NORTHUMBERLAND County Council will have two Green Party representatives for the next four years. Tynedale resident Nick Morphet caused a shock as he claimed the Humshaugh seat, ending the Tories dominance in the ward. Coun. Morphet, who stood for the Hexham parliamentary seat in 2019 and was also denied a place on Hexham Town Council by vote last year, was elected to represent the area on the parish council as he received nearly 200 more votes than the existing incumbent Rupert Gibson. A total of 1,046 people voted the Green Party candidate, with 849 wishing for Coun. Gibson to keep the seat. It was a two-horse race with Labour s Milo Barnett recieving just 80 votes, and Stuart Rowlands, for the Liberal Democrats, receving only 30.
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Surprises? You can say that again, Jeff, but also a sense of déjà vu.
The surprises come in various guises. The occasional, unexpected Labour gain for instance (notwithstanding their five loses to the Conservative Party).
Bywell’s newly-elected 25-year-old Labour councillor Holly Waddell narrowly snatched her seat from incumbent Conservative councillor Stephen John Westgarth, 981 to 924.
Kelly Angus, Northumberland s returning officer announces one of the results.
The Greens secured not only their first seat but their second on the same night. Martin Swinbank, newly elected Green Party councillor for Alnwick, replaces former councillor, now Tory MP, Robbie Moore.
Then the déjà vu set in, but curiously we did not know it at first.