On the side of our Armed Forces and the veterans community

As a veteran who is involved in politics, I often feel amazed how many of my former comrades seem happy to support Farage and what ever party he is in at the time, do not be fooled, he is just another posh Tory who has no interest in our Armed Forces.

The current number of people in our Armed Forces is at a record low, that is down to 14 years of Tory cuts, but at the same time we need more troops, to support our NATO allies, currently under threat from Putin (a politician that Farage, Trump and Johnson, seem happy to support at times)

Labour has been in power less than a year but have already reversed many of the bad decisions made by the Tories, we now have a Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey who gets on with the job and has the respect of senior officers at the MOD unlike previous Tory Ministers who were partly responsible for the catastrophic withdrawal from Kabul..

We have a Veterans Minister, in Al Carns, who was a serving Marine less than 12 months ago, getting on with the job, and getting results, unlike the previous Minister who spent most of the time promoting himself rather than supporting veterans.

So what have we done so far?

At the start of VE celebrations we have announced 'Valour' - a new service to enable veterans to gain easier access to care and support 

We have also brought 36,000 military homes back into public ownership, it ends one of the worse Privatisation deals and will save the taxpayer thousands on rental costs.

Higher standards, renovation of worst homes and a return to a named Housing Officer- all backed up by a customers charter.

Internationally we have stood up for the Ukraine and our NATO allies, took the lead whilst Trump is more interested in playing a round of golf in Florida.

We are listening, we are delivering, but we know we need to do more

Thursday was not a great night, election wise for Labour - we get little satisfaction from knowing the Tories had an even worse set of results and the Green party also seem to hit the buffers. We would have wanted to retain all our County Councillors and added to our total, however we lost hard working councillors.

Why? Nationally we have have made mistakes - taking the fuel payment from pensioners certainly cost us votes- but our main issue may be communication, with a hostile press we need to be the people shouting out about all the good things we have done - workers rights, NHS Waiting times down, pay rises for many and we now have a Prime Minister who is helping set the international agenda rather than being laughed at, which is what was happening under both Johnson and Truss.

But we need to do more and as Keir Starmer stated- faster . More people need to benefit from the changes we are brining in.

Local, we are also delivering - and over the next year we will see more improvements to the town centre, from Lloyds Avenue make over to the reopening of the Grimwades building, we continue to build new council homes, all of a very high quality.

However, we are not just hoping that the Reform surge is just a protest vote, the Tories seem to think their voters will return, I think they are wrong and what they will see, is more Tory politicians jumping ship. As a Labour Party, we should not be scared of talking about immigration, we are already turning the Border Force into an organisation taht can get results, in particular tackling and taking action against people smugglers plus those who are willing to turn a blind eye and employ and house illegal immigrants. This is a good news story, a Labour plan that is getting great results but one that the national media would just rather ignore and that leaves a vacuum where both Reform and Tory MPs like Jenrick can fill and as opposition politicians they can say what they like as they do have to deliver.

Accepting our own short comings and understanding why many are turning to Reform, is just part of the story- I am also angry, we need to pint out that in many cases, Reform politicians are just fail4d Tories. The new MP in Runcorn, an ex Tory councillor, the Reform Mayor in Lincolnshire we a Tory Minister and made a Dame by Johnson. Closer to home the recent Reform candidate in St John's was a former Tory Councillor and 3 of the senior people in the Ipswich Reform Party were Tory councillors with one who was suspended by the Tories after he declared his support for Putin over the invasion of Ukraine.

Reform this weekend have been quick to say it will take them a while to sort things out as they have not been in power before, but the truth is a number of their councillors ( and future council leaders) were Tory councillors previously, the same people who failed to fill in pot holes, ensure SEND  pupils got the education they deserved or sorting out the care system.

Of course, and no one should be surprised, Reform have also got councillors who have a more 'shady' past, supporters of Far Right groups like Britain First, and many who have openly posted racist posts 0r promoted conspiracy theories.

Then you have their leader, Farage who man who seems to be happy to support both Trump and Putin!

But we cant just hope they will implode, we need to get our message over to voters - and with little help from the national press, we will have to do that on our own, so almost every weekend in 2025 you will Labour politicians knocking on doors listening t0 Ipswich residents, whilst the Tories will still be in hiding and the other 3 groups- Lib Dems, Greens and Reform will probably only make their first a appearance on Ipswich streets next April.

So plenty for the national Labour Party to do, as well as us local politicians, however I voted Labour last July to give Keir Starmer a 5 year mandate to do what ever is necessary to get this country back on the right track after 14 years of Tory chaos and a disastrous Brexit, i am not going to give up on him or my party after just 10 months!