Sunday 10 August 2014

My week ahead 10 - 16 August 2014

Monday – 11 August, 9am – Rushmere Ward Councillors meeting, Woodbridge Road
6pm –Labour Group campaigning session

Tuesday – 12 August, 2pm – Labour campaigning in SW Ipswich

Wednesday – 13 August, 2pm – Labour campaigning in NW Ipswich

Thursday – 14 August, 7pm – Culture Working Group

Saturday – 16 August, 10am – Labour campaigning in North East Ipswich

Back from India and also a short break at the Commonwealth Games and it is straight into full time campaigning. Some see August as a non-political activity month with many at the council on holiday and Westminster also away on one of their many long breaks but with the General Election now under 12 months away many will use August to campaign hard.

Even Ministers are making official visits, with the Tory Minister for Coastal Protection in the region this week, even the local news programme indicated that it was rare to have a ministerial visit in August, also indicating that they believed the visit may have been official and not a campaigning visit but it was only taking place because of the time of the General Election now getting closer.

The local political blog even indicated that they would be concentrating on national issues in their ‘Diary’ column this week as August was always a slow month – I thought possibly the non appearance of any of our local MPs at two recent civic events – a medal ceremony for local Reservists and the Monday night event in Christchurch Park to commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World War would have been a newsworthy story. In particular after the clumsy way Tory spin doctors and the Right wing press attempted to make Ed Miliband and the Lib Dem leader look uncaring after they were handed wreaths that had already been labelled, but the labels looked the work of a small child.

What that action by the Tories did show is that as we get closer to the General Election they will get more and more desperate.

It has not been a great week for the Tories and in particular David Cameron, Baroness Warsi storming out and then Boris telling us all he was coming back and that he had suddenly become slightly Euro sceptic! Many may have hoped that Boris announcing that he was coming back to save the Tory Party may have knocked Warsi off the front pages – it did for a day but many papers this Sunday have carried further interviews with the Baroness, none of which will make good reading for Mr Cameron and his (Boris’s ) party.

On international issues, I do think that Westminster and in particular MPs can get a bad press that is underserved at times but I do wonder that with the Gaza crisis, the situation in Iraq (that now has the RAF involved) plus the public health issues caused by the Ebola epidemic that there seems to be little mention of a recall of Parliament!

3 comments:

Ben Redsell said...

Councillor, in much the same way as I didn't mention you going away for several weeks, didn't mention David Ellesmere going on holiday and therefore moving a scrutiny meeting, didn't mention Cllr Cook going on holiday last month, I don't mention when our MPs are away on holiday UNTIL THEY ARE BACK.

It saves them getting burgled by enterprising website reading burglars, don't you know?

As for not mentioning the stupid and crass attempt to humiliate Miliband, er...

"Talking of ridiculous attempts to gain political advantage, a reporter tweeted photos of the cards attached to the wreaths laid by the PM and the Leader of the Opposition at the commemorative ceremony for WW1, held in Glasgow. The PM had carefully penned a handwritten note, yet Miliband’s office had been given no opportunity to do the same – Miliband, Clegg and every other leader were handed their wreathes seconds before laying them. What was initially quite clearly a clumsy attempt by Tory spinners to trip up Miliband backfired spectacularly. Stupid and crass, there is little need for anyone to try and trip Miliband up anyway. He seems quite capable of it himself – he is a uniquely un-photogenic man, with an awkwardness that people forget he shares with his brother – I can remember Ed being described as the normal one before David lost the leadership election."

Ben Redsell said...

Councillor I tend not to mention when people are on holiday in case they are burgled. Which is why I didn't mention Mr Gummer's non appearance at the events in the park. He did, however, attend events before he went away, but you yourself were away then, so you probably missed them.

I did, however, mention the crass attempt by some idiotic spin doctor to make Miliband look uncaring over the wreaths. I wasn't surprised by the speed some partisan tweeters picked up the story - but then again I know you'd be just as quick if the boot had been on the other foot, so your own protests ring a little hollow.

Alasdair Ross said...

On the Sunday of the medal presentation, most of the Tory MPs including Mr Gummer managed to attend the Sunday afternoon event at Bury. Our own Mator and many if the other local Mayors managed to attend both.

I would gave thought at least one of our local MPs could have attempted to attend the WW1 event at Christchurch Park, even the PM came back from holiday to attend the national event. It was not as if it was a surprise that the August 4th date was going to be commemorated