The recent local election results have reshaped Trafford’s political landscape. Voter turnout increased significantly from last time, reflecting the strength of the message voters were sending. The Green Party has emerged as the most popular in Trafford, but the electoral map suggests an upcoming period of no overall control. It is unlikely that this situation will reverse in the near future.
Several incumbents were unseated by new challengers, signalling a clear demand for change. The extent to which this reflects a desire for a change in government, or a shift within Trafford itself remains to be seen. What is certain is that it was never an endorsement to continue as before.
Sadly, I think Tom Ross, the leader of Trafford’s Labour Group has given himself too little time to reflect on changes that could improve the party’s local fortune. He’s made minimal change to an executive that too often takes a back seat to both the leader and to senior officers. He’s got to be prepared to show the door to those underperforming and not wait for the electorate to do the job for him, particularly since the electorate have just demonstrated that they will often take out the better members of his team.
The loss of two good cabinet members has forced a minimal change on Tom and I do welcome the promotions of Keleigh Glenton and Barry Winstanley to the executive. I just think Tom should have made deeper changes. We have been hopeless at communicating on the most basic universal services that the public judges us by.
The Labour Party has lost the art of talking to and listening to people. How often do our lead members go out in front of residents to explain the state of their roads or why bins are not emptied etc? Their answer to everything is to tell us report, but there’s no engagement on the question as to how it’s allowed to happen in the first place. Too often it feels like we’re dealing with a pencil monitor. You need the right chit or you won’t make progress. If we do the right thing, jump through the right hoops to report and it’s still not done, then you can go to your ward councillor, but they never get an answer as to why it’s allowed to happen in the first place.
There’s genuine opportunities to improve the relationship with voters, but it won’t be done via short form videos on TikTok and Instagram. It requires lead members who genuinely look like they take responsibility for their service areas, are willing to go out and engage with the public, take some flak, show some empathy and follow up.
Labour’s on course to lose control of Trafford Council next year. It has a choice to just carry on as it is doing and blame it all on Labour’s national leadership or it can start properly communicating and explaining how it’s meeting various challenges.
Featured image created by Gemini AI: https://gemini.google.com/share/84281c664184
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