Congratulations to all Rochdale councillors of all parties elected today across the borough.
But I’m gutted for the many hard working, long-standing Labour councillors who lost their seats in the Rochdale constituency.
I want to personally thank Iftikhar Ahmed, Janet Emsley, Shaun O’Neill, Phil Massey, Aftab Hussain and Mohammed Arshad for their collective decades of public service. They truly love their communities and have strived to make them better places to live.
To the new councillors, I want to say that although we may be from different parties and may have different solutions to the challenges we face locally, I will work with anyone for the common good of our town and its villages. We are all Rochdalians and owe it to our residents to work together.
If you’re a worker on the minimum wage who no longer has to worry about sick pay, a tenant who now no longer fears ‘no fault’ eviction, a parent whose children will be lifted out of poverty, a patient who is getting faster NHS treatment, a mortgage payer whose interest rates have fallen, this Labour government is delivering real change.
But for many people, the changes are nowhere near fast enough. And we have to be honest about the mistakes made by the Government since 2024.
After this set of local election results, Labour has to listen to the message sent by the voters and show that we really get it – by urgently making the changes we need for the good of our country.