Please listen - the last words of Rifleman Thatcher (RIP)

In 2009 in Sangin, I was always impressed by the bravery and humour of the young Rifleman. Maybe as I was a stranger to many of them taht seemed happy to chat, in the queue at lunch or waiting for the weekly phone call, running round the helipad or looking for a book in the makeshift library. one thing i did notice was that even if the type of conflict had changed, the weapons and the threat - Rifleman are still rifleman and for every young man I met in 2009, I could see in them the same attributes taht I had seen in young Rifleman I had served with in Cyprus, Germany, Belfast, Crossmaglen, Bosnia or Kosovo. The same willingness to question, to laugh, mischief always close but also you knew taht your could depend on them.

I never wrote a letter like Rifleman Thatcher did, I did not need to, most of my time was spent in the slightly safer surrounds of the Operations Room in Sangin, but if I had I am not sure my words would have been as passionate, eloquent or thoughtful as those of this young man.

Please listen here as Benedict Cumberbatch reads the last letter from Cyrus to his family, no doubt that if he ad survived taht summer of hell, he would not have been a senior NCO within the Rifles, our Regiment lost a future leader, his family lost a son and brother.

Ipswich Tory MPs insulting words

Not for the first time , our at times embarrassing Tory MP for Ipswich has decided to attack our local Labour Party, not on policy, not on how we run the council? He decided to question our patriotism - for Mt Hunt it seems to show you are patriotic, you have to at least wear a union jack face mask in parliament, if not you might as well go and live in North Korea.

Many of us, a bit older still cringe when we see the Union Jack used as a tool to show how patriotic you are, we remember when it was 'hijacked' by the likes of the National Front. Unfortunately a number of the 2019 Tory intake at Westminster seem to employ tactics the National front would have been proud of, highlighting our differences rather than promoting what we all share.

As a veteran, I could not stand quietly and allow Mr Hunt attack us over our patriotism, so I wrote to my local paper the Ipswich star, who printed the letter on Monday 29 March 2021. This is the full version of the letter that i sent to the Star.

To the Ipswich Star,

Last week in your newspaper, the MP for Ipswich, Mr Hunt used his column to explain why he was happy to vote for the Police and Crime, Sentencing and Court Bill. He then went on to accuse the Ipswich Labour Party of ridiculing the bill, in particular the part that proposed tougher punishments  on those who desecrate our War Memorials. i found his comments both very insulting and unjust.

I am not only a member of the Ipswich Labour Party, but also a veteran and the Armed Forces Champion for Ipswich Borough Council, now the protection of war memorials may not be my top priority as Armed Forces Champion. My highest priority is in fact making sure that veterans  in Suffolk have access to the best mental health care available, just over a year ago I lost a close friend from my regiment who committed suicide, he was still serving and no one was aware that he was suffering from PTSD. That came only a year after we lost another fellow Rifleman to suicide. That along with trying to help veterans who have found themselves in prison is far more pressing issue currently for veterans.

However, I fully understand the importance of war memorials, not only to veterans but also to the families of those who have fallen. It is one of my proudest moments as a councillor in Ipswich, assisting to get a street and a square named  after two soldiers from our town who lost their lives in Northern Ireland and Afghanistan.

My own Regiment, the Royal Green Jackets, lost many men in the 41 years of our existence, all those Riflemen are remembered on various war memorial's, all over this land. I served with 2 Rifles in Afghanistan in 2009, 25 men of that Battle Group never returned home, all their names are on the memorial at the National Arboretum . On that same memorial to those from the Armed Forces who have died in conflict since 1945 are the names of Paul Harding and Mark Hale. Paul was a close friend, my mentor, my hero, who rose to the rank of Major only to die, leading from the front in Basra, Iraq. Captain Mark Hale, I only knew for a short time, but we hit it off straight away, we were from the same era, shared many of the same views on the army, on the 12 August 2009, we had dinner together in the dusty mess tent in Sangin, Afghanistan, less than a day later, he was dead, killed by an IED, whilst helping others.

I often visit the National Arboretum in Staffordshire, I find both their names on the memorial, trace my fingers over the letters of their names and when I do that my emotions are mixed, often both sorrow and anger, and then I sit on a bench by the Royal Green Jackets Memorial and I am often close to tears, those memorials are important to me  - would I forget those two fellow Rifleman if the memorial was not there? No - but it is important to me, my comrades, their families, that there is a proper memorial and hope the presence of those memorials reminds politicians and national leaders that there are deadly consequences when you send soldiers into conflict.

So Mr Hunt, as a local Labour Party member and also a veteran, I fully understand the importance of War Memorials and I certainly need no lesson from you on that subject.

I would ask you to think carefully in the future when writing such comments, there are many Labour members  and voters, who are veterans, and your words insulted all of them.

Cll Alasdair Ross

Rushmere Ward

Ipswich

 

Mark Hale 

Paul Harding

Whitehouse Estate and Ipswich remember two of their own

In 1979 the British Army suffered one of its worst losses of life when 18 soldiers were murdered by the IRA at Warrenpoint, this was in the time  before the days of 24/7 news and also when the troubles in Northern Ireland seemed to many of us to be deliberately ignored by both the press and politicians.

But in one part of Ipswich the Warrenpoint atrocity would not be forgotten as one of those from the 2^nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment murdered that day was 18 year old Gary Barnes.

Gary was from the Whitehouse Estate and a former Westbourne School pupil.

There is a memorial at Warrenpoint, a bench in Aldershot (the former home of the Paras) and a further memorial in Palace Barracks, Belfast. Gary was not forgotten in Ipswich and his name was added to the Cenotaph in  Christchurch Park, Ipswich.

27 Years later, another young man left Whithouse Estate to join the British Army  as a member of his local regiment, the Royal Anglians. Aaron McClure lived close to where Gary lived and went to the same school as Gary and was even in the same year at school as Gary’s nephew. Whithouse is a small estate where everyone knows everyone, a village within the town. In 2007, Aaron was to lose his life in Afghanistan, just north of Sangin in a ‘friendly fire’ incident.

One town, one estate, one school and now they had lost two young brave men fighting for their country.

I became a councillor in 2008 and then had a year away as I returned to the army in 2009 to serve in Afghanistan, on my return I was keen for a lasting memorial to be in the town to Aaron and David Ellesmere the council leader agreed and we both thought a street named after Aaron would be a fitting tribute.

We had a number of opportunities to name a street after this brave man but we were keen for the new road to be in the area of the Whitehouse Estate. Over the last few years we have been building more council homes and one new development would be behind the Whitehouse Estate shops on Ulster Way, so we saw Mrs McClure and family join us to place the McClure Way sign up.

The council was then approached by one of the areas more senior residents who thought it would also be an ideal opportunity to also honour another Whithouse lad, Gary Barnes.

So on Friday all those ideas and plans came to fruition as we unveiled Barnes Square, a new development of flats on McClure Way. It was an event that I will never forget, the three sisters of Gary, were joined by Lorraine the mother of Aaron plus other family members but they were not the only people there to honour the tow lads, also in attendance were friends, pupils from Westbourne School, local Ward councillors , veterans and the Mayor – also a Whitehouse boy.

I was very happy that I was also able to facilitate the  involvement of  the regiments that Gary and Aaron served in and it was fitting that the families were joined in the unveiling and the photographs by serving members of 1 Royal Anglian and 2 Parachute Regiment.

It is important in my mind that Ipswich remembered these two young lads who left our great town to serve in the British Army, now their names will always be part of the Estate that made them – McClure Way and Barnes Square on Whitehouse Estate.

Ipswich will never forget them.

Time for Labour to say they will scrap Police and Crime Commissioners

Over the last few months the position of Police and Crime Commissioner has sunk to a new low. The low turnout for the election in the West Midlands, the refusal of the South Yorkshire PCC to resign over his involvement with the Rotherham scandal (though in that case he should be joined in resigning by a number of South Yorkshire Senior Police Officers) the suspension from the Labour Party of the Bedfordshire PCC, the Norfolk PCC attempting to suspend himself and the walking PR disasters who are the PCC’s in Kent and Surrey. All these are recent examples of why the next Labour Government should make one of their first jobs stating that the post of PCC will cease after they have completed their four year term.

That is not to say we should go back to the way the police was run before, the Police Authority were toothless and though they were made up of elected members they were able to raise the police part of the council tax without any fear of being held responsible for the rise by the public.

This week Labour have announced that they are close to laying out plans for their vision of what will replace the role of PCC. Tories not surprisingly are pushing us to declare now what we plan, forgetting that they had plenty of time in opposition to come up with their answers. The trouble was they decided on the role of PCC, they had plenty of time to decide on legislation and implementation but still came up with (supported by the Lib Dems) a plan that allows a PCC to stay in post even if found guilty for a criminal offence (as long as the crime does not lead to a 2 year jail sentence) they also failed to place in any form of recall or even to give the Home Secretary (or the local Police panel) the power to get rid of poorly preforming PCC’s. Then again they have failed to implement a plan for recall of MP’s though they had promised to do so. This week The Home Secretary said there should be a way that they could recall PCC’s – well pity she never thought of that when they set up the post.

The local political gossip column has reported a number of my tweets and posts about the role of the PCC and attempted to use those posts to cause friction with my fellow ward Councillor Tracy Grant (a civilian employed by the police). Stating that at least the Tory PCC, Mr Passmore had saved the Suffolk Control room. As I was a member of the scrutiny committee who listened to Mr Passmore who when speaking to us made it quite clear that at the time he thought the control room merger was in the best interests of Suffolk, I do not take what he says that seriously because it seemed to me that the closure was a ‘done’ deal and that only the threat of an orchestrated campaign by the EASDT pushed him into a sudden change of plan (where he had no Plan B.)

What Ipswich Spy seems to fail to report is other than the control room, most of the police force in both Suffolk and Norfolk has already merged, just a few days after attacking me ‘Spy’ ran another story about Suffolk Police in which they themselves quoted, Chief Inspector Chris Spinks, head of the Norfolk and Suffolk Roads Policing Unit. Just another example how much of the two police forces are already merged. Some could say that the only parts of the police that both Suffolk and Norfolk still have that are not merged are the posts of PCC, Chief Constable and the two control centres!

Now I am not advocating the merger of the control rooms, as someone who ran the Operations Room in Sangin in 2009 I do have some understanding of how a control room works. In Sangin I ran a control room that controlled over 1000 troops but underneath us we had 5 other control rooms including 2 in the same location as us. We then reported up to a further control/Operations Room in Lashkagar who then reported up to three separate Operation Rooms in Kadahar, Kabul and West London! I could envisage a full merger of Suffolk and Norfolk police still needing more than one control room – maybe one in Ipswich, one in Waveney covering both Lowestoft and Yarmouth and then a further one in Kings Lynn all reporting into a joint control room in Norwich.

I do wish that the last Labour Government had implemented the plan that Ronnie Flanagan devised which would have seen forces merger, it may have been the opposition of the police themselves that had stopped Labour from pressing forward. But it seems even the police have now changed their thoughts - The number of constabularies in England and Wales should be cut to save money that was the view of Police Superintendents' Association president Irene Curtis who went onto say there were "too many chief constables and too many police and crime commissioners". And that the 43-force structure wasted millions of pounds and had not been reformed for 40 years.

But one starting figure last week did indicate how badly we were being served by the Suffolk Police, as we have many of the police departments already merged you would have thought Suffolk and Norfolk residents would have been treated equally but in Norfolk police attended 98% of recorded crimes in the year to November 2013 but Suffolk police attended just 66% - below the average of 79% across England and Wales. So we are not being treated the same even though a number of our senior officers are running joint Suffolk and Norfolk teams.

Mr Passmore has done some good work with the police as part of his role as PCC and has not seen to have made the same mistakes as some of the other PCC’s but he has made some serious errors. One was remaining as a District Councilor in Mid Suffolk, this error was highlighted this week when he was critical of Suffolk Police for not commenting on a licensing proposal that Mid Suffolk had asked the police to comment on. Now I understand where Mr Passmore is coming from, I have been critical of the police at both planning and licensing committees for not submitting anything when asked for their thoughts but the difference is I am not the PCC. What will happen the next time Mid Suffolk ask the police to submit evidence on a licensing application- it would seem to be that Mr Passmore publically being critical of the police this time will put undue pressure on them to say something next time.

I will iterate my view that the next Labour Government should get rid of the post of PCC, but replace it with something better and more accountable than the previous Police Authority. I would go further and state that forces should be merged. The situation in Suffolk and Norfolk already highlights that in most cases the forces are already working as one even if one county seems to be getting a better service. NHS organisation never seems to get a good press but having a health authority that controlled the health service in both Lowestoft and Yarmouth was one good idea. A merger of Suffolk, Norfolk and maybe Cambridgeshire would not have to cause control rooms to close- but it would make more sense (in solving crime and serving the public) if a control room in Cambridge also looked after Haverhill and Newmarket.

Then we have cost – Police cost should be removed from Council tax – it should be from direct government with a set figure worked out by the Home office. Not sure many MPs would be happy about that!