Tony Porter Ponders: The arrogance of the Labour Party is staggering.

I had predicted pretty much the outcome of last weeks elections, I was obvious to all, except those with red rosettes. I was therefore amazed at the attitude of our great PM the day after saying “My response is we get it. We were elected in last year to bring about change.” He vowed to go “further and faster” in delivering it.

I think I speak for many when I say the change people voted for was to rid us of his Labour Party and teach the Tories a lesson too. ReformUK had a stonker, with hundreds of new councillors around the country and winning the Runcorn Bye-election. Turning a 14K Labour majority to a majority of just six, but still a shift of at least 14,007 votes. If only there was someone who knows Keir and co and could gently remind them they got one million votes less than in 2019 General Election, they did not win with a huge mandate, many people simply stayed at home and did not bother to go out to vote. The Conservatives lost that election and, though a win is a win, it was hardly emphatic if you look at votes cast overall.

ReformUK do scare me, they are a one trick pony, but will they be able to run councils and all that entails? Only time will tell, if they do succeed, or at least don’t utterly mess things up, then people might decide at the next General Election to give them their vote. Apathy is the main issue when it comes to elections, I know, in Pemberton we hovered around the 20% mark, if only a few hundred more turned out the results could have been very different. It is a new era in politics and with other cabinet members like Wes Streeting MP defending ‘unpopular’ policies adding when asked on SKYNews if they had made mistakes "No. When we made those choices, we knew they would be unpopular. And we knew that they would be opposed.”

"The reason we made those choices is because we genuinely believe they're the right choices to get the country out of the massive hole it was left in” "And we've had to make big and sometimes unpopular decisions so that we can face those challenges and deal with them. People might thank us if we just kind of go for the easy but we want to make the right choices."

If I was a Labour MP with a majority less than 14K I would start thinking about finding a new career shortly, even sooner if I was a Labour Councillor anywhere in the country. We need change and change starts with Keir and co being replaced.

Meanwhile in Wigan the work on the Plantation Gates is going well, scaffolding now surrounding the structure, the scaffold has gone from around the Civic Centre and that seems near completion and even better news half the properties built in Marsh Green are now occupied. The speed these have gone up is staggering. A new newsagent kiosk is about to open in The Grand Arcade and also new in there is a Pokemon Card vending machine upstairs near GamerX. I have completed many ‘Wigan Walks’ in the nice weather and will expand from the centre, any suggestions welcome.