference later this year. There’s still a few details to finalise before we confirm the agenda and speakers, but…
LCC’s NPF Submissions
Built on discussions, members meetings and wider engagement with Labour members from across the country, as well as a number of round tables with Labour MPs we have sent the following…
Organise To Win with David Drew | Zoom Event
Join us for an informal Zoom discussion on Thursday (25th) at 6:45pm about the organisational tools needed by rural and coastal CLPs to win and the motions we should send to this…
The challenges of COVID-19 for rural communities | David Drew
The last few months have been particularly difficult for rural communities as they have for the rest of the country. Obviously COVID has hit rural areas particularly hard but the…
Join us for a discussion with Rachel Reeves MP, Shadow Cabinet Office Minister | Zoom Event
We’re delighted to announce that Rachel Reeves MP, who leads the Shadow Cabinet Office team, has agreed to join us for our next Zoom session on Tuesday 23rd June at 6pm. Rachel…
Please don’t forget rural England! Has your CLP submitted a response to the NPF yet?
As we all know the National Policy Forum (NPF) is a key element of Labour’s policy making process and we would encourage every coastal and rural CLP to make a…
Coronavirus and Rural Communities: Labour’s Response | Daniel Zeichner MP, Shadow Minister for Food and Rural Affairs
The current pandemic has affected people’s lives and livelihoods in a way that, rare for a natural disaster in this country, has been felt in every part of the UK.…
COVID-19: The Rural Dimension with Daniel Zeichner MP | Zoom Event
We’re happy to support and promote the following online session with Labour’s new Rural Affairs Shadow, Daniel Zeichner MP. See below for further details and to RSVP. There are plenty…
Rethinking Labour’s approach to Defence | Dr Matthew Ford
Defence is an integral part of Britain’s economic security, as made clear by Philip Dunne’s 2018 review Growing the Contribution of Defence to UK Prosperity. As the last General Election…
Congratulations to Keir and Angela
Everyone at Labour:Coast&Country would like to congratulate Keir Starmer on his election as Labour leader and Angela Rayner as deputy leader. We look forward to working with Keir, Angela and…
Labour for Communities on the Coast and of the Countryside
While it’s clear that the Tories have a deliberately ‘lite’ manifesto, Labour have produced one that really does get into the detail of how a Labour government would go about…
Building National Resilience to the Climate Crisis | Hugh Ellis and Hywel Lloyd
As Yorkshire suffers, again, we are reminded that as a nation we are critically unprepared for the impacts of climate change. This failure is largely about political leadership yet it…
Labour’s Offer to Communities of the Coast and the Country | Hywel Lloyd
After almost a decade of Tory led governments vast swathes of countryside communities have been let down if not closed down. There are still too many not-spots for mobile reception,…
The Case for a Rural Strategy | Graham Biggs, Rural Services Network
I have spent decades arguing the case for better investment by the government into our rural areas. Here are my thoughts on this subject in the current climate. I readily…
LCC @ Labour Party Conference 2019
‘Winning England’ drinks, in partnership the English Labour Network | Sunday 22 September, 12:00 – 12:30 Ahead of our annual gathering at 12:45, start conference in style by joining us for a drink…
A Rural Strategy for England | Hywel Lloyd
The recent publication of the Lords Inquiry into the rural economy (explored here by Baroness Young) reinforces the need for a Rural Strategy as proposed by the Rural Services Network, its partner organisations and many others,…
Time for a Strategy for the Rural Economy | Baroness Young
Rural economies are not just like urban ones but with less people and more cows, they are distinctive, providing not just livelihoods for rural dwellers but increasingly locations for business…
The Future of Seaside Towns | Lord Bassam
The Lords Select Committee on ‘The Future of Seaside Towns’ paints a familiar picture of what can happen to communities that get left behind in a two speed economy. Many…
The Tories are letting down local communities | Andrew Gwynne MP
Local Government is at the heart of local communities. Councils look after the most vulnerable in society and make local spaces greener, cleaner and safer. Yet over the last nine…
LCC’s Review of 2018
2018 is almost done and yet politics continues its fascinating, yet gruesome hold on the nation! While much of the year has been one take or another on Brexit and…
The Digital Village | Lord Jim Knight
A few weeks ago I was sat in the Home Room in the House of Lords having a conversation over dinner about the “digital village”. It is a classic…
Why the South East needs Labour | Rosie Duffield MP
When people talk of the Southeast region of England, it can often come across in two distinct ways. One way people mention the area is in a pejorative way, alluding…
A Manifesto for 2019 | Towns of England, your time has come!
Britain’s towns had a higher profile at this year’s Labour Party Conference than they have ever had. In addition to both Labour: COAST&COUNTRY (LCC) fringes, they were on the agenda…
If progressives are to tackle poverty and inequality they need to look beyond the rural idyll | IPPR
All too often when policy makers consider the countryside they think of chocolate box images of the rural idyll. These assumptions, however, mask a nuanced reality in which rural areas…
A Trip to Pershore | Hywel Lloyd
A warm evening and a railway station with a Betjeman poem on the platform (Pershore station, or a Liverish Journey First Class) – a very English setting from which to…
Reflections on GE2017 | Nia Griffith MP
Amongst Labour’s impressive gains in last June’s general election were a number of rural and coastal constituencies. David Drew re-took Stroud and is now serving as a Shadow DEFRA Minister,…
No places should be off-limits for Labour | James Bartholomeusz
LCC committee member James Bartholomeusz reflects on rural campaigning in the 2018 local elections. At least two things have happened to our public discourse since the EU referendum. On the…
A Manifesto for England | Hywel Lloyd
While much of the Labour family is rightly occupied with their local election campaign for tomorrow, some of the early steps in preparing for ‘The English election’ of 2019 (elections…
Event | Coast and Country: Have your Say
Rural and coastal communities face a number of unique problems that are often misunderstood by the politicians in London who set national policy. ‘Coast and Country: Have your Say’ is…
You can’t cut 49% from council support and expect everything to keep humming | Cllr Duncan Enright
You can’t cut 49% from council support and expect everything to keep humming. It wasn’t as though when Cameron and Clegg rode their big blue and yellow bulldozers into power…
Taking back control in Plymouth | Pamela Buchan
The local elections are fast approaching across the UK and Plymouth City Council is one of two key targets for Labour outside of London. Only two seats are required to…
It’s a long way from Islington North | Tobias Phibbs
Helen Goodman MP’s rural constituency is the geographically largest that Labour holds. To walk around Bishop Auckland’s 356 square miles, taking in the hill farms in the north Pennines to…
That’s Tory territory, isn’t it? | Sandy Martin MP
When I challenged the Secretary of State to provide more resources for the Police in Suffolk in September, Sarah Newton, the junior minister, clearly mis-heard “Southwark” for “Suffolk” and replied…
Labour’s Coastal Consultation | Alex Mayer MEP
There are few more quintessentially English postcard images than deckchairs lining a sandy beach with a pier in the background. I am lucky that in my constituency there are many…
Has Gove stolen Labour’s clothes? | Martyn Sloman
On 4th January Michael Gove made an important speech: as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs he outlined his vision for British farming after Brexit. His speech…