We were defeated but we must not be defeatist

Still less than a week since the election and I am still angry, sad, slightly confused and deflated- we were defeated both here in Ipswich and nationally but we must not become defeatist.
We will now have that horrible period (which Labour seems very good at) of blaming each other and making the next leadership campaign one of left v right, ‘Blairite v Brown’ or stronger links to the Union or scrapping any sort of connection to unions.

I for one wanted Ed to stay on, to hold Cameron to task whilst we could have a long leadership campaign that not only chooses a new leader but sets out the direction the party needs to go.
But why did we lose? It was not down to either a lack of effort or poor organisation – here in Ipswich we spoke to thousands of residents, we leafleted, phoned and then went to speak to them again. There is talk that nationally that we focused on our ‘core’ support and did not speak to those who have voted Tory in the past – that cannot be said of us in Ipswich, in some wards we have spoken to over 80% of the electorate in the last 4 years – Labour voters, Tories, UKIP, and even the odd Lib Dem (when you could find them) But we lost the election because our national message did not sound like one of aspiration and we also did not allay the fears of those that thought a Labour Government would be one that would see interest rates and inflation rise.

Some local Tories (falsely) accused me of accusing the electorate of being stupid – words I never used – but we did fail to appeal to self-interest – but the point is do we want to appeal to the selfish side of people?

The answer has to be no, but we also do not just want to be the party of opposition, there are many in our party and even more so in the Lib Dems/Greens who prefer to be in opposition, much easier to shout from the sidelines rather than change things.

So we need to get back into power, we need to appeal to those who did not vote for us but not by just appealing to their selfish side but to persuade and reassure them that a Labour Government does not just mean higher taxes, people having an easy life on benefits and money being wasted on stupid projects.

Most people are slightly selfish – Thatcher, the Tories & Murdoch did not invent selfishness, greed and contempt for the poor & weak but they helped make them socially acceptable.
One way we could have done that was to be prouder of what we had achieved in power – here in Ipswich we have a University, a new college, a new 6th form centre, primary schools and a new building at the hospital – we hardly mentioned them whilst here in Ipswich, Tory Ben Gummer kept taking the plaudits for getting Ipswich academy (Holywells re-built) and Chantry school to be re-built soon – neither project as successful or as inspiring as the building of UCS.

Here in Ipswich the defeat is harder to stomach, because we had a great candidate in David Ellesmere, we had a better campaign team and we displayed to the Ipswich public that we could do a great job within difficult financial restraint but in the end people voted on national issues.

Ben Gummer who seemed to get more arrogant as the 5 year term went on may believe it was down to his own personal vote, for what he has done for the town and what he has pledged to do – not sure much of that had anything to do with his win. He did campaign hard, made good use of the media and is charming when you meet him but in the end he has delivered very little in the town.
But it is now important that we run a positive campaign for the next 5 years but also hold him to his 6 pledges, interesting within 48 hours of his win he was backtracking on one pledge as he stated there was little he could do to help with improving the town centre- did not read that in any leaflet before May?

The two Gummer pledges that we do need to monitor carefully, are the building of a ‘northern’ route and education. No longer can they blame everything on the last Labour Government though I did hear a Tory MP seriously state that they now had to clear up the mess left by the Lib Dems! On the ‘northern’ route, Gummer still seems keener on his Wet Dock crossing than pushing for a route to help the building of much needed homes on the Northern Fringe, and can now expect his Tory neighbour, Dr Poulter to do all he can to stop any road being built in his constituency so yet again Ipswich will suffer as the Suffolk Tories yet again ignore the needs of the County town.

On education he has pledged to help/force./push all Ipswich schools to achieve ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ when they are next inspected- I hope he achieves that, it is the least our young residents deserve- but I hold out little hope for this pledge to be achieved unless he holds the Suffolk Tory Council’s feet to an open fire – they have completely washed their hands of education in this county and they just seem hell bent on forcing all schools to become academies so that they no longer are held responsible for them.

So if Gummer wants to be judged on his pledges, we will make sure he is - but answer me this Mr Gummer – will you stand down in 2020 if you fail to deliver those 6 pledges (or 5 as you seem to have given up on one already) by the time of the next election? As Mr Cameron once said – n0 ‘ifs’ no ‘buts’.
The future? The Ipswich Labour party will campaign harder and longer, we will get fully involved in the debate on the new leader. We will continue to run Ipswich well at the same time holding the Tory run County and Ben Gummer to task.

We will recruit and mentor new members, much has been said about the link between the Labour Party and the Unions, here in Ipswich we have a great relationship with our local union branches – they did not just provide financial help but they were out with us on the doorstep every Saturday- talking to the residents, we need to keep working on improving that relationship. We need to and will continue to talk to residents, but not just on the doorstep we need to get out to other community events, talk to schools, churches, WI’s, firms – anyone who wants us to talk to them.
We need to speak to those who voted UKIP, understand why they did, talk about immigration and migration and offer solutions rather than try and just replicate the far right rhetoric of the Tory party.
We have to continue to fight, less than a week of a Tory Government and the union bashing has already started, and then the Tories wish to crush our human rights – we need to organise not mourn.

It will not be easy, the leadership election will be difficult at times, certain parts of the Labour movement will see this as battle of ‘left’ v ‘right’ but we need to come out of this stronger and more united.

At no time since the start of the 20th Century is the Labour Party needed more than now.

I will be fighting hard every day – we can win and must win in 2020.

My week ahead, 15 - 22 February 2015

Thursday 19 February, 7pm – Ipswich CLP meeting

Saturday 21 February, 10 am – Labour campaigning in East Ipswich

Saturday 22 February, 11 am – Labour campaigning in East Ipswich

Another week of Tory confusion here in Suffolk- the County Scrutiny Committee accepted the arguments of the Labour call in, over the decision to shut Children’s Centres in the county. This will now go back to the Tory Cabinet but then we had the County Budget setting meeting when they pushed through a 0% Council Tax rise even though they may now have to spend money to keep the centres open.

More criminal is the Tory plan to keep reserves high not raise council tax but at the same time preside over one of the worst education authorities in the country. Our children are being failed by a very selfish set of Tory councillors. These children just get one chance at education and are being let down by a council whose only wish is to bribe constituents with a 0% council tax rise.

Here in Ipswich, another Academy is under fire – our Tory MP has crwled out from somewhere and said the school has 7 days to sort the problem out. That is the same school and Academy Chain that he was so quick to praise when they started, and so happy to atke along Michael Gove to be photographed with the new building and meet staff. Not so keen now, hey Mr Gummer.

But it seems that the Academy Chain currently running the school – on Swedish methods has actually almost handed over the running to another chain already in everything but name. The situation at the Ipswich Academy/Holywells is a complete mess that Mr Gummer and Gove through the DfE were heavily involved in causing.

There are many reasons for us needing to get rid of this poor MP, but the state of education in the town (as he works for the Education Secretary) should be the one reason at the top of every voters list.

Mr Gummer also accused me of being a liar – and that some of my tweets were not only lies but aggressive – the term he used is not a common one as he attempted to show off his vocabulary but I asked him for evidence of these lies – he replied that he was busy to look through my time line to find them. I asked him again and this time he said that my blog showed I had little grasp of any real facts.

I asked for an apology for him calling me a liar – he said I would not be getting one. To be honest, I am not that bothered now and hope rather than having pointless arguments on twitter – he seems to have many – he is spending his time attempting to get the schools in Ipswich the help that is so evidently needed, because we know it will not come from the selfish bunch of Tory councillors we have in this county.

A few thoughts on the election in Ipswich and further afield

As I have a few days to recover from a long election campaign, think it is worth writing a few lines on how I think we (Labour) did both locally and nationally. Then it will all start again as only 11 months to go till the important General Election.

Starting very close to home it was a good night for Rushmere Ward as we gained the final Tory seat and elected Sandra Gage to the Borough Council.

It seemed to be the culmination of 11 years hard work from when I first stood in the ward when the Tories held all 3 Borough seats, the fight back starting in 2008 when I won my seat, the slight reversal in 2009 and 10 when we failed to capitalise on that result till today when we no longer have any Tory representatives in the ward. The hard work of course has to continue and we have some serious issues to deal with, the lack of support for our local schools and the state of our roads and verges. Both the responsibility of the Tory run County Council but we still need make sure residents’ concerns are heard.

In Ipswich, we also gained a further seat (in Whitton) and held all our own – The Tories were claiming some sort of victory for holding onto Stoke Park and Holywells. They did increase their margins of victory from 2012 but their majorities were down from 2010 when these set of seats were last fought for. Of course we wanted to and hoped we could win both seats – we worked hard and had two outstanding candidates – I quite like George Debman and though I can’t say the same about Nadia Cenci what I do know is that she is very active in her ward, dedicated and a hard worker but I have no doubt that the residents of both wards would have been better represented by Colin Smart and Howard Needham. But I am sure both will fight again and it will not be long before they are both serving as Ipswich Borough Councillors.

The Tories (by their low standards) worked hard in those two wards but other than Bixley , North West Ipswich and parts of Ravenswood little sign was seen of Tories elsewhere in the town. Gipping and Gainsborough residents have not seen any Tory activity other than the odd leaflet since 2010 where on the other hand we worked in every ward- no matter what party held it and I myself spent time both canvassing in Bixley and delivering in Castle Hill. This hard work will pay dividends in 2015 but the Tories will find it hard to just concentrate on only two wards next year.

On Election Day after starting in Rushmere, I spent the rest of the day working in the North West of the town where I feel we gained our best results of the night – gaining Whitton, holding Whitehouse and more importantly making sure that UKIP are not represented on the Borough Council. To actually increase the majority in Whitehouse was great reward for a long day’s work.

Regionally it was disappointing that we did not gain a second MEP, it was always a hard task but made more difficult in that it seems parts of Essex and constituencies along the East Coast seem to be areas where UKIP did very well.

It is important that we do not just ignore UKIP or even just ridicule them. The European Count on Sunday indicated that when it came to the Euro vote they topped the poll in Ipswich. The problem we have is how to deal with not only UKIP but how to persuade voters that UKIP are not the party that will help them. Just look at their number of MEPs, how many of them are ex Tory members or politicians –and there is no doubt that UKIP has also attracted some from the very far right, as Tony Blair stated on BBC Radio 4 this morning: “peep beneath UKIP facade.. something unpleasant” – we need to get that message across to voters – what is the UKIP policy on the NHS, Defence, tax breaks for the rich, housing? – When you ask those questions you quickly see a party that other than its stance on Europe is just the Tory Party in a different coat.

But voters did vote UKIP why? I do not feel Europe was the main reason it is more basic than that it is immigration – and again we need to address those concerns but we also need to tell residents the true facts. The ex Tory MP and now journalist Matthew Parris believes we need to take UKIP head on and that the trouble is voters have been duped by the press to believe that immigration is a big problem. The press have lied, made the situation worse but immigration is a problem. All UKIP voters are not racist, probably very, very few are but certainly some of their activists are and certainly (like some Tories) they exaggerate the threat for their own benefit.

On Election Day, in Whitton a woman told me she had moved to Ipswich from Great Cornard as 600 asylum seekers had been given all the new housing in the town. I attempted to explain that that was impossible- would be surprised if there were 6 asylum seekers in Great Cornard rather than 600 and probably the number of new homes built was closer to 60 than 600 but she was convinced it was true and that voting UkIP was the answer.

We do need to get the true facts out there and that is hard when the right wing press wish to keep pushing their lies. But we also need to work with the EU to make sure that there is not just a constant flow of cheap employment from the East to places like the UK, Germany and Denmark. Voters still believe that the recovery isn’t benefiting them and their families, but the right-wing owned press is happy to persuade them that it isn’t the wealthy and their tax-avoiding multi-nationals driving the UK into a low-wage economy that are to blame. Instead it is migrants coming here in ever larger numbers, taking housing and benefits, whilst causing a disproportionate amount of crime. In fact net migration is static, migration has a positive effect on the economy, and the Eastern European crime wave is a myth. In fact, perceptions of the public on many of the issues on which UKIP campaign do not match reality.

These are tasks we have to take on locally as well as nationally.

The other myth which the press wishes to push is that only UKIP were the winners on Thursday, that again is wrong – Labour had a great night in London but also in the rest of the country, and made the targets that I thought we would make. We gained over 300 council seats, did well in almost all of the parliamentary marginal seats, took control of councils and increased our share of the vote. Interestingly when you look at the local council votes, the UKIP share is actually down on last year. Where we did not do well (or the Tories) was in South Essex, and parts of the East Coast- Yarmouth and Grimsby being two examples.

So the fight continues, plenty to do before May 2015, but we can win Ipswich, we can form the next Government but we have to work and work hard- something that the Ipswich Labour Party is good at.

My week ahead, 17 - 23 March 2014

Monday – 17 March, 6pm Labour Group

Tuesday – 18 March, 5pm Sidegate Primary School Finance meeting
6pm East Area Housing Panel

Wednesday – 19 March, 6pm Ipswich Borough Council – Full Council meeting, Town Hall

Saturday 22 March, 10am – Labour campaigning – South East Ipswich

This week we have seen Mr Gummer our MP visit the Suffolk Police Control room – expect to see in the paper soon ‘Suffolk Police Control room saved after Tory PCC is lobbied by Tory MP Gummer’ – similar to ‘Bishop Hill lights will not now happen after Tory cabinet member is lobbied by Tory MP Gummer’

Now I am sure that lobbying by Ben Gummer and Tory Cllrs did help persuade Graham Newman to shelve the plan to put traffic lights on Bishops Hill but I have no doubt from meetings held with Mr Newman that he still thinks lights should be placed on the approach from Felixstowe Rd, but has been persuaded to halt the work as it is seen as a vote loser in the marginal ward of Holywells.

The Police Control room issue is slightly different as the Tory PCC seems to have decided himself that it is political suicide to close the control room, do not be fooled by the story about the ‘business case does not stack up’ – when he spoke to the IBC Scrutiny meeting last month he made it quite clear that the control room would probably close with other back office jobs coming to Suffolk in return. You would have thought when he spoke to Scrutiny he would have already known of the business case and details of the closure, weeks late he was happy to send every house in Suffolk a letter detailing the savings he has already made and the savings of close to £6 million he will be making in the future – was the closing of the control room in his savings – or has he no idea of where the savings will be made?

In reading that letter you would get the impression that he is in full control of the budget and has a full understanding of the business plan, but now we seem to get the impression (from Mr Passmore) that he had no prior visibility of the business plan.

I am sure Mr Passmore was surprised by the large attendance of staff and union members at the meeting held to rubber stamp the merger of control rooms with Norfolk, he would not have felt comfortable with the presence of two Labour PPCs in the room and I am sure he would have been slightly surprised by the anger shown by those who were likely to lose their job. But I believe his main reason for the sudden change in plan was when the local paper the EADT, announced they were against the plan.

What had been noticeable up to his announcement of his ‘change of mind’ was the total silence of the seven Suffolk Tory MPs – and even after the sudden change of plan, only Mr Gummer has commented on the issue- possibly due to small majority he holds in Ipswich.

Suffolk MPs do seem loathe to comment on any cuts being imposed by the Tory run County Council or the Tory PCC, maybe they know that the Tory Cllrs would not be happy to be lectured to by MPs when they are just carrying out Tory policies!

So do not expect to hear Mr Gummer making too much of a fuss over the closure of the Felixstowe Rd Children’s Centre, just expect him to repeat the County Council line of ‘services will be maintained but at other locations’ – the question is what locations?

My week ahead 5 - 11 August 2013

Monday 5 August - 6pm, Labour campaigning, South East Ipswich

Thursday 8 August – 4pm, Area Committee Chair’s meeting

Saturday 10 August - 10am, Labour campaigning, North West Ipswich

August always has slightly less meetings than other months but this will allow more time to get out campaigning and more importantly, meeting residents.

This week I attended the South East Area Committee meeting at Ravenswood School, a large attendance due to the fact that Tory Transport chief, Graham Newman was to address the meeting. He was invited to speak about general transport issues but by the time the meeting came round the only real topic was the proposed installation of traffic lights on Bishops Hill.

It was hard to find any resident keen on the idea and Tory Cllr Newman would not have been happy that another Tory Cllr, Liz Harsant insisted that longer was given for residents to question Mr Newman.

At the end of the meeting Mr Newman agreed to a further meeting some would say consultation! But I have a feeling a second meeting may take place but there will be no consultation it will be more of an information meeting to just say why and when the lights are going in. From the meeting it seems obvious that there is little contact let alone discussion of policies between the Ipswich and Suffolk Tory Groups.

In the Holywells ward the Tories seem to be using the St Margaret’s Lib Dem Modus Operandi – just saying whatever residents want – even if it is the opposite to Tory policy or even the opposite of what you said last week.

It seems we have a certain Holywells Tory councillor against the proposed Holywells Park upgrade (due to Heritage Lottery Fund grant) because of the parking issues in Cliff Lane and surrounding streets, even though a few weeks earlier all the Holywells Tory councillors had been mentioned on a Tory leaflet along with Ben Gummer celebrating the grant.

Even a St Margaret’s; Lib Dem would have been proud of the ability to say one thing and then a week later say the complete opposite.

Just so all residents are clear the idea to place lights on Bishops Hill and remove the Norwich Road mini-roundabouts is a TORY plan, which they could not tell residents about as the timing of the proposals clashed with the County Council elections (a date they had known about for 4 years)

According to Ipswich Spy, I was cycling on the pavement in Ipswich on Tuesday, funny as I was in Oulton all day campaigning for Len Jacklin and then at the SE Area committee meeting - Tories should worry - two of me!

What Tory Sporting Legacy?

What Tory sporting legacy

After a fantastic Olympics, Mr Cameron was quick to tell the public that the government will continue to fund (elite) sport – even if the promise is only to 2016.
Closer to home, Ipswich Tories (and I guess that means Cllr Terry) have also jumped on the bandwagon and told the public what a sporting legacy they have left the Ipswich public.

Not sure much of a legacy has been left – a further years of the Tories in power in Ipswich would have seen the council pull out of Maidenhall Sports Centre and seen the Whitton Sports Centre given away to an outside agency.

Ransomes Sports Centre is mentioned again, but no credit given to Ipswich labour from saving the club and sports ground from developers in the first place! But surprisingly after all the scare stories put out by the Tories they now seem keen to build some houses on the site, possible on the site of the now disused bowls green!

But Cameron and the Ipswich Tories will not persuade the public they are serious about any sporting legacy whilst Mr Gove has any sort of power.

The Primary Schools Sporting Partnership was one of the first casualties of Mr Gove becoming Education Minister but his next target is selling off school playing fields. Now I will admit Labour should have done more to protect school playing fields whilst in power and the Tories have used statistics to show that they have not closed as many as Labour – trouble is it now has come to light that those figures were wrong and to top it Mr Gove has agreed to the sale of a number of sports fields even though he was advised not to sell them. He has gone against independent advice more times in 15 months that Labour Minister’s did in 9 years.

"Quickly kids, before that nasty Mr Gove sells the field off"

Now there is plenty of money to be made out of selling off playing fields and with Mr Gove and his Free Schools experiment there will be far more fields under threat. In Ipswich we have had much written about the failure of IBC, SCC and The Ipswich Academy to come to an agreement about the building of the sports centre. Wonder if Tory run Suffolk County Council will be asking Mr Gove if they can sell off the sports fields at the Holywells site?

So Mr Cameron has now gone on holiday (Mr Gove must have taken a longer holiday, as we have not heard a peep from him – (about playing fields, teaching sport in schools or even exam results!)

Will Mr Gove now resurface? Will he reverse the decision to axe the 2 hours compulsory PE lessons in schools? If he does will he also ensure that Free Schools and academies also have to make sure their pupils also continue to be taught PE?

As Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham have stated – sporting legacy has to be all party – it has to be a long term plan – the Olympics were a success because of that – Blair, Brown, Livingstone and in particular Tessa Jowell started the whole policy and Cameron and John son carried it on – not sure what Hunt did?

In Ipswich we will continue to promote sport but as many councils find (not just Labour ones) it is hard as this Tory/Lib Dem Government continue to cut funding to local authorities )but at the same time telling the public that the sporting legacy is safe)

My final question – what is the Lib Dem views on Sporting Legacy? I ask as they seem to have had little input into the Cameron and Johnson declarations on sporting Legacy or been critical of the plans to sell off sports fields by Mr Gove. Probably concentrating on reform of the House of Lords!

My week ahead 14 -20 August 2011

Monday 15 August 2pm - North East Partnership Meeting - Listening to our local SNT Police team, on how they dealt with the events last week.

6pm - Campaigning in Holywells ward, Ipswich - Getting the views of and informing residents about the plan to switch lights off in streets from September

Tuesday 16 August 7.45pm - Football at Portman Road - Someones has to go!

Wednesday 17 August 9am - Planning Committee - Grafton House

Thursday 18 August 11am - Essex cricket at Colchester

Saturday 20 August 10.30am - Campaigning on the doorstep in Ipswich

Last week I spent most days delivering the new Rushmere Rose in Ipswich but also managed to find time to knock on doors in Holywells Ward. Most residents did not seem aware that their street lights will be turned off by the County Council in September. As I have stated before, I agree that it is a good idea to switch off lights between midnight and 5.30am in the morning. what the county should have done is informed residents of the plan with at least an information leaflet. At least they are now putting signs up in the streets in the weeks before the lights are switched off. Hopefully with the Suffolk County Council logo on the notice, it will stop the Tory supporting blogs telling all who will listen that it is the Borough Council who are behind the light switch off.

I also attended a meeting about the plan for the building of the new Ipswich Academy with Labour councillors from South East Ipswich, it will create a fantastic environment for learning, even if the budget is almost half of what was initially promised in the 'Building Schools for the Future' scheme.

What are the Lib Dems and Andrew Cann playing at?

Ipswich will continue to be run by a Tory administration - with Lib Dem support. The local paper- the Evening Star did mention that the Lib Dems would have to decide what direction they would take after a poor election result. - would they stay in the administration with the Tories? Or join in power with Labour? Or decide that their principles were more important than token power and join neither.

We can only wonder how long they debated their future plans, but all the Labour Group received was short letter asking us to apologise for a number of supposed crimes! The letter had no date for when a reply was needed and seemed lacking in any concrete proposals. so they may in future state that they did ask Labour about sharing power but in reality they quickly jumped back in with the Tories. As one of their Councilors was already talking about her plans for when she became Mayor - it seems that the decision had been made before the election!

Where does this leave Andrew Cann - for those not from Ipswich - Andrew Cann is the son of the late Labour MP for Ipswich, Jamie Cann (pictured above). after his father died, Andrew did join the Labour Party but soon left in a blaze of (self) publicity to join the Lib Dems. In 2005 he won a seat on the County Council for the Lib Dems but failed in 2006 to win a seat on the borough council. He did manage to win Westgate this year- with a majority of 13.

The Lib Dem elation at this result was short lived as the work they put into Westgate made them forgot about all their other seats/targets in the town and so they lost Whitehouse, had their majority in St Margaret's slashed and were pushed into third place in Holywells.

Andrew does have the ear of the local press and already since the election has been in the local paper criticizing the Tory run Suffolk County administration but forgetting to mention that he is now part of the Tory led administration that runs the Borough of Ipswich.

Andrew Cann has also made it quite clear that he would like to be the Lib Dem candidate at the next General Election.

Why? It does seem to be that Andrew does hold number of Labour members responsible for not helping his father as much as he thinks they should of.

I was not in the party then, so I cannot comment on that, but much of my political learning come from hearing Jamie Cann and my late father discuss politics over a pint in the Duke of York. I remember both of them during the dark days of Militant, continuing to fight for what they believed in and not taking the easy option of leaving the party. this enabled Ipswich to continue to be run by Labour for 25 years - most of that during the dark days of Thatcher.

I for one can't believe Jamie would have left the party over some difference of opinion.

Andrew may have thought he was being clever by not taking a place on the ruling executive of the Ipswich Borough Council - but Andrew YOU ARE a member of the Tory run administration- what ever you would like the public of Ipswich to think.