Allerdale 7 - 8 Copeland

THERE was a final planning meeting last night for the Cumbria County Council elections in Allerdale.

North West Regional Organiser Clive Jefferson, was there and he made it very clear that yesterday was the cut-off day for candidate selection and those who had, for the last month, been a pain in the backside by sitting on the fence as to whether they would stand or not, have been dismissed so we are left with SEVEN confirmed candidates.

There are 16 county council seats in Allerdale so we are just below the 50% contested mark. There are 84 seats on the full council. We are contesting six wards held by Labour and one held by the Lib-Dems.

Back in 2005 we didn't contest a single county council seat across the whole of Cumbria, let alone any in Allerdale, so this is a massive achievement. Also, all seven will be properly fought campaigns with an election address for the candidates. This, together with one Euro Election leaflet being distributed now, and the Euro Election address delivered by the Royal Mail, will form the backbone of our campaign although there will be some tweaks to it during the next 42 days just to maximise our vote.

I'm still hoping that we might be allowed to contest an eighth seat as I'm seeing one of the fence-sitters tonight. We get our election packs tomorrow, so once I have that nomination form in my hands I shall be able to find out which way he will be jumping.

The only 'disappointing news' was that our arch enemies within Cumbria, the dastardly Copeland BNP, are fielding more candidates than we are. Clive is also the Copeland organiser and he took great pleasure in telling us that they already had 8 candidates selected for Copeland's 12 county council seats.

There's a great traditional rivalry between the towns of Workington (Allerdale) and Whitehaven (Copeland) and they call each other's residents, "Jam-Eaters", which is the biggest insult possible up here in West Cumbria. I believe it stems from the idea that your parents don't earn enough money to provide a cooked evening meal, but I might be wrong.

So things have started to buzz in Allerdale and I can't wait to get involved with the campaigning next week. I have a list of election tasks to undertake, but first Freedom has to be finished, and that's the priority for the next four days.