My week ahead, 1 - 6 February 2016

Monday 1 February - 6pm, Labour Group campaigning

Wednesday 2 February – 9am, Media and communications meeting

Thursday 4 February – 1pm, Visit to Sidegate Primary Specialist Support Centre

Saturday 5 February - 10am, Labour campaigning in South West Ipswich

Yesterday it was nice to be back campaigning in Rushmere, collecting signatures for a petition that will attempt to force the County Tories to debate their proposed cuts to the Fire Service at Full Council, for some reason the Tories are not keen to allow even their own backbenchers a say in the future of the fire service.

One resident in Brunswick Rd asked me what does Ben Gummer (our Tory MP) think of the proposed cuts – a good question but all i could answer is ‘don’t know’ as Ben Gummer would rather use his weekly paper column to discuss ‘public art’ than the cuts forced on us by a Tory Council.

But it is not just the Fire Service that the Tories wish to cut, today I received an invitation to our local primary school – Sidegate Primary who face having their specialist support centre closed, the second time the Tories have attempted to close it. Will Ben Gummer comment on this cut?

I would not hold your breath waiting – I believe it is the role of any politician, national or local to keep residents/constituents not only informed of local issues but also to tell the voters where they stand on important national and international issues.

Ben Gummer, allegedly a pro-Europe MP, still has not used his weekly paper column to inform us if he thinks we are better off in or out of Europe, he may use the excuse of not being able to campaign till David Cameron allows Ministers to. But many Ministers have made it clear where they stand. So whilst Mr Gummer remains silent, we do get the opinions of Ipswich Tory councillors and activists, I say opinions, more like Right wing anti EU rants ( here and here). So if even if Mr Gummer will not tell the Ipswich public his views on Europe, he might be advised to at least put his own Tory members right on the facts about the benefits of membership of the EU!

My week ahead, 25 - 30 January 2016

Monday 25 January - 6pm, Labour Group meeting

Wednesday 27 January - 6pm, Ipswich Borough, Full Council meeting

Thursday 28 January - 7pm, North East Ipswich Labour meeting, speaker from the Refugee support centre - Old Times Guest House, Cauldwell Hall Rd

Friday 29 January - 8am, Culture portfolio meeting

Saturday 30 January - 10am, Labour campaigning in Rushmere Ward


A fine sunny Saturday and great to join 20 other Ipswich Labour members back on the doorstep, we have been campaigning all year but now their is an added bounce in our step as we start to focus on the elections in May (with a possible Euro referendum in June also on our minds).

Yesterday we were in North West Ipswich, and as well as canvassing we were also collecting signatures for our joint campaign with the FBU to stop the savage Tory cuts to our fire service.

I got an interesting response on the doorstep and one that highlights a problem Labour has got nationally. Everyone was keen to sign our petition against the Tory cuts to our fire service, even Tory voters and that is the issue. Many people are happy to vote Tory in the General Election are are very unhappy with the Tory County Council and would not want a Tory run Borough Council. What they seem to be unaware of or happy to ignore is the fact that many of the proposed cuts are due to the way the Tory Government are slashing funding to local councils.

I can understand their concerns about the Tories taking control in Ipswich - they would look to freeze council tax (even if the Tory Government is expecting councils to now raise council tax by 2%) so without Government support a Tory council in Ipswich could lead to the closing of sports centres, swimming pools, cuts to to grants to local charities and a start to charging for your bins.

What we have to do as the Labour party is to persuade voters that they can trust a Labour run Government just like they already trust Labour Councils over Tory run administrations.

This week we also saw one more Ben Gummer column where there is no mention of Europe - with a possible referendum under 6 months away, is it not about time our MP tells his constituents if he wishes us to stay in Europe?

My week ahead, 4 - 10 January 2016

Monday 4 January, 7am – Labour campaigning

4pm - Culture Portfolio meeting

7pm – Labour Group campaigning

Wednesday 6 January, Culture working group

Friday 8 January, Lecture to Public Service students at Suffolk New College

Saturday 9 January, 10am – Labour campaigning in the town centre

For many work in 2016 will start tomorrow and many will start their day by using a train, our Tory MP, Ben Gummer has banged on about the great improvements that he and his fellow Tory MPs from Witham and Norwich have provided for us on our local railways – what a load of rubbish – most of us have just seen the system get worse but fares increase.

It has become obvious for many that all Mr Gummer is really interested in is the Ipswich-London line, the cry of ‘Norwich in 90 and Ipswich in 60’ but in fact tat will just mean a worse service for those who just want to travel to Colchester or Chelmsford, maybe Mr Gummer is becoming more like the former Tory MP for South Suffolk – Tim Yeo and just more interested in making it back to London as fast as he can?

What i think most commuters and occasional passengers would rather have is a guaranteed Ipswich to London in 75 minutes but with a clean train, seat, wif-fi and maybe a buffet.

Yet again yesterday there were no trains between Ipswich and Felixstowe, but if it is not going to London, Mr Gummer does not seem interested – actually I maybe wrong as he was keen on the varsity line for Cambridge to Oxford , but not sure how it will help those of us in Ipswich when the Ipswich to Cambridge line is so slow. We have also not seen the promised improvements to the Ipswich – Peterborough service, an important link to trains to the Midlands and the North East. Only a few weeks ago we had no trains on that line but thankfully Tory MP for Suffolk Coastal did give her constituents the advice that they could o go via Cambridge! A tweet that indicates how out of touch Therese Coffey is with her constituents, at least it was a tweet giving some sort of advice as most of her tweets seem to be written by Tory HQ (something she has in common with Mr Gummer).

It might not be all pain sailing for Mr Gummer on his rail crusade, the latest franchise deal was thrown into chaos when one of the bidders pulled out of a joint bid and the new MP for South Suffolk may have realised that ‘Ipswich in 60’ may not mean a better service for his constituents, who in fact may see less trains from places like Marks Tey an important junction for many from South of the county.

Mr Gummer mentioned the railways and the town centre in his ‘New Year’ message but no mention of Europe – strange when it now seems that Mr Cameron may even want to go to the country with the Euro referendum in the Summer. I believe Mr Gummer is pro the EU but we hear nothing from him whilst the local Tory Leader is anti EU and one of their candidates for the local elections in May even blamed the flooding in the North of England of Europe. So I for one think it is about time our MP tells us his constituents what his views e on Europe and the EU referendum .

My week ahead, 7 - 12 December 2015

Monday 7 December, 4pm – NE Agenda setting meeting

6pm – Labour campaigning

Tuesday 8 December, 6pm – Audit Committee

Wednesday 9 December, 10am – Planning Committee

6pm – Early Warning Group

Thursday 10 December, 6pm – Area Committee Chair’s meeting

Friday 11 December, 11am - Opening of Barnes Square , with members of the Barnes family and soldiers from 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment
6pm – Ipswich Labour Christmas Party

This week we have our last surge of council meetings before the Christmas break, there will also be a good opportunity to meet Labour members and discuss our plans for 2016.

There is no hiding from the fact that the last few months have been very difficult for the Labour Party and there are a number of internal battles within our ‘broad church’ and i will be blogging about those battles and discussions over the next few months.

But whilst the party may be split on an number of topics the Tories are not having a great time themselves, climb downs on police cuts and Tax Credit cuts are two examples where they have not been in step with the public.

On Saturday it was great to join Labour comrades campaigning in North East Ipswich, I found myself with our Suffolk group leader, Sandy Martin. We ended up in Britannia Road collecting signatures for our joint petition with the Fire Brigade Union to try and stop the savage cuts being imposed on our Suffolk Fire Service by the Tory run County Council. What we found was quite interesting, residents were very keen to sign the petition and also talk about other concerns, with the main topic being the cuts now facing Suffolk Police that are being imposed by our Tory Police and Crime Commissioner.

In brief residents did not mention once to me;

1.         Jeremy Corbyn – good or bad points

2.         Syria (surpisingly)

3.         Railways

4.         Town Centre

5.         Europe – in or out

What they did mention, and often in long conversations;

1.         Cuts to Fire Service

2.         Planned cuts to Police, lack of PCSOs and why do we have so many senior Police officers

3.         Threat to NHS

4.         Poor education results in Ipswich

So that may be a foretaste of what the May election will be about, but there is no doubt that by May we may find Europe ripping the Tory Party apart, on Friday the Tory ant- Europe group were out at Ipswich railway station. Unless you recognised the people you would have found it hard to realise they were a Tory run group- they wore uniformed red t shirts and there leaflet, was anti EU but the leaflets said leaving EU was the best way to save the NHS, not sure many of those present were in truth great defenders of the NHS!

Good to see that almost all Labour MPs and the whole Front Bench have signed up for the Pro Europe campaign that will have the indomitable Alan Johnson as our lead. I am also pleased we will be running our own Labour campaign not a joint one with any other pro Europe group. But you do wonder if the Tories have any pro-Europe group, we believe Cameron, Osborne and Ben Gummer are pro Europe but there is no evidence in Ipswich that Gummer has had much luck encouraging his own Ipswich Tories to join him, as the Ipswich Tory leader seems like many of the local activists very keen for us to opt out. No wonder the Tory Vote Out campaign thought Ipswich would be a good place to start their campaign! Wonder if they told Ben they were coming (the Tory Vote Out and Ben Gummer campaign seemed very similar – railway station venue, bright t shirts (change of colours) and giving out leaflets but not really wanting to talk to residents.