Politics
South Shields is a safe Labour Party Parliamentary seat, currently held by David Miliband, who was Foreign Secretary under Gordon Brown.
The local authority (South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council) is also controlled by Labour.
The town has a local independent political party, the Progressive Party. This broadly centre-right party was formed in the 1950s to address hostility towards the Conservative Party. The Progressives have no representation beyond South Shields. Having controlled the old County Borough of South Shields council until 1974, they still hold several seats on the borough council and have experienced a resurgence in recent years, sitting in alliance with independent members of the council.
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Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God’s infinite mercy, a last resort.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country—and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.”
—Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)
“We are naïve and moralistic women. We are human beings. Who find politics a blight upon the human condition. And do not know how one copes with it except through politics.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)