Monday – 22 September, 8am – Ipswich Angle editorial meeting
6pm – Labour campaigning in West Ipswich
Wednesday 24 September, 2pm – Labour campaigning in East Ipswich
6pm – East Ipswich Area Housing meeting
Saturday 27 September, 10am – Labour campaigning in East Ipswich
The big news (and good news) story this week was Scotland voting to remain part of Britain, as someone with Scottish roots I was both happy and proud when the result came through.
More of a shock was the way Alex Salmond quit so soon after the result came through, he did not seem that gracious in defeat, implying that the leaders of the 3 main political parties would renege on their last minute promises (of more power for the Scottish people). I was not impressed with his resignation speech and am glad to see that Ed Miliband is stating that the plan put forward days before the election must be kept to. I think and hope it will.
But people may believe Salmond when they see the way the Tories in Westminster are behaving, rather than getting behind their leader a sizable group of Tory MPs with John Redwood at the front (though a cabinet minister – Chris Grayling is also happy to join in) are using this opportunity to put the boot in to David Cameron, as they see he is in a currently weak position. With friends like this.......
Here in Ipswich we had the debate at full council on the Northern Fringe, not surprising the Tories attempted to put more barriers in to try and delay the start of the much needed development whist the Lib Dems seem to have forgotten how they voted when they were part of the administration!
One amusing part of the week was via twitter watching another episode of Ipswich Tory in-fighting, the latest spat took place not here but on the streets of Clacton! The current Tory Gipping Ward candidate spotted the former Tory Bridge Ward candidate campaigning for UKIP! He greeted his former colleague and possibly (still) a fellow Ipswich Tory member with the cry of ‘Traitor’!
Showing posts with label Clacton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clacton. Show all posts
Sunday, 21 September 2014
Sunday, 14 September 2014
Oh we do like to be beside the seaside
Today I spent the day in Clacton campaigning for our Labour candidate, Tim Young. For many reasons I was pleased to spend a day by the sea in Essex. First of all I like Tim, made easier because as well as being a sound Labour man he is also an Ipswich Town fans – so what is there not to like?
I also wanted to experience how a campaign is run at a by-election and also to compare the real feelings of residents on the streets of Clacton compared to what was reported in the first few days of media frenzy when Carswell jumped ship. A media frenzy that soon died away when the real story was found to be a few hundred miles north and over the border in Scotland.
What I found was a buzzing campaign centre with many volunteers who were boosted in number today by our large Ipswich contingent. We were also joined by the Suffolk Labour Rural Express – 3 more of our Suffolk PCC’s and other members who had spent the weekend touring Suffolk before arriving in Essex. Of course I expected to find a well organised office and was told that UKIP had a busy centre close by but the Tories were still in a state of shock from the defection of not only their MP but also a number of their members.
What did not expect to find was the reaction we got whilst canvassing on the street in the Rush Green Ward, we found residents that did not even know about the by-election, the lack of posters from any party- 2 Labour and 1 UKIP, and also a feeling of residents not knowing who to vote for. We found Labour and UKIP voters but I only met 2 Tories but the real significant find was the number of ‘don’t knows’ we found, in general many of these were planning to vote UKIP. They told us they had felt let down or ignored by both Labour and the Tories so they felt drawn to UKIP, there was also the issue of immigration, it seems to me that in many coastal towns in the east from Ramsgate to Hull. Immigration is a much bigger issue to them than it is when you move further inland. UKIP would have expected to have taken most of their votes but for these voters they now feel confused, they would never vote Tory and Carswell is still seen as a Tory and not many had a good word to say about him, many agreed with his anti Europe stance but it was obvious from talking to residents that Carswell has never seen as an MP who would spend much time talking to and looking after the interests of residents in Rush Green, Jaywick or some of the older parts of the town.
Not the sort of view you would have had of Carswell if you had watched or read the first media reports from Clacton, from those first reports you would have thought he was ‘Mr Clacton’ but from talking to voters today he is more ‘Mr Frinton’ or Mr Holland on Sea’ than ‘Mr Clacton’.
My guesstimate of the Clacton election result – a win for UKIP but with Labour also increasing their vote even pushing the Tories for second and the Lib Dems? I would expect the Lib Dems to lose their deposit – again.
I hope to get to Clacton again, there are certainly many voters who planned tp vote UKIP that now feel betrayed by having Carswell forced upon them. This gives us in Labour a great opportunity to talk to these voters, to show we have not forgotten them and that we are the best party to fight for them.
Vote Tim Young
I also wanted to experience how a campaign is run at a by-election and also to compare the real feelings of residents on the streets of Clacton compared to what was reported in the first few days of media frenzy when Carswell jumped ship. A media frenzy that soon died away when the real story was found to be a few hundred miles north and over the border in Scotland.
What I found was a buzzing campaign centre with many volunteers who were boosted in number today by our large Ipswich contingent. We were also joined by the Suffolk Labour Rural Express – 3 more of our Suffolk PCC’s and other members who had spent the weekend touring Suffolk before arriving in Essex. Of course I expected to find a well organised office and was told that UKIP had a busy centre close by but the Tories were still in a state of shock from the defection of not only their MP but also a number of their members.
What did not expect to find was the reaction we got whilst canvassing on the street in the Rush Green Ward, we found residents that did not even know about the by-election, the lack of posters from any party- 2 Labour and 1 UKIP, and also a feeling of residents not knowing who to vote for. We found Labour and UKIP voters but I only met 2 Tories but the real significant find was the number of ‘don’t knows’ we found, in general many of these were planning to vote UKIP. They told us they had felt let down or ignored by both Labour and the Tories so they felt drawn to UKIP, there was also the issue of immigration, it seems to me that in many coastal towns in the east from Ramsgate to Hull. Immigration is a much bigger issue to them than it is when you move further inland. UKIP would have expected to have taken most of their votes but for these voters they now feel confused, they would never vote Tory and Carswell is still seen as a Tory and not many had a good word to say about him, many agreed with his anti Europe stance but it was obvious from talking to residents that Carswell has never seen as an MP who would spend much time talking to and looking after the interests of residents in Rush Green, Jaywick or some of the older parts of the town.
Not the sort of view you would have had of Carswell if you had watched or read the first media reports from Clacton, from those first reports you would have thought he was ‘Mr Clacton’ but from talking to voters today he is more ‘Mr Frinton’ or Mr Holland on Sea’ than ‘Mr Clacton’.
My guesstimate of the Clacton election result – a win for UKIP but with Labour also increasing their vote even pushing the Tories for second and the Lib Dems? I would expect the Lib Dems to lose their deposit – again.
I hope to get to Clacton again, there are certainly many voters who planned tp vote UKIP that now feel betrayed by having Carswell forced upon them. This gives us in Labour a great opportunity to talk to these voters, to show we have not forgotten them and that we are the best party to fight for them.
Vote Tim Young
Sunday, 7 September 2014
My week ahead, 8 - 14 September 2014
Monday – 8 September, 4pm – Culture portfolio meeting
6pm – Labour campaigning West Ipswich
Thursday – 11 September, 10am Labour campaigning in NW Ipswich
6pm – Scrutiny meeting
Saturday 13 September, 10am – Labour campaigning in East Ipswich
Sunday 14 September, 11am – Labour campaigning in Clacton
We continue to campaign hard in Ipswich as we get closer to the General Election but this week we will also take a trip to Essex to campaign for our Labour candidate in Clacton.. The Labour candidate, Tim Young is well known to us in Ipswich, a Colchester councillor but raised in Clacton and also an Ipswich Town fan.
The Clacton campaign does seem like no other campaign seen at a by-election before.
Tory MP now the UKIP candidate, the former UKIP candidate now giving up his County Council seat and declaring his support for the (pro Europe) Lib Dems, and just to muddy the water the right wing press willing to attack all candidates other than Carswell as they seem determined to get the story they are after which is a UKIP win (on Camerons birthday!)
Funny old game, politics! But I am sure we will have a good day on the doorstep when we head off to Essex to support Tim.
6pm – Labour campaigning West Ipswich
Thursday – 11 September, 10am Labour campaigning in NW Ipswich
6pm – Scrutiny meeting
Saturday 13 September, 10am – Labour campaigning in East Ipswich
Sunday 14 September, 11am – Labour campaigning in Clacton
We continue to campaign hard in Ipswich as we get closer to the General Election but this week we will also take a trip to Essex to campaign for our Labour candidate in Clacton.. The Labour candidate, Tim Young is well known to us in Ipswich, a Colchester councillor but raised in Clacton and also an Ipswich Town fan.
The Clacton campaign does seem like no other campaign seen at a by-election before.
Tory MP now the UKIP candidate, the former UKIP candidate now giving up his County Council seat and declaring his support for the (pro Europe) Lib Dems, and just to muddy the water the right wing press willing to attack all candidates other than Carswell as they seem determined to get the story they are after which is a UKIP win (on Camerons birthday!)
Funny old game, politics! But I am sure we will have a good day on the doorstep when we head off to Essex to support Tim.
Saturday, 30 August 2014
What a week in politics - exciting, sad and even depressing
What a week in politics – at times it has been exciting, sad, depressing has made me angry and also made me want to keep fighting. And still over 8 months to the General Election!
My thoughts on a few of the topics that have popped up this week and quite often you can see a link in all of them – from the independence debate in Scotland, to Islamic extremism here in the UK and in the Middle East, the rise of UKIP, how the child exploitation scandal was handled in Rotherham, the failure of the PCC and lastly the increase in the terrorist threat – is it real?
I have taken a great interest in the Scottish independence election, not surprising with so much Scottish blood in me but also because I believe in the United Kingdom and as a Labour supporter it is important for us to stay as one. On my travels in the army in particular in the Balkans – I have seen how bloody and also pointless have been some of these fights for independence/separation, I never thought we would have that same sort of battle in Scotland but it seems the campaign has got very nasty and social media seems to have been the weapon of choice, something I can see repeating itself in the election here next May.
Jim Murphy who i like and have met has been touring Scotland on his ‘100 streets tour’ but that has to be curtailed as over the last two weeks there has been a noticeable campaign by the SNP/ ‘Yes’ group to make sure that wherever Jim turns up he is met by ‘Yes’ supporters. Nothing wrong with that even here in Ipswich we had Mr Gummer turning up at a sure start centre to tell Mrs Harman she was lying over Tory plans to close children’s centres (bet he wish he had stayed at home now!!!) but in Scotland it has been more sinister, with a journalist threatened with violence, eggs thrown and ‘no’ supporters intimidated this was made worse by a quite pathetic apology from the SNP. You can see the SNP/No campaign type activity going down quite well with a few of the ‘name calling’ Tory activists in Ipswich.
This leads on how do we deal with Islamic extremism in the UK, It is about working closer with all our different community groups but also not being afraid to comment and act if we thinks something is going wrong- this did not happen in Rotherham. But we also need to look closer at the people who are going off to fight in Syria and also the sort of men involved in the crimes in Rotherham. Young, isolated, feel picked on, pressure from their own community not to forget their own culture, widespread gang culture- drink and drugs, poor housing, fee job prospects – all these factors are causes of what can lead young men and women to head off to Syria but also to get involved in gangs in Rotherham, Rochdale or Oxford.
But the failure of the police and councils to act in places like Rotherham helps fuel the rise of far right groups like the EDL but also groups like UKIP. There is no doubt that UKIP will take votes off Labour in the north and Mr Farage will go on about this and how they are the ‘peoples party’ whilst we will try and convince the voters that they are just Tories in different suits, and that case was certainly helped by the defection of Tory and Clacton MP, Douglas Carswell to UKIP this week. It was at first a great success for Farage but the coup soon unravelled as the former UKIP candidate refused to vanish and has even said he will now fight for the Tories. We now find out that UKIP have little electoral data on Clacton as there was some sort of pact with Carswell in 2010! Farage also called Carswell ‘honourable’ for resigning his seat – so all the previous defectors to UKIP were ‘dishonourable’? last night a leading Tory in Sevenoaks followed Carswell into UKIP but he will not resign his seat as the by-election would be a waste of tax payers money – how much does he think the election in Clacton will cost? So from being a big coup the defection of Carswell has just highlighted that at the top of UKIP you still just have a bunch of euro sceptic Tories.
Going back to crimes in Rotherham, it is only right that those in authority at the time stand down –elected councillors plus Council officers and police. We have seen some Labour councillors’ resign, a few officers but some hang on and even worse have other jobs involved in child protection both here in the UK and even in places like Australia.
The South Yorkshire PCC has refused to stand down not only over the failings of his police force but also because before he was PCC he was the councillor responsible for children’s services in Rotherham. He has left the Labour Party but clings on to his (well paid) PCC job.
This yet again highlights how ill thought out the whole post of PCC was, you can even be jailed and still keep the job! This was not some rushed in act to elect PCCs, this was a policy the Tories had worked on in opposition. We do not want to go back to the almost invisible ‘Police Authorities’ but I think Labour should announce soon that as of May 2016 the PCC post will be replace with a far better system of running the police force.
South Yorkshire Police may also need to be placed into ‘special measures’ the same force that failed in Rotherham, the same force so badly implicated in the Hillsborough disaster – time for big changes in that force.
Finally we have the raising of the terrorist threat state, is this needed? I am afraid even though I am involved in politics (at a low level) i wonder if the threat has been raised by Cameron, Clegg and May for political reasons. Is the threat any higher now in the UK say compared to the height of the troubles in Ireland? We have talk of removing passports from suspects- is that so difficult- the police have been taking passports off football fans for over 20 years. I am afraid it seems more a case of political posturing rather than acting on any form of intelligence.
Let us hope next week is slightly more peaceful so we can concentrate on local issues, on building houses, developing the Northern Fringe and campaigning to keep children’s centres open in Suffolk.
My thoughts on a few of the topics that have popped up this week and quite often you can see a link in all of them – from the independence debate in Scotland, to Islamic extremism here in the UK and in the Middle East, the rise of UKIP, how the child exploitation scandal was handled in Rotherham, the failure of the PCC and lastly the increase in the terrorist threat – is it real?
I have taken a great interest in the Scottish independence election, not surprising with so much Scottish blood in me but also because I believe in the United Kingdom and as a Labour supporter it is important for us to stay as one. On my travels in the army in particular in the Balkans – I have seen how bloody and also pointless have been some of these fights for independence/separation, I never thought we would have that same sort of battle in Scotland but it seems the campaign has got very nasty and social media seems to have been the weapon of choice, something I can see repeating itself in the election here next May.
Jim Murphy who i like and have met has been touring Scotland on his ‘100 streets tour’ but that has to be curtailed as over the last two weeks there has been a noticeable campaign by the SNP/ ‘Yes’ group to make sure that wherever Jim turns up he is met by ‘Yes’ supporters. Nothing wrong with that even here in Ipswich we had Mr Gummer turning up at a sure start centre to tell Mrs Harman she was lying over Tory plans to close children’s centres (bet he wish he had stayed at home now!!!) but in Scotland it has been more sinister, with a journalist threatened with violence, eggs thrown and ‘no’ supporters intimidated this was made worse by a quite pathetic apology from the SNP. You can see the SNP/No campaign type activity going down quite well with a few of the ‘name calling’ Tory activists in Ipswich.
This leads on how do we deal with Islamic extremism in the UK, It is about working closer with all our different community groups but also not being afraid to comment and act if we thinks something is going wrong- this did not happen in Rotherham. But we also need to look closer at the people who are going off to fight in Syria and also the sort of men involved in the crimes in Rotherham. Young, isolated, feel picked on, pressure from their own community not to forget their own culture, widespread gang culture- drink and drugs, poor housing, fee job prospects – all these factors are causes of what can lead young men and women to head off to Syria but also to get involved in gangs in Rotherham, Rochdale or Oxford.
But the failure of the police and councils to act in places like Rotherham helps fuel the rise of far right groups like the EDL but also groups like UKIP. There is no doubt that UKIP will take votes off Labour in the north and Mr Farage will go on about this and how they are the ‘peoples party’ whilst we will try and convince the voters that they are just Tories in different suits, and that case was certainly helped by the defection of Tory and Clacton MP, Douglas Carswell to UKIP this week. It was at first a great success for Farage but the coup soon unravelled as the former UKIP candidate refused to vanish and has even said he will now fight for the Tories. We now find out that UKIP have little electoral data on Clacton as there was some sort of pact with Carswell in 2010! Farage also called Carswell ‘honourable’ for resigning his seat – so all the previous defectors to UKIP were ‘dishonourable’? last night a leading Tory in Sevenoaks followed Carswell into UKIP but he will not resign his seat as the by-election would be a waste of tax payers money – how much does he think the election in Clacton will cost? So from being a big coup the defection of Carswell has just highlighted that at the top of UKIP you still just have a bunch of euro sceptic Tories.
Going back to crimes in Rotherham, it is only right that those in authority at the time stand down –elected councillors plus Council officers and police. We have seen some Labour councillors’ resign, a few officers but some hang on and even worse have other jobs involved in child protection both here in the UK and even in places like Australia.
The South Yorkshire PCC has refused to stand down not only over the failings of his police force but also because before he was PCC he was the councillor responsible for children’s services in Rotherham. He has left the Labour Party but clings on to his (well paid) PCC job.
This yet again highlights how ill thought out the whole post of PCC was, you can even be jailed and still keep the job! This was not some rushed in act to elect PCCs, this was a policy the Tories had worked on in opposition. We do not want to go back to the almost invisible ‘Police Authorities’ but I think Labour should announce soon that as of May 2016 the PCC post will be replace with a far better system of running the police force.
South Yorkshire Police may also need to be placed into ‘special measures’ the same force that failed in Rotherham, the same force so badly implicated in the Hillsborough disaster – time for big changes in that force.
Finally we have the raising of the terrorist threat state, is this needed? I am afraid even though I am involved in politics (at a low level) i wonder if the threat has been raised by Cameron, Clegg and May for political reasons. Is the threat any higher now in the UK say compared to the height of the troubles in Ireland? We have talk of removing passports from suspects- is that so difficult- the police have been taking passports off football fans for over 20 years. I am afraid it seems more a case of political posturing rather than acting on any form of intelligence.
Let us hope next week is slightly more peaceful so we can concentrate on local issues, on building houses, developing the Northern Fringe and campaigning to keep children’s centres open in Suffolk.
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