Brown's battles are hurting the party.

(From Western Morning News)

It is sad John Payne has quit the Labour Party after 45 years. He stood as a Labour candidate in the new unitary authority's Penzance Central electoral division and came second in the poll, pipped at the post by the Lib-Dem candidate who had 25 more votes.

As a political party, the Liberal Democrats have a long tradition of campaigning on environmental issues and pursuing environmental policies. Over the past few months in Torbay, the Lib-Dems have called on the Conservative administration running the council to do more on green issues.

John received a respectable 28 per cent of the votes cast, which makes him roughly twice as popular in Penzance as Gordon Brown is in the UK according to …