Government
Lowestoft is the major settlement in Waveney District Council. It is a former municipal borough, having lost this status in 1974, although it retains a ceremonial mayor. The mayor of Lowestoft is elected by councillors on an annual basis. Suffolk County Council is the local authority.
The town is part of the Waveney parliamentary constituency and currently represented at Westminster by Conservative Peter Aldous. Former M.P.s include Bob Blizzard, David Porter and Jim Prior, a cabinet minister and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the Thatcher governments, who also represented the former constituency of Lowestoft. For European Union elections Lowestoft forms part of the East of England constituency.
For district election purposes, Lowestoft is divided into ten electoral wards, with Carlton Colville treated as a separate electoral area. Harbour, Kirkley, Normanston, Pakefield, St Margarets and Whitton wards elect three councillors each, with Carlton, Gunton and Corton, Oulton and Oulton Broad wards electing two district councillors. Of the 48 council seats in the district, 26 represent wards within Lowestoft, with three more representing Carlton Colville. In 2010 the council changed to a Whole Council election process, with all seats on the council elected at one set of elections every four years. The most recent district council elections were on 5th May 2011 at which the Labour party won 19 of the Lowestoft seats, a gain of four seats, concentrated in the central areas of the town. The Conservative party won six seats with one Independent candidate retaining their seat in Oulton ward.
At Suffolk County Council, Lowestoft and its immediate surrounding area are represented by eight councillors, split equally between four electoral divisions–Gunton, Lowestoft South, Oulton and Pakefield. For county council elections Pakefield division includes Carlton Colville. Elections take place every four years, with the most recent elections in June 2009. Seven of Lowestoft's county councillors represent the Conservative party, with South Lowestoft electing a UK Independence Party councillor in 2009.
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Famous quotes containing the word government:
“We’ll build a democracy here, even if it’s with Nazi bricks.”
—Samuel Fuller, U.S. screenwriter. Samuel Fuller. Captain Harvey, Verboten! American Military Government officer explaining the practicalities of de-Nazification (1959)
“A little group of wilful men reflecting no opinion but their own have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“In using the strong hand, as now compelled to do, the government has a difficult duty to perform. At the very best, it will by turns do both too little and too much. It can properly have no motive of revenge, no purpose to punish merely for punishment’s sake. While we must, by all available means, prevent the overthrow of the government, we should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)