Was the playwright Allan Bennett talking about the Ipswich Tories?

The playwright Alan Bennett has been asked to name what the English excel at and he's gone for ‘Hypocrisy’.

Did he decide that after witnessing the Ipswich Tories in action at the last Full Council meeting?

Last Wednesday we had the Full Council budget debate, from the start the Tory Group were on the defensive as their amendment was not an alternative to our medium term plan as other than a few specific proposals for this year there was nothing set in concrete for further budgets – so more (very) short term rather than medium term.

Labour have also attempted to include all councillors in planning the budget, with councillors able to suggest further spending plus possible cuts at working groups and at a final scrutiny meeting. But surprisingly none of the suggested savings in the Tory amendment had been mentioned before, in fact the opposite as at the budget scrutiny meeting, Tory Cllr George Debman was very vocal in his opinion that no money should be cut from the area committee budgets – surprise, surprise – cuts to area committee budgets were the mainstay of the Tory amendment!

But when it came to hypocrisy the Tories really came into their own when it came to their attitude to ‘name calling’ banter’ ‘insults’ .

Now I am not making excuses for some of the childish (at times) behaviour in the council chamber and I have been no saint myself but it can only be described a sheer hypocrisy when the Tory leader moans about a comment about her when only minutes earlier she had applauded a Tory councillor for calling me the ‘mouth of the north’.

A number of commentators have compared Full Council with the behaviour at PMQ’s – stating the standard of debate puts people off politics, but is that true? Do more people watch PMQ’s to see the passion shown by politicians? Mr Cameron did promise (another broken one) that he would stop the ‘punch and Judy’ style of PMQs but has done the opposite and has even allowed his whips to organise planned heckling of Ed Balls during the last few budget debates.

Cllr Cenci seems to have got very angry over some of the comments made last week but then describes the actions of Tory Cllr Stroet as just ‘banter’. Of course you often wonder if Cllr Cenci is actually angry or just ‘posturing’ – her own description of the way she has acted at certain meetings.

But let me tell Cllr Cenci and Cllr Stroet you can call me as many names as you like, one of your activists (and a candidate) has spent the last few years calling myself and fellow councillors names on his blog – all it proves is that you have lost the argument.

I have certainly been called far worse in the army – and often by close friends and colleagues but when former opponents in the army have spent most of their time either attempting to shoot me or blow myself and my fellow soldiers up, I am not going to get too upset when Cllr Stroet calls me the ‘mouth of the north’.

What I will not accept is when false accusations are made at Full Council and that is what also happened at Full Council and since then further inaccurate statements have been made by certain Ipswich Tories.

Cllr Stroet indicated that when a former Tory Cllr, Richard Pope was chair of the North East Area Committee he did not take his allowance but when I became chair, I rushed to get my allowance.
Now a simple fact check – Cllr Pope was never chair of the area committee and never entitled to or even offered an allowance.
Back in 2013, a Labour councillor was stuck on a train and the Tories decided to play silly games and not support my nomination to be chair, this left a stalemate and would have left an officer in the chair, and a public meeting would have ended without anything being discussed. Now I was disappointed that the Tories decided to try and score cheap points over the election of the Chair but I then decided to quickly second Cllr Pope rather than have another 4-4 vote and leave the meeting to be chaired by an Officer. The reason I did this was that I was sure the many residents who had turned up for the meeting were there to hear about matters concerning our local area rather than witness petty party squabbling and this seemed to easiest way to get the meeting to go ahead as planned.

So Cllr Pope was chair for that meeting – not the committee, we also agreed that myself and Cllr Pope would attend the agenda setting meeting with officers later in the month to make sure the work on our action plan for the North East continued.

So Cllr Pope did not refuse his allowance and was never chair. Now since then we have heard that he would have donated his allowance to charity- not I can’t remember ever hearing that claim before- and it is not as simple as it sounds as much of the allowance goes in tax- so would he had given the full allowance to charity or taken off the tax part first?
Then we have the point of me rushing to get an allowance- Almost correct, I did rush – but to stop my allowance after the Tories played their stupid games over the election of a chair. I asked officers on the night to ensure my allowance stopped and backed that up with an email in the morning. When I was elected chair 2 months later the officers informed that they would start my allowance again.

Now I have mentioned this to the Tory leader, who can’t remember hearing Cllr Stroet accuse me of rushing to claim my allowance but she did give me an apology for her own behaviour when she clapped (not that I asked for one) Cllr Stroet but as I have already indicated she can call me as many names as she likes or applaud when someone else does but I will complain if false statements are made at full council.

Now I would have thought the former Cllr Pope would not have been too happy that his name has been dragged into the argument but then again he may not want to say too much as it is believed he may be competing with another former Tory councillor (Mrs Terry) to replace Cllr Stroet in Bixley.

The final display of Tory hypocrisy has been by a Tory activist who claimed that full council “There was also a personal attack on former Tory councillor, Richard Pope.” – Now I know that this activist and Cllr Stroet may not see eye to eye but I have to point out to Mr Algar, the only person who mentioned Mr Pope at Full Council was Cllr Stroet! He did this of course when he painted us all a picture of Cllr Pope as a hard working councillor who gave away his allowances to charity, funny that as I believe Mr Pope claimed his full councilor allowance in his last 9 months as a councillor but in the same period only attended one meeting.

So Alan Bennett may be partially right as certain people in Britain do excel at hypocrisy!

Report on North East Ipswich area Committee, 26 July 2012

Last night we had a good attendance from local residents at our latest North East Area Committee. The meeting started with a presentation from Hopkins Homes about the Colchester Rd/Fire Station development.

The main meeting started at 7.30pm and it became quite obvious that the Tory councillors were more interested in scoring cheap points than contributing anything positive to the meeting. Cllr Carnall asked for an amendment to the minutes to show that it was their idea to back the Cherry Tree Park request for funding. We accepted this but this then led to Cllr Pope wanting a number of amendments made to the minutes, including an attack on myself. Cllr Stroet then joined in the attacks on me, and informing me that I should attend a course on how to Chair a meeting.

Why their concerns with the minutes were not raised before the meeting you will have to ask them but it became obvious afterwards that the public had not been impressed with attempts to play party politics at the meeting.

We then had a number of questions from residents, many on parking issues in the streets near the hospital. The state of the pavement next to the Cemetery was also debated and will be an issue that I will be raising with Officers and Portfolio holders over the next few months.

Officers reported that work continues on a play scheme for Cherry Tree Park and also on the plan to solve traffic problems in Pearce/Orwell Road.

Cllr Alan Murray the Conservative County Cllr for Bixley then spoke about the bus service to Broke Hall, he thanked Ipswich Bus Company for stepping in with the new Number 4 round. Wonder what Cllr Carnall thought of this as if he had won the election two years ago we would have seen the Ipswich Bus Company sold off by now.

I finished the meeting by giving a verbal brief on our action plan for the North East, the plan had been worked on and agreed by Officers and two Labour and two Tory Cllrs but this did not stop Cllr Pope from setting that he had refused to attend the meeting as he did not believe in Cllrs setting the action plan. Cllr Carnall and Stroet just sat on their hands and said nothing.

Even with the antics of the Tory Cllrs the meeting seemed to go down well with residents. Our next meeting will be in the same location, St Johns Church Hall, Caudwell Hall Road on the 20th September at 7pm.

Opposition with no strategy

The Tories and Lib Dems in Ipswich seem to put little thought in how to be an effective opposition. This was highlighted again by their performance at the Full Ipswich Borough Council meeting that was held on Wednesday (25 Jan )

It started with their questions to the Labour executive, Cllr Stroet seems to be struggling to ask anything useful and has not yet learnt the art of not asking a supplementary if the answer to the first question has made it obvious there will no value in pursuing the matter. Even former leading Ipswich Tory Gavin Maclure seems to have the same view on Cllr Stroets’ performance so far.

I have asked a number of questions at Full Council but the Tories seem very loathe to allow their backbenchers ask any questions.

Then we had yet again an attack on Area Committees by the Tories – not only in the Council Chamber but also in the local media. Cllr Carnall and Cllr Maclure both had questions on Area Committees and both would seem to imply that the Tories have a negative view on their aims and chances of success. This may not seem strange to residents but it is to myself and other Labour councillors as we hear Tory Councillors in meetings saying that Area Forums did need replacing and also how keen some Tories are not only to make them work but also it is obvious that certain Tory backbenchers are very happy about the new set up as it will give them far more opportunity to discuss issues they are concerned with than when they were actually running the council.

Cllr Terry used the Ipswich Flyer’ to attack Area Committees (and to print a thinly veiled attack on myself) but in our first Area Committee she seemed keen to make them work and had a number of ideas on how they should go forward.

So where do the Tories stand on Area Committees?

The question that most highlighted the lack of any Tory policy on the matter was when Cllr Tanya Maclure asked Labour about the allowance that chairs of the committees would be paid, it became quite apparent very quickly that the Tories did not only know that their deputy leader had agreed to take the allowance but also was the first to get back to the officers to agree to the payment!

We then had the debate about the recommended 5.6% rent rise for Ipswich tenants, the chair of the Ipswich Lib Dems has been critical of the rise on Ipswich Spy but then went and voted for the rise! The Tories then attempted to portray themselves as ‘Friends of Ipswich tenants’ forgetting to mention the rent rise is not only below what the Tory/Lib Dem Government recommended but also below the rise that the Tory/Lib Dem administration in Ipswich imposed on tenants last year (again voted for by Lib Dem Ken Bates)

I can see it is hard for the Tories and Lib Dems in Ipswich to be an effective opposition at the same time their Government is cutting anything it can and must be even harder for the Tories when their colleagues at the Suffolk County Council still seem to see Ipswich as the poor relation in the County.

The lack of any thought to the questions put forward by Tory front bench was even more noticeable when Cllr Cenci criticised the increase in grant to Ipswich Council for Racial Equality (ISCRE) without mentioning that we have decided to help ISCRE with an increase after they had their grant by the Tory Government reduced. ISCRE was even complimented on their good work by Ben Gummer MP but that still did not stop one Tory describing ISCRE as : stacked full of Labour cronies.

Do Ipswich Tories even talk to their own MP?

It seems rather than being an effective opposition, they are just interested in quick sound bites, decide to be negative on anything that we propose and at the same time be first in the queue for any extra allowance.

The lights are going off in Rushmere....

By now many of you would have started to see orange Suffolk County Council signs appear on Rushmere Ward streets, informing you that your street lights will soon be switched off between midnight and 5.30am.

I believe in principle it is a good idea to turn the lights off, not only saving the County money but also helping reduce our carbon footprint. What I have not been happy about is the way the Tory run County have failed to inform residents and not to have in place a procedure that residents can follow if they believe their street should stay lit.

What has even been more disappointing than the failure of the County to inform residents of the switch off is the way certain Ipswich Tory councillors, candidates and activists have attempted to scare residents with talk of muggings and petty crime but then to say the Labour run Ipswich Borough Council are the ones who are turning the lights off!

Thankfully this week at least two senior Tories have been more honest when talking about the proposed light switch off. In his Evening Star column this week, the Tory councillor for Bixley, Kym Stroet was quoted 'Although we (IBC) are responsible for only a small proportion of the street lights, as councillors we need to allay fears of residents'. Former Tory councillor Gavin Maclure even commented on a previous post by me that Ipswich Tories should not be saying it is the Borough turning the lights off.

Hopefully that message will get over to former Tory Candidate James Spencer who believes the streets of Bridge will become more dangerous because of Labour and Kevin Algar who also blogged how it was a Labour plan to turn lights off.

As both these Tory supporting blogs often get their facts wrong it is no surprise they got the 'lights off' facts wrong, but there was little excuse for the Tories in Holywells ward to put out a leaflet that was very unclear on who was behind the plan to turn them off (even if the Tory County councillors from Ipswich voted for the plan).

We will see how the 'switch off' goes, but if any Ipswich resident feels that they need to have their street stay lit up, please contact your Labour councillor and we will take the matter up with the County Council.