Monday – 13 January, 4pm – Culture Portfolio meting
6pm – Labour Group meeting
Tuesday – 14 January, 5pm – Sidegate Primary School, Steering committee
Wednesday – 15 January, 9am – Ipswich Borough Council Planning Committee
Thursday – 16 January, 6pm – Scrutiny Committee
Friday – 17 January, 7pm – IFT screening of Mandela film – ‘Long Walk to Freedom’
Saturday 11 January, 10am – Labour campaigning – South West Ipswich
Christmas holidays seems ages ago now as I have a meeting or campaigning every day this week, but with the long aim of returning a Labour Government in 2015 as the ultimate prize the hard work, I am not complaining about the busy agenda.
This week we have seen the local politics blog, Ipswich Spy shed itself of its last coat of neutrality with an attack on a respected Labour Councillor.
To be fair it has been hard for ‘Spy’ to remain neutral as it has almost become a ‘one man ‘show and as that lone writer is a former Conservative councillor it has always been obvious where his loyalties would lie.
But as we get closer to 2015 he may see that he has to lead for the Tories on the social media front with Ben Gummer having one of the most outdated websites of any MP in the country but even his site his more up to date than the local Tory site which seems to have given up the ghost of providing any information to Ipswich residents.
On twitter the writer is now using his own account as well as the ‘Spy’ one, he might as well change the handle to ‘Ben4Ben’ .
Recent examples of the Pro Tory stance has been his post about travel Ipswich, Spy mentions that we did not mention any meetings with Graham Newman, forgetting he attended an area committee where Newman had been invited the Labour Chair and that also the now monthly meeting that Graham Newman is holding where all IBC councillors are invited was because of the pressure put on Mr Newman and SCC by Labour transport spokesperson, Sandra Gage.
The attack by ‘Spy’ was on one of the most respected councillors in Ipswich, John Mowles. When I was seeking to be elected, John was the person who helped me the most and since I have been a councillor he has continued to mentor me. If I could just be as half as good as John at sorting issues for residents, I would be one of the top four councillors in Ipswich if not the whole county. So why suddenly the attack on John? Why has ‘Spy’ just become another means for Cllr Terry to continue her attacks on anything Labour attempts to do – joining the ‘Flyer’ in printing anything she wants without checking the facts – prefabs and Ransomes just been two examples where we only get the ‘Terry’ version of events?
The answer is on ‘Spy’ itself. When the ‘Spy’ one man show attended the opening of new Council Houses, it seems he was not invited into the Council House this lead to Mr Redsell writing this comment: “If he thought he got a tough time before, he ain’t seen nothing yet!”
Nothing more dangerous than an angry partner or an ignored journalist!
Good news is at least we now have an Ipswich Conservative website that is updated! Conservative Spy!
Wonder if Tim Yeo sent ‘Tory Spy’ a Christmas Card?
FOOTNOTE
Just to make this clear, it is just my opinion that Ipswich Spy has become less neutral over the last few months, only having one real contrubuter being the main reason for this. That is my opinion and by looking at the posts on 'Spy' you can formulate your own opinion.
The world is about opinions, the Mail today (again) accused the BBC of being left wing after the last episode of Sherlock! Again just an opinion.
Ipswich Spy refutes my claims, and I for one hope he adds to his contributers as the blog certainly needs a voice from the left within its team.
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