Monday 23 February, 5pm – Suffolk Police briefing on job cuts
6pm – Labour Group meeting
Wednesday 25 February, 10am - Northgate Foundation meeting
6pm – Ipswich Borough Full Council Meeting, Town Hall
Thursday 26 February, 7pm – Charity quiz night hosted by the Mayor of Ipswich
Saturday 28 February, 10am – Labour Campaigning – ‘National Campaigning Day’ – SE Ipswich
Sunday 1 March, 11am – Labour Campaigning – SW Ipswich
Thais week we have Full Council, when we vote on our budget proposals. Not a surprise that the Tories have put in an amendment to our motion. Their ‘mantra’ continues to be ‘0% Council Tax rise – no matter the consequences for local services’.
More interesting will be the behaviour of the remaining three Lib Dem councillors. I would not be surprised if at least two of them support the Tories; at each meeting I attend they become more like ‘yellow’ Tories and further from the Liberal ideals that they are supposed to adhere to!
The Tory amendment does not seem to be the car crash it was last year, which saw their leader lose his job, abstentions and votes against and non-appearance at the meeting of their (at the time) deputy leader of their current leader.
It may not be a car crash but it is obvious to many that their amendment hinges on changes to area committee funding, that (secretively) many of them do not agree with.
So expect another ‘posturing’ performance from Cllr Cenci, as she attempts to base her amendment on changes that many of her group do not agree with. But with each meeting that we attend it seems more about her than the good of Ipswich – bit like having Judy Terry back
Showing posts with label Full Council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Full Council. Show all posts
Sunday, 22 February 2015
Sunday, 8 December 2013
My week ahead, 9 - 15 December 2013
Monday – 9 December, 6pm – Labour Group meeting
Tuesday – 10 December, 1pm – Labour Friends of the Forces, meeting at the Shadow Cabinet room, Houses of Parliament
Wednesday 11 December, 5pm – Briefing by the Cabinet Office on electoral registration reforms
Thursday 12 December, 6pm – Area Committee Chairs meeting
Friday 13 December, 7pm – Labour Christmas Party, Roundwood Bowls Club
Saturday 14 December, 10am – Labour campaigning, South West Ipswich
There has been plenty written on the blogosphere and in the local paper about the cancellation of the Full Council meeting in Ipswich this week. Both Ipswich Spy and the local paper were critical of the cancellation, with ‘Spy’ giving it as yet another example of the real deficit in democracy in Ipswich and Suffolk.
But within a day the criticism turned on the weak opposition in Ipswich, the administration were right to cancel the meeting as there was no urgent business, as you can see from above there is still plenty for councillors to do and though the council meeting is cancelled we still have an important meeting the same day for all councillors about electoral registration. That for me is the real concern about democracy, that changes to electoral registration that are proposed to help reduce electoral fraud may also lead to even more residents not being able to vote,making them feel even further away from the democratic system in this country.
Whilst on the Suffolk County Council, the Labour opposition are well organised, highly motivated as so are holding the Tory Council to account in Ipswich the Tories (and their former Lib Dem partners) are just an embarrassment at times, group discipline is certainly not something they know about and there seems to be as many factions as there are Tory councillors. The Lib Dems just seem to spend all their time attempting to erase from history that they used to help run the council and agreed to building on the Northern Fringe. This week we had a Lib Dem complaining that they no longer have a group room. Forgetting to mention that she was on the executive when they came up with the plan to get rid of group rooms!
We would welcome not only a strong opposition but councillors who would like to get involved in working groups, task and finish groups, but the Tories seem to think being in opposition just gives them an excuse to turn up for Full council and that is about it. This week a Housing Working Group was marked again by the absence of Tory members.
Where we would welcome strong opposition, the Suffolk Tories fear it and more decision will be taken by the executive as they fear that their own County Councillors may fail to turn up to vote in the meeting. A recent Tory Cabinet meeting saw almost the whole Labour Group in attendance- striking more fear into Mr Bee.
But there are examples of councils being scared of democracy beyond Suffolk, this week in Kent the Tory Council published a report on the effects that welfare changes are having on Kent residents. The Tory leader, Cllr Carter had signed the report but obviously had not read it till it was on line. The report stated that welfare changes were leading to more homelessness, more crime and more people using foodbanks.
No wonder the Tories quickly ordered the report to be removed; unfortunately a local Kent Paper made a copy before they took it down. Maybe Kent County Council should be with Tory run Suffolk. Read details on the report here.
Tuesday – 10 December, 1pm – Labour Friends of the Forces, meeting at the Shadow Cabinet room, Houses of Parliament
Wednesday 11 December, 5pm – Briefing by the Cabinet Office on electoral registration reforms
Thursday 12 December, 6pm – Area Committee Chairs meeting
Friday 13 December, 7pm – Labour Christmas Party, Roundwood Bowls Club
Saturday 14 December, 10am – Labour campaigning, South West Ipswich
There has been plenty written on the blogosphere and in the local paper about the cancellation of the Full Council meeting in Ipswich this week. Both Ipswich Spy and the local paper were critical of the cancellation, with ‘Spy’ giving it as yet another example of the real deficit in democracy in Ipswich and Suffolk.
But within a day the criticism turned on the weak opposition in Ipswich, the administration were right to cancel the meeting as there was no urgent business, as you can see from above there is still plenty for councillors to do and though the council meeting is cancelled we still have an important meeting the same day for all councillors about electoral registration. That for me is the real concern about democracy, that changes to electoral registration that are proposed to help reduce electoral fraud may also lead to even more residents not being able to vote,making them feel even further away from the democratic system in this country.
Whilst on the Suffolk County Council, the Labour opposition are well organised, highly motivated as so are holding the Tory Council to account in Ipswich the Tories (and their former Lib Dem partners) are just an embarrassment at times, group discipline is certainly not something they know about and there seems to be as many factions as there are Tory councillors. The Lib Dems just seem to spend all their time attempting to erase from history that they used to help run the council and agreed to building on the Northern Fringe. This week we had a Lib Dem complaining that they no longer have a group room. Forgetting to mention that she was on the executive when they came up with the plan to get rid of group rooms!
We would welcome not only a strong opposition but councillors who would like to get involved in working groups, task and finish groups, but the Tories seem to think being in opposition just gives them an excuse to turn up for Full council and that is about it. This week a Housing Working Group was marked again by the absence of Tory members.
Where we would welcome strong opposition, the Suffolk Tories fear it and more decision will be taken by the executive as they fear that their own County Councillors may fail to turn up to vote in the meeting. A recent Tory Cabinet meeting saw almost the whole Labour Group in attendance- striking more fear into Mr Bee.
But there are examples of councils being scared of democracy beyond Suffolk, this week in Kent the Tory Council published a report on the effects that welfare changes are having on Kent residents. The Tory leader, Cllr Carter had signed the report but obviously had not read it till it was on line. The report stated that welfare changes were leading to more homelessness, more crime and more people using foodbanks.
No wonder the Tories quickly ordered the report to be removed; unfortunately a local Kent Paper made a copy before they took it down. Maybe Kent County Council should be with Tory run Suffolk. Read details on the report here.
Sunday, 22 September 2013
My week ahead, 23 - 28 September 2013
Monday 23 September, 6pm – Labour campaigning, East Ipswich
Tuesday 24 September, 5pm – Sidegate Primary School, Steering group
Saturday 28 September, 10am – Labour campaigning, South West Ipswich
A not so busy week as the main two political party’s join the conference season. So it gives us the chance to campaign in our part of town.
This week we will be out collecting signatures for a petition asking Suffolk County Council to change their mind about their refusal to subsidise a bus service in the East of the town. We will also be informing residents about the public meeting to be held next month at St Clements Hospital. The meeting will hear about the latest plans to turn the site into a large scale housing development. The meeting has been organised and will be hosted by the North East Area Committee.
This is the second public meeting that the Area Committees have organised after one was held in the South West about wind farms. The ability of area committees to be able to organise these meeting is just one more example where area committees are far more beneficial to residents than the old area forums.
We held a very successful Area Committee in the North East this week, we managed to agree to fund a number of projects, but what was more of a surprise (after previous meetings) was how all the councillors agreed on most subjects and even if views differed were willing to listen to others and come up with a compromise. So at St John’s we had held a meeting which was very different in its feel to the Full Council meeting held the night before. At Full Council we had a series of very poor questions from both Tory councillors and Tory activists. Such questions included should we let Bury St Edmunds be the County town and why is Ipswich closed on a Monday. Other questions were just repeats of questions already asked (and answered) at both Scrutiny and Human Resources. I am sure that the Tories soon realised that the questions they were asking were both poorly researched and in many cases meaningless. They were also not very clear and in most cases the Labour front bencher had to use his first answer to ask the opposition to explain the meaning of the question! I am sure the tone of questioning may have led to Cllr Pope reacting in the way he did when he was pulled up about his spelling. Richard Pope quickly informed us all that in fact he had dyslexia, this was the first we had heard of this and of course if we had known beforehand we would have not highlighted the spelling errors. I know that Cllr Jones has since apologised to Cllr Pope.
But you do wonder why the Tory questions are not checked by the Leader of the Tory group in the first place. The comment on bad spelling and then the revelation that Cllr Pope suffered from dyslexia was not handled well by all sides but was certainly blown out of all proportion by Cllr Cenci and her ‘attention seeking’ walk out. Best thing was once she left all other council business went very smoothly with the opposition happy to second a number of Labour proposals. The following day at the Area Committee, Cllr Pope was very involved in all aspects of the meeting and his views and comments were all of high quality and I for one took on board a number of his points. Then again I feel the North East area meeting was far more productive than normal due to the absence of Cllr Judy Terry – her not being their made the meeting run much smoother in fact her absence had the similar effect that Cllr Cenci had when she walked out of Full Council!
Tuesday 24 September, 5pm – Sidegate Primary School, Steering group
Saturday 28 September, 10am – Labour campaigning, South West Ipswich
A not so busy week as the main two political party’s join the conference season. So it gives us the chance to campaign in our part of town.
This week we will be out collecting signatures for a petition asking Suffolk County Council to change their mind about their refusal to subsidise a bus service in the East of the town. We will also be informing residents about the public meeting to be held next month at St Clements Hospital. The meeting will hear about the latest plans to turn the site into a large scale housing development. The meeting has been organised and will be hosted by the North East Area Committee.
This is the second public meeting that the Area Committees have organised after one was held in the South West about wind farms. The ability of area committees to be able to organise these meeting is just one more example where area committees are far more beneficial to residents than the old area forums.
We held a very successful Area Committee in the North East this week, we managed to agree to fund a number of projects, but what was more of a surprise (after previous meetings) was how all the councillors agreed on most subjects and even if views differed were willing to listen to others and come up with a compromise. So at St John’s we had held a meeting which was very different in its feel to the Full Council meeting held the night before. At Full Council we had a series of very poor questions from both Tory councillors and Tory activists. Such questions included should we let Bury St Edmunds be the County town and why is Ipswich closed on a Monday. Other questions were just repeats of questions already asked (and answered) at both Scrutiny and Human Resources. I am sure that the Tories soon realised that the questions they were asking were both poorly researched and in many cases meaningless. They were also not very clear and in most cases the Labour front bencher had to use his first answer to ask the opposition to explain the meaning of the question! I am sure the tone of questioning may have led to Cllr Pope reacting in the way he did when he was pulled up about his spelling. Richard Pope quickly informed us all that in fact he had dyslexia, this was the first we had heard of this and of course if we had known beforehand we would have not highlighted the spelling errors. I know that Cllr Jones has since apologised to Cllr Pope.
But you do wonder why the Tory questions are not checked by the Leader of the Tory group in the first place. The comment on bad spelling and then the revelation that Cllr Pope suffered from dyslexia was not handled well by all sides but was certainly blown out of all proportion by Cllr Cenci and her ‘attention seeking’ walk out. Best thing was once she left all other council business went very smoothly with the opposition happy to second a number of Labour proposals. The following day at the Area Committee, Cllr Pope was very involved in all aspects of the meeting and his views and comments were all of high quality and I for one took on board a number of his points. Then again I feel the North East area meeting was far more productive than normal due to the absence of Cllr Judy Terry – her not being their made the meeting run much smoother in fact her absence had the similar effect that Cllr Cenci had when she walked out of Full Council!
Sunday, 15 September 2013
My week ahead, 16 - 21 September 2013
Monday 16 September, 6pm – Labour Group Meeting
Wednesday 18 September, 6pm – Ipswich Borough Full Council meeting, Ipswich Corn Exchange
Thursday 19 September, 6pm – North East Ipswich Partnership Group meeting
7pm – North East Area Committee meeting, St John’s Church, Cauldwell Hall Rd
Saturday 21 September, 10am – Labour campaigning, South East Ipswich
It may be the start of the Party conference season 9if you can still count the Lib Dems as a party) but it is till busy back here in Ipswich, on Wednesday we have Full Council and Thursday our latest North East Area committee meeting.
All the talk this week has been about the Town Centre with both the competition the design a revamped Corn Hill and the view of consultants that we should concentrate on the Westgate end of town and decide that both the Mint and Merchant quarter are not suitable for retail alone. I for one have always been sceptical about linking the town centre and the Waterfront, but no surprise to find the local paper and Ben Gummer still keen on linking the two (the main development in the Merchant Quarter is based on the sale of the Archant offices. Slightly more surprising was the negative response of Ipswich Central.
We can all argue about which scheme we should focus on but I would expect all those involved to agree that we need to concentrate on just one scheme rather than 3 or 4.
Here in the North East we have our own potential new development with the NHS submitting a planning application for the St Clement’s site – we have been expecting this for a while and I am sure it will be a topic at this week’s area committee.
Wednesday 18 September, 6pm – Ipswich Borough Full Council meeting, Ipswich Corn Exchange
Thursday 19 September, 6pm – North East Ipswich Partnership Group meeting
7pm – North East Area Committee meeting, St John’s Church, Cauldwell Hall Rd
Saturday 21 September, 10am – Labour campaigning, South East Ipswich
It may be the start of the Party conference season 9if you can still count the Lib Dems as a party) but it is till busy back here in Ipswich, on Wednesday we have Full Council and Thursday our latest North East Area committee meeting.
All the talk this week has been about the Town Centre with both the competition the design a revamped Corn Hill and the view of consultants that we should concentrate on the Westgate end of town and decide that both the Mint and Merchant quarter are not suitable for retail alone. I for one have always been sceptical about linking the town centre and the Waterfront, but no surprise to find the local paper and Ben Gummer still keen on linking the two (the main development in the Merchant Quarter is based on the sale of the Archant offices. Slightly more surprising was the negative response of Ipswich Central.
We can all argue about which scheme we should focus on but I would expect all those involved to agree that we need to concentrate on just one scheme rather than 3 or 4.
Here in the North East we have our own potential new development with the NHS submitting a planning application for the St Clement’s site – we have been expecting this for a while and I am sure it will be a topic at this week’s area committee.
Sunday, 24 February 2013
My week ahead 25 February - 2 March 2013
Monday 25 February, 4pm – Culture portfolio meeting
6pm – Labour Group meeting
Wednesday 27 February, 6pm – Ipswich Borough Full Council meeting
Thursday 28 February, 5pm – North East Ipswich Area committee, agenda setting meeting
Saturday 2 March, 10.30am – Labour campaigning in East Ipswich
On Wednesday we have Full council where the Council tax rate will be set for 13/14 – expect a very heated debate but we will stick to what we were elected to do – save and protect front line services. The Tories will go on about how the county have not only not raised their part of the council tax but also promised to cap it for the next 4 years. Just a blatant piece of electioneering – how do they even know what central Government is going to grant them next year – let alone in 4 years’ time.
The Tory Police and Crime Commissioner has also frozen the police part of the tax, even though the outgoing Tory run Police Authority proposed a rise – Mr Passmore just decided to spend all the reserves – what is he going to do next year?
Tories may also point to the other district councils in Suffolk who have also frozen their part of the tax, but many of those same Tory councillors have agreed to raise the Parish council part of the tax – and of course we have no Parish councils in Ipswich to use in this way.
How each party gets the message over after Wednesday may help decide the election fortunes of the three main groups come May.
6pm – Labour Group meeting
Wednesday 27 February, 6pm – Ipswich Borough Full Council meeting
Thursday 28 February, 5pm – North East Ipswich Area committee, agenda setting meeting
Saturday 2 March, 10.30am – Labour campaigning in East Ipswich
On Wednesday we have Full council where the Council tax rate will be set for 13/14 – expect a very heated debate but we will stick to what we were elected to do – save and protect front line services. The Tories will go on about how the county have not only not raised their part of the council tax but also promised to cap it for the next 4 years. Just a blatant piece of electioneering – how do they even know what central Government is going to grant them next year – let alone in 4 years’ time.
The Tory Police and Crime Commissioner has also frozen the police part of the tax, even though the outgoing Tory run Police Authority proposed a rise – Mr Passmore just decided to spend all the reserves – what is he going to do next year?
Tories may also point to the other district councils in Suffolk who have also frozen their part of the tax, but many of those same Tory councillors have agreed to raise the Parish council part of the tax – and of course we have no Parish councils in Ipswich to use in this way.
How each party gets the message over after Wednesday may help decide the election fortunes of the three main groups come May.
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