My week ahead, 9 - 15 June 2014

Monday – 9 June, 2pm – North East Area Committee Agenda setting,
3pm – Commonwealth Games Baton – Schools Athletics event – Northgate School
5pm – Commonwealth Games Baton – Celebration in Christchurch Park

Wednesday – 11 June, North East Area Committee – Councillors meeting

Saturday 14 June – 10am, Labour campaigning

It looks like I have a hectic (but enjoyable) week ahead. Now the new municipal year has started we begin the first set of meetings, I have high hopes for the North East Area Committee and I hope the Conservatives will now become more involved in the Area ‘Action Plan’ rather than sniping from the side as they have done over the last few years.

Monday will be busy but enjoyable as we welcome the Commonwealth Games Baton to Ipswich, this will be a great event and I see it as a reward for the town. We are getting known as a local authority that can put on big sporting events – the Olympic Torch, Tour of Britain and the Sky ride. But it is not just having a proactive authority and a great events team, the baton is coming to Ipswich as the organisers know the Ipswich public will turn up and support the event.

This week Mr Gummer has been involved in a number of arguments on twitter. The arguments started after commuters were handed out the latest glossy (expensive?)Tory leaflet. The leaflet focuses on planned improvements to the Norwich – London rail link. Norwich in 90 and Ipswich in 60 seem to be the targets that Mr Gummer and his fellow Tory MPs seem focused on but that will not happen without new trains and new tracks. This is where the arguments start – the leaflet mentions new trains and Mr Gummer admits that improvements in speed will not happen till the new trains arrive, he then stated that the new franchise will bring new trains then after further tweets it seems that is not for certain and not all the existing rolling stock will be replaced and that any new trains will not be seen for at least 6 years! Making the use of the words ‘new trains’ on the leaflet seem rather misleading – deliberate?

Mr Gummer may have more to worry about this week than the state of local trains as his boss faces MPs after having to apologise to the Prime Minister and a senior civil servant after a spat with the Home Secretary.

From the outside it seems both Gove and the Home Secretary have broken the Ministerial Code, but yet again as with Mr Hunt it seems Mr Cameron is either unable or unwilling to discipline senior ministers. It will be interesting to know how involved Mr Gummer is in the whole shenanigans.

The losers in this whole event? The children in Birmingham as they have been let down by this Tory Government the only real issue is by which Tory Ministers door the blame lies.

Expect this post to lead to a local blogger/Tory/Gummer apologist to state (without knowing) that Gummer is not implicated as he was away on his honeymoon. Now as most of the briefings from Gove and May have taken place the day before the Queens Speech, I hope Mr Gummer was back at work – he deserves a honeymoon but he does have a long break in the Summer to fit that in.