"A man is not an orange. You can't eat the fruit and throw the peel away”- Arthur Miller (I think!)

“An orange on the table, your dress on the rug, and you in my bed, sweet present of the present, cool of night, warmth of my life.”
Jacques Prevert (French poet, 1900-1977)

Readers of this blog may have been hoping for some insightful political commentary or even (and rather more likely) some vacuous prose about politics or more generally Southampton affairs- unfortunately instead I have just spent the last half an our cleaning my desk after the bottle of orange juice I forgot to remove on Thursday fermented, exploded and then dried to a cement like consistency all over my desk!

And I thought the 'Orange Book ' was about Liberalism- post accident, the (now) orange book on my desk is a copy of 'Reach for the Ground' by Jeffrey Bernard!

A year ago...

the sweet taste of success...at last!

(the Conservatives last had majority control of the City in 1983!)

One year ago last Thursday the Conservatives took majority control of the City Council in Southampton as they gained 8 seats.

The results- certainly for the Lib-Dems and Labour were totally unexpected- the Lib-Dems lost every seat they contested, Labour managed to win two seats and the Conservatives won the remaining 15.
It has been an eventful and important year since for the City but as supporters of the short lived Lib-Lab coalition ponder on what may have been and the Conservatives allow themselves just a short moment to reflect on their election success, I wonder if the left and centre parties realise how lucky they are not to have had elections last Thursday (this year is a 'rest year' as Southampton currently elects in thirds with three members per ward, all serving a four year term).
I would guess on current opinion polling date (the Tories are circa 18 points ahead), that we would win every seat.
That would mean that the new political composition of the council would alter by the Conservatives having an additional 12 seats!
It will be interesting to see how the European elections go next month- personally I don't think it now impossible the Labour Party will poll below 20%.