Get out of the left wing bubble!

All members of political groups are great at talking to each other, many spend as much time on internal politics as they do on national campaigns and the Labour Party probably spends more time on internal issues that any other party.

We do have a good reason in the Labour Party for spending so much time talking to each other, we are the most democratic of all political groups and have the most affiliations - unions, other socialist groups and often are members are also involved in other campaign groups from CND to Save the Children fund.

Some make a living of spending their time on internal politics and that was always my concern about momentum, their main aim was to push the party to the left (and make sure they took control of the internal party machine) rather than win an election.

Trouble is they may be a victim of their own inward looking style - as Jon Lansman and Sam Tarry (close to Corbyn) seem to have fallen out with other key players in Momentum, hastily called meetings, lack of meetings - not really examples of all member democracy that they campaign for within the Labour Party - but that really was never their intention to let members decide on policy it was just a tool to place those from the far left in positions of influence in the Labour Party.

After attending recent Labour meetings it is become obvious that calling someone a 'Blairite' is one of the most cruel comments you can use against anyone so it did make me actually smile when senior Momentum members have accused Lansman of having  “absorbed the modus operandi of Blairism” .

Lansman and Tarry may have realised that Momentum is now out of control, not surprising when senior members of the group also belong to groups like the Alliance for Workers Liberty. Local Momentum groups have been picketing CLP meetings and campaigning against Labour Councils. So now Lansman and Tarry (I want to be an MP) have decided they need to put the genie back in the bottle.

The Left have always had the ability to turn on each other and this week we have seen them fall out with the Trade Union movement over both fracking and the new runway at Heathrow.

But my concern is that Corbyn would rather appeal to these left wing groups that show real leadership - the Heathrow runway decision was also going to be hard for  Corbyn when so many of his closest supporters represent London seats and he may put his 'green' credentials over the economic need of the country. But he also seems the need to promote the fact that he is closer to the membership than the rest of the PLp and create battles that did not need to be started.

That was the issue with Yemen - again a self inflicted own goal by Labour and one that was set up by Corbyn, what the Saudi Government are doing in Yemen is wrong but the motion put forward was poorly written and would not have had the desired effect, there was confusion on the whip and the whole episode was badly organised but it seems to many that was the whole purpose of the event - to make sure that the PLP still seem to be ignoring the views of members. The membership should be more concerned that  Corbyn finds it hard to be critical of the Syrian regime and their Russian supporters than their own MP missed a vote that they did not know they had to attend.

Recently and quite surprising one of the left commentators who has become most critical of the Corbyn leadership has been Owen Jones and one of his recent comments certainly seemed to nail the problem on the head both nationally and here in Ipswich. Nationally the left have got to stop worrying about internal issues and campaign for a Labour Governemnt, maybe taking note of one of their own criticisms of the PLP - stop fighting each other and take on the  Tories.

The same can be said locally, not just fighting the Tories but talking to residents, constituents, voters - that is how elections are run, not debating motions at CLP meetings that will have little effect in changing things or attending some futile rally in ,London, Owen puts it very simply - "The hundreds of thousands who have joined the Labour Party all need to dedicate as much as their life as possible to knocking on doors and talking to voters outside the left-wing bubble"

Syrian Refugee crisis - is this Tory Government doing enough to help?

When you think about the Syrian refugee crisis consider these figures & remember it's not mere numbers, it's about people:

But if you want to talk about numbers - Cameron and the Tory Government are going to ask Suffolk to take just 200 refugees, over 4 years - I am sure that most Ipswich people will agree that figure is far too low - This Tory Government should do far more to help those suffering because of the war in Syria.

Cameron can't answer questions and Ipswich Tories can't ask them!

At Prime Minister’s Question time this week not only did David Cameron fail to respond to any questions he was asked with a thoughtful answer (on Google, Saudi arm sales) he also managed to demean the role of Prime Minister by describing those who are living in atrocious conditions in Calais as a ‘bunch of migrants’ – remember this the same week we mark ‘Holocaust Day’.

Many believe this was not a slip of the tongue but a pre-medicated move to either take the focus away from the Google cock up or to try and look tough on migration so to appease his Eurosceptic colleagues. Whatever the reason, it was not the sort of comment that a Prime Minister of the country should be making.

Unfortunately his comment looks quite Liberal when you compare it with the right wing drivel (and scaremongering words) that were posted on a blog by the Ipswich Tory leader, Nadia Cenci. Her comments declaring that many stuck in Calais were possibly terrorists on their way to UK, were quite sickening to read and again not the sort of words you would expect or hope to see from an elected politician. – “all the infiltration of terrorists (and I bet there's quite a few of them at Calais so frustrated at not reaching our shores as easily as Merkel's now very new and unrecognisable country). “

She then turned her piece into an anti EU rant, using such terms as “EU and all it's horrible socialist experiments” and “if the EU doesn't collapse before then under the weight of it’s own corrupt, poisonous and egotistical head. “

We are informed by many that our Tory MP, Ben Gummer is pro EU – if he is, he should now stand up and inform his constituents that he does not agree with the comments of his local Tory leader.

There are so many rumours and bits of miss-information floating round, it is important that politicians stick to the facts, the comments of Nadia Cenci do not help. Last night we invited a local refugee charity to a Labour meeting so we could discover the truth.

I was shocked how little Cameron intends to do- in the next 5 years, the Tories propose to allow 200 Syrians to settle in Suffolk- just 40 a year, so expect about 10 families at the most – whilst at the same time Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have millions of refugees living in their countries.

 

 

If Cameron can’t answer questions it seems Nadia Cenci and the local Tories can’t ask them! On Wednesday I attended Ipswich Borough Full Council Meeting, and as always at the start we have a series of questions, mainly from the opposition and sometimes the public. This week we saw 10 questions from the local Tories and even independent observers had to admit via social media that the quality of questions was very poor. In fact even being very generous only two were worth asking, one from Cllr Pope about IBC working with the college and Cllr Debman on the number of football teams now using park pitches.

Even then Cllr Pope failed to follow up his questions with a good supplementary whilst Cllr Debman is correct that park football now does seem a thing of the past, it is not IBC who are to blame, the FA for one should look at their own actions quite closely and Ipswich dies provide quality facilities at Gainsborough, Whitton and now Ransomes.

Cllr Pope is right in questioning how much work has gone on between the council and the college but his timing was poor as this week the college has launched it’s own ‘vision’ document which will see more cooperative work between the organisations.

Then we had the really  bad questions starting with Cllr Cenci! She asked how much to council spend to cover their union facilities agreement, but she could not help herself and turned it a pre-election statement and asked how much does it cost the council tax payer. The amount is £45,00 but she was quickly informed that only a small percentage of that comes from council tax, we could have added that Tory run Suffolk spend more on when the Tories were in power in Ipswich they did not try and stop paying this money- which is probably the most economical way to run Human Resources at the council.

We then had Cllr Phillips ask how much our legal costs were for work on the Ravenswood inquiry, seeming to forget the fact that we were only having an inquiry because Pickles and Gummer called the project in as a blatant piece of electioneering.

But that was not the end of it, we had Cllr Vickery ask about the Olympic 2012 legacy, only weeks after the local paper had published a report that lavished praise on Labour run Ipswich for all the work we had done with sport but he made even more of a mess of an earlier question when he asked why groups such as the Friends of the parks were no longer invited to the Culture and Leisure working group, he did not seem to realise that parks had not been part of the culture portfolio for the last 8 months.

What the night did highlight is that this group of Tory councilors and candidates are not capable of running a council, and let us make sure in May that they never get a chance.

I believe we should take military action in Syria - but still many questions for Cameron to answer

This is not a simple question, and even though I have made up my mind, there are still a number of questions that have not been answered.

I believe the Labour Party should support the Government on their decision to start air operations in Syria.

Jeremy Corbyn has stuck to his principles and does not believe we should start combat operations, I accept his opinion but I now hope he will allow Labour MPs and shadow Ministers a free vote, if the Tories do decide to put the decision to a vote this week.

Whatever the decision, Labour will be damaged by this issue and it has not helped with the likes of Tory Minister Fallon playing party politics over such an important issue.

David Cameron did not persuade me when he spoke to the commons last week and it seems he still hasn’t got all his own MPs on side so he still needs at least some Labour MPs to vote with him or abstain.

So if Cameron has not persuaded me, why do I support Military operations? I support our involvement in the Syrian bombing campaign because I believe after the atrocities in Paris we have to show a united front against ISIS.

I do not believe Cameron and Fallon and their opinion that the RAF are needed to make the operation a success, we could just increase our bombing missions in Iraq to free up US and French planes to concentrate on Syria. In fact I am sure we are already involved in Syria, with planning, early warning and target acquisition in support of other air forces already bombing Syria.

I do wish the Shadow Cabinet could come to an agreed decision but if not I hope it is a free vote and that Corbyn does not use this important issue as yet another pawn in his battle between the PLP and his supporters. I understand why he has asked members and I applaud his attempts to allow the party membership to be more involved in policy making but when it comes to going to war, we (the public) do not have the full facts, actually MPs do not have the full facts and Yvette Cooper raised that point in parliament. But Jeremy Corbyn and the shadow Cabinet have been briefed by the intelligence services and after that briefing (rather than the points Cameron made) it seems most of the Shadow Cabinet supports military action.

Corbyn on the Marr show this morning (where he was very impressive) slated the Tories for playing party politics over this important decision but if Jeremy is playing internal politics then he is not showing the leadership that is expected from the leader of the opposition.

I for one have not received an email from the party asking me my opinion on the bombing of Syria so am not even sure this asking members their opinion is actually valid. Where Corbyn is right is that he is in the majority – I am sure the majority of Labour members do now want to bomb Syria, in fact I am sure most of the country do not want to see us involved in Syria but politicians have to be prepared to make decisions that are not always universally popular. That is why they take positions in the Shadow Cabinet, Jeremy must act differently to when he was just a back bencher.

So I support our involvement in Syria and expect the Shadow Cabinet to have studied the evidence in front of them, read the intelligence reports and then make a sound judgement.

Cameron needs Labour support because he can’t even lead his own party, his performance at the dispatch box last week was poor and he failed to show there was a real plan (I am sure there is – just he could not explain it) he also leaves a number of questions unanswered and though many may blame Blair for Iraq, the mess Cameron left behind in Libya is nothing to be proud of.

So we still need more answers, to help get the correct facts over to the British public;

1.         Where and who are these 70,000 fighter who are both against ISIS and Assad?

2.         Where is both the plan (and the money) to reconstruct Syria after peace is secured?

3.         Remember Cameron has not even got the support of all Tory MPs

4.         Remember when Cameron wanted us to bomb Syria last time, it was to bomb Assad that would have helped ISIS

5.         If ISIS are routed, will the bombing campaign end or continue against Assad?

So many questions still to be answered but I still believe we should join a military campaign against ISIS in Syria.

Many in the Labour Party will not agree with my opinion, some who are friends and i respect them for the opinion, I may even suffer some abuse from the trolls that seem prevalent in some sections of the left who support Jeremy Corbyn (they need to follow his example about taking the abuse out of politics)  

I do not just support military action because I was in the army for over 25 years; it is because I believe that on certain circumstance combat operations are needed. Remember the successful military operations (under Blair) Kosovo and Sierra Leone.

We should and must not just become an inward facing country, in 1939 it was the working classes in their thousands who joined the forces to not only defend this country but to defeat fascism, and some of my first heroes on the left were those Labour men, socialists and trade unionists (like Jack Jones) who left these shores to fight against Franco in Spain. What do you think those men and women would do now?

My week ahead, 16 - 21 November 2015 #StandWithParis

 

Monday 16 November, 6pm – Labour Group meeting

Tuesday 17 November, 6.pm – Audit meeting

7pm – Fabians talk on Palestine

Wednesday 18 November, 8am – Meeting about IBC/Press and social media

6pm – Ipswich Borough Full Council meeting

Friday 20 November, 8am – Launch of VETS – Employment service for Veterans at ITFC

Saturday 21 November, 10am – Labour campaigning in South West Ipswich

This week we saw how twisted this world is at times, on Wednesday I accompanied Ipswich Primary School children as we remembered those who had fallen in conflict at the War Cemetery in Ipswich and on Friday many of those same children would have helped others in the UK raise millions for ‘Children in Need’ but on that evening as we were celebrating this great charity event, people with no concern for others carried out cowardly and murderous attacks on innocent (and mainly young) people in Paris.

The murders of so many has united most of Europe, in fact the world in solidarity with the French people, just disappointing but not unexpected that some would use these callous murders as reason to insist that we do not do our part in accepting refugees from Syria.

Those innocent Syrians are fleeing from the same mad, nasty, viscous people who committed those heinous crimes in Paris. This is the time to stay united and help those in need not become even more selfish and turn our back on those in such urgent need of the help we can give.

Ipswich Tory activist- can't even remember what he said last week

An Ipswich Tory activist seems to have a slight memory problem, earlier in the week in a tweet he declared that some Syrian refugees were just men dodging conscription!

Kevin Algar ‏@KevinTAlgar   Sep 10

@AlasdairRoss We are helping genuine refugees rather than better off Syrians who did a bunk when they got their conscription papers.

Even for Kevin this was a quite shocking statement , so I tweeted:

Alasdair Ross ‏@AlasdairRoss  Sep 10

An Ipswich Tory activist/candidates description of refugees > "better off Syrians who did a bunk when they got their conscription papers."

But Kevin today seems to forget that he had described certain refugees as conscription dodgers:

Kevin Algar ‏@KevinTAlgar   3h3 hours ago

@AlasdairRoss No Tory activist has described Syrian refugees like that. You're being disingenuous. #TypicalAlasdair

It seems Kevin has a memory issue, then again when we highlighted that the Tories had been silent over the new development planned for Chantry Vale, but today he seemed to use the excuse that the development was outside the Borough, strange then that he has tweeted and posted on his blog a number of posts about the building of a wind turbine - also in Babergh and actually further away from houses in Sprites and Gipping. In April 2013 he even boasted that it was only himself and fellow Nadia Cenci who had stood against the turbine.

Is that why senior Ipswich Tories like their MP and leader block me on twiiter? Do they also have 'memory' problems!

Stanley Baldwin and David Cameron - Two Tory Prime Ministers afraid to show compassion

The lack of compassion by Tory politicians over the Syrian refugee crisis has even shocked me, would expect UKIP to try and use this humanitarian disaster for their own means but disappointed when even here in Ipswich, local Tory leaders attempt to use unfounded claims about ISIS terrorists attempting to make their way into Europe (and the UK) pretending to be refugees fleeing from Syria.
The facts certainly show that this is not likely to happen but as senior Tory Ministers are also willing to peddle this lie it is of no surprise that local Tory politicians will also repeat it. In my opinion they are using this poor excuse just as a reason to do nothing – because they want no refugees, migrants, immigrants in this country- a case of ‘shut the door, I am in’ or more simply put ‘I’m alright Jack’.

Bu the attitude of the Tories nothing new, the similarities between the behaviour of Cameron now over the Syrian crisis and Baldwin during the winter of 1937 over the possibility of Basque refugees arriving here from the Spanish Civil war are quite striking.

This week Ian Herbert of the Independent wrote a fascinating article about how a number of those Basque refugees ended up playing professional football in the UK – more here. It shows how a refugee, Emilio Aldecoa blazed a trail for Spanish footballers to ply their trade here that would later be followed by millionaires such as David Silva and Cesc Fabregas.
The article also mentions the refugee status of the father of Fabrice Muamba, whose half-brother is now on the Academy books at Ipswich Town.

Fabrice, a refugee himself once informs us (wisely) that refugees are just “ like us, they have all the same hopes and fears. They are part of humanity.”

I have been proud of how football is coming together to help in this crisis, British fans are keen to do their part, happy to follow the example of German supporters where our own Tory Prime Minister has no wish to follow the example of the German political leaders.

Philosophy Football are currently collecting old football scarves and hats to transport ‘from Wembley to Calais’ to help prepare the hundreds of migrants who will be facing a bleak winter in the Calais ‘jungle’.

The support of football fans is important as it is obvious that Cameron can be swayed by public opinion, and currently it is a battle between the general public forcing him to do the ‘right’ thing and the views of his Tory activists like their leaders in Ipswich who will use any excuse possible to get out of doing what we all know we need and must do.

But as Ian Herbert states in 1937 we had a “humanitarian crisis and a Conservative Prime Minister unwilling to open the door to those in need of escape” and in 2015 we have exactly the same!

My week ahead, 7 - 12 September 2015

Monday 7 September, 10am – Meeting with ActivLives
4pm – Culture Portfolio meeting
6pm – Campaigning in South West Ipswich

Saturday 12 September, 10am – Labour campaigning North East Ipswich
2pm – Tour of Britain arrives in Ipswich Town centre.

A few weeks ago I tweeted that I found it surprising that the Suffolk County Council used their official twitter feed to promote County Councillors own twitter account that would obviously be political. At Ipswich Borough Council this does not happen and it seems similar with Central Government.

I was pleased to get a reply from both the Tory leader of the council, Colin Noble and the County Council Press team. The council gave a satisfactory answer, Colin Noble also gave the same explanation but could not resist the opportunity to have a quick snipe at me.

It seemed the reason given for use of councillors twitter names was so that they became more known to their constituents, I was happy with this answer and just hoped that all councillors would be treated equally.

The Suffolk County Council held one of their ‘Listening to you’ events in the Ipswich Town centre on Saturday and well done to them for promoting the event by using the twitter accounts of the Ipswich based Labour County Councillors along with promoting the Tory leaders twitter account.

So you can imagine how disappointing it was to see on Saturday that in 6 Suffolk County Council tweets from the event, the only name mentioned (and only twitter account included) was that of Tory leader – Colin Noble – no mention of the Labour Councillors present ( even if they were in the photographs) does make you wonder if the County Council twitter feed is there to promote the county or just its Tory leader? Certainly seemed strange that all the Labour Councillors seemed to be ignored?

They may have decided not to mention Ipswich Councillors names when the only Tory County Councilor in the town (I am told) was not present at the event.

The other story that is of much more importance is the continuing humanitarian crisis spreading over Europe as Syrian refugees make their way towards Germany – more on my view on this issue here – but it does seem now that even Tory Ministers including the Chancellor are stating we should do more, the only people who still seems set against taking anyone are UKIP and a large percentage of Tory activists – they can add Syrian refugees to their NIMBY list of council houses and wind turbines.

I do understand some of their concerns but when they use the pathetic excuse of stopping refugees coming here as they be ISIS infiltrators then you lose any little respect you had for their views.

#kiyiyavuraninsanlik - the picture that may have shocked Europe into action

The distressing picture of the young Syrian child washed up on a Turkish beech has shocked the world - will it become like the 'Napalm girl' from the Vietnam war- a picture that will go down as one that defines a generation, one that marks us down for what we have become- selfish?

There has been plenty said over the last few days on what we have done to help, or how little we have helped or what we should do to help. We know that many people no longer believe politicians - but the speech from Yvette Cooper seemed to hit the nail right on the head and her call for this Government to do more have been echoed by church leaders, politicians, celebrities and more importantly - the public - so much so that within 24 hours, Cameron has had to make an embarrassing climb down after stating that we would not let more refugees settle in this country today he has stated that the UK had a "moral responsibility" to help those displaced by the four-year conflict in Syria. But then again Cameron has always been more of a PR man that a PM!

His behaviour (and more distressing - his silence) over the last week has been far from we would expect from a world leader let alone our Prime Minister. We have not done enough as a country, a few local commentators have been quick to say how much money we have spent helping those in war torn zones but where we could and should help more is allowing refugees into this county.

The figures do not lie- we have done very little - but of course the mixing of the words refugee, migrant and illegal immigrant by the media do not help the public to understand that we have been pathetic in our attempt to help those from Syria.



25,771

People applied for asylum in the UK in the year ending June 2015


2,204

Were from Syria

87% of Syrian requests for asylum were granted


216 Syrians have been granted protection under a special scheme to relocate vulnerable people - this is the most embarrassing figure of them all- 216!


4,980 Syrian asylum seekers and their dependents have been granted asylum since 2011


145 Syrian asylum seekers have been removed from the UK since 2011

Now David Cameron is right on one thing we should take from Syria and the camps in Jordan and Turkey - but trouble is he should have done that 3 years ago- now it is too late, so Cameron the PR man lets the media dictate policy, Germany will take 800,00, in Sweden for every 1,000 of their population they will allow an asylum seeker in and hear Cameron says we will take more but no figures and a plan will come out some time next week - how many more will die whilst he keeps a low profile?

Recently the British hero Nicholas Winton passed away- one of the people behind the Kindertransport, what would he think of some of the selfish attitudes displayed by many over the last few weeks. When you’re next in London at Liverpool Street station, seek out the statue on the station forecourt that celebrates the actions of many that saved those children from persecution, and maybe compare that with the scenes being acted out today in railway stations in Austria and Hungary.

History is an important subject, but only if we learn from it- where it seems with the likes of Farage and the far right of the Tory Party that many wish to re-enact the 1930's rather than learn the lessons from that era.

We have those making any excuse they can to stop refugees being made welcome - the worst one - peddled by many in the Tory Party including their local leaders here in Ipswich is that some of those fleeing Syria maybe from ISIS! That terrorist organisations seems to have little problem brainwashing people already here in this country to commit hideous crimes not sure they need to sneak them into the country. in fact with their oil wealth, pretending to be a refugee would be their last option of getting terrorists into Europe.

Then we have our own MP- Ben Gummer trying to blame the crisis on the opposition refusing to back Cameron in his proposal to bomb Syria- forgetting to mention that the PM did not even have the full support of his own party. I always thought Mr Gummer was a more 'liberal' Tory but his actions - or lack of them over this humanitarian crisis have shown him to be as bad as his leader.

We should do more, we should welcome refugees into this country - as we did in the 19th Century and in the early 20th century, as we did those fleeing Uganda and Sri Lanka.

But as long as we have a PR man as our Prime Minister- be prepared to always take the easy option
We must allow refugees in and we must act now.

#RefugeesWelcome

My week ahead, 2 - 8 August 2015

Sunday 2 August, 5pm – Meeting with Stella Creasy

Tuesday 4 August, 6pm – meeting with Angela Eagle

Wednesday 5 August, 7pm – Charity Indian meal, the Alishan Pavilion, Kesgrave

I see it is a compliment that in less than one week, three of the candidates for Deputy Labour leader are coming to speak to Labour members in Ipswich. It shows that in Ipswich we have a strong local party with a reputation for hard campaigning plus we still seek to help our colleagues in the rest of Suffolk and North Essex.

The race for Deputy leader will be very close and i have been impressed by all of the candidates so far.

But it is the Labour leadership election that is making most of the headlines, I tweeted last week that many local Tories seem only want to talk about it. This was further highlighted this week when our Tory MP decided to use his alst column before his (long) holiday to give us his view on the race to be Labour leader.

He seems to have decided the result and was very critical of Corbyn (a paragraph after being complimentary about him!) – Gummer description of Corbyn – “who is republican and a sympathizer of Communist and extremist organizations elsewhere in the world”

Thank you for that Mr Gummer, but not sure I need your help in deciding who I will vote for – But if you wish I will repay you the compliment in 2019 and tell you who to choose to take over from Cameron.

But as you seem to be critical of him because of his supposed support for extremist organisations, then would like to know what he thought of Mrs Thatcher and her support and friendship of a certain General Pinochet?

But what Mr Gummer does not mention in his last column is anything about the crisis in Calais, he mentions he is going on holiday, guess it is not by ferry or eurotunnel? But this is an important issue to many of us in Ipswich, those whose businesses are being damaged by the events in France, those who are going on holiday via Kent and also the many who are concerned about the plight of those migrants trying to enter the UK, but the thousands who are risking their lives to cross from Africa into Europe.

Cameron and the Tories have failed miserably to help anyone – his use of the word ‘swarm’ did not help the situation and his comments just seemed an attempt to appease the right wing of his own party. The mess we left Libya in is one of the contributing factors to the mess in Calais and Southern Europe. But the biggest failure of Cameron and the Tories has been the failure to help remedy the Syrian refugee situation.

18 Months ago, wanted to go to war with Syria, Parliament stopped him but since then we have had (UN figures) over 3 million refugees leave Syria, mainly to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan – we (Cameron) promised to help – so far the UK has taken 185 refugees – and we wonder why there is a problem in both the Mediterranean and Calais. Cameron should hold his head in shame. Maybe after your holiday Mr Gummer you may wish to use your column to tell us why you seem happy we have taken so few refugees and give us your opinion on the Calais crisis rather than advising Labour members who they should choose to be our next leader.

Should we have ordered air strikes on Iraq?

Ben Gummer (our Tory MP) has a regular column in or local paper, the Ipswich Star – some have been informative, some interesting and some poor but I would describe this week’s offering as both atrocious and pompous.

He started his column telling us about the birth of his son but then seemed to used most of the time making excuses for his son not being born in Ipswich, quite sad that he feels he has to do this I am positive no one in Ipswich Labour would have made any sort of issue about his wife giving birth in London, in fact most of us would not have been surprised by the news as we would expect Mr Gummer to spend more time in London than he does in Ipswich and as his wife is also from London not sure his son not being born in Ipswich is any sort of a story at all, but I am not being critical of Mr Gummer explaining why his son was not born in Ipswich I am just disappointed that the way modern politics is going that he thought he needed to explain the details of the birth of his son.

But what made me angry was the second part of his column – Ben Gummer used the second half of his column explaining why he was going to vote for air strikes in Iraq, he even went further to say that he believed we should also be bombing ISIS in Syria. Now I do believe Mr Gummer was right to use his column to tell Ipswich residents of why he was going to vote to allow our forces to enter the conflict though I was surprised that he was willing to state how he was going to vote before he listened and joined in the debate at Westminster.

I like Mr Gummer would have voted for Britain to join the coalition so him voting for us to join the US and others in bombing Northern Iraq but it was the pompous manner he put over his view and how he then used the column to not only attack Putin and Farage but also the Labour leader Ed Miliband,

The pomposity of his column was highlighted to me by what seemed him showing off, by describing the theatre of operations as Northern Mesopotamia. Now I may expect someone with an Oxbridge history degree to know what this part of Iraq was formally called and maybe even use that knowledge to understand some of the tribal and territorial issues that make this such a volatile region to live in but you would have just thought he would have called the area Northern Iraq rather than Mesopotamia.

To me it came over pompous and showing off and that is the last sort of reaction you should be after when explaining why you have voted to commit our Armed forces to combat.

Then after getting over his pomposity we had the attack on Ed Miliband, stating that the situation in the region now and the rise of ISIS is down to Ed and Labour MPs not voting to order air strikes on Iraq last year. What rubbish and he also seems to forget that a large number of Tory MPs also voted not to go to war in Syria and they were not your usual ‘little Englander’ Tory rebels.

Many including me actually believe that ISIS would have even been stronger if we had attacked Assad, the trouble is the Syrian rebels have never been united and ISIS was already attacking other Syrian rebel groups at the time of that last vote. My view is shared by many and a Labour MP asked Ed Miliband a leading question that indicated he had the same view but instead of Ed using his answer as an excuse to attack Cameron, instead he said the debate was about ordering air strikes on Iraq now not debating what would have happened if we had voted for action last year. The answer of Ed Miliband was statesmanlike, the sort of answer you would expect from a politician when such a grave matter as sending British planes into action was the subject of the debate. I am afraid our own Tory MP decided to use the vote as an opportunity to score cheap political points.

What Mr Gummers column does come over is one of desperation as he knows the tide is against him in Ipswich


I did state earlier that I, like Mr Gummer would have voted for air strikes in Iraq and like Mr Gummer agree that the RAF should be able to follow and then bomb targets into Syria but that is not to say that I applaud Mr Cameron for the stance he has taken in fact he has just failed to show any sort of leadership over the matter.

The coalition has been in action for a number of weeks but Mr Cameron did not see fit to recall Parliament earlier.

Like Mr Gummer and myself, I believe Mr Cameron believes we should also take action in Syria but he does not have the confidence to be even sure that he can persuade his own party to support him let along persuade his coalition colleagues or Labour or any other smaller political groups, a fact that Mr Hauge seemed to admit on the BBC this morning.

Former Generals and Air Commanders have been critical of Cameron, with one stating that to defeat ISIS it will need ‘boots on the ground’ and another senior ex British General with a former NATO command also being very critical of Cameron, the General disappointed in the way we have left others to lead not only in the battle against ISIS but also in the Ukraine conflict but that is the direct consequence of the drastic cuts to our Armed Forces by the Tories.

We have committed 6 planes to the mission over Iraq, less than Denmark and Australia. Mr Cameron does needs to learn that once you reduce the size of your armed forces you will find that you can no longer expect to be seen as one of the key decision makers in NATO, Europe or the UN.

It does not mean that just deploying armed forces is the only thing we can do as a country to help the situation in Iraq/Syria, we should be proud of the help we have given in overseas aid, something we would not be able to do in the future if Tory right wingers get their way and our aid budget is reduced but there is even more we can do – we are helping the refugees on the ground in both Turkey and Iraq but what I found both surprising but then more embarrassing is that by June this year only 43 Syrian refugees have been allowed to enter this country!

In the late 30’s many politicians did not cover themselves in glory with their willingness to appease Hitler (you can also add the Daily Mail to that list) but many of the British public did not just sit and do nothing, and I am sure many of us have been through Liverpool Street station and have looked at the statues that were erected to remember the Jewish children rescued by the Kindertransport’ – when you lean the story of those children, the contribution to British life by those children rescued it does make a total of 43 Syrian refugees accepted seem quite pathetic.

Syria - listen to our retired Generals

Last week Cameron and the Government lost a vote on military action in Syria. Much has been written, tweeted and blogged since.

Here in Ipswich a Tory blogger called Labour traitors for not support Cameron (forgetting to mention the Tory rebels or the Tory MP’s who did not even turn up but within days he was blogging that he agreed that military action was not the right way forward.

Ipswich Spy seems more concerned that Labour candidate David Ellesmere will not say how he would have voted. (since taken down) I would have thought more of a story was to ask why Tim Yeo did not even vote – but Ipswich spy said they do not chase stories beyond the Borough boundary (their next story was about a Tory councillor from outside Ipswich claiming hundreds of pounds for food- quail’s eggs?)

I do not believe military action was the right course to follow, I say that with some level of knowledge as a former soldier, for 6 months every morning when I looked out of my room I saw the remains of the Serb special police headquarters- a building that had been hit by a cruise missile – the inside were a mess but the outside of the building was intact – but if you had been hid in the cellar you would have survived. So in Damascus, there is little chance of hitting Assad or his senior henchmen, those who will be killed by a missile strike will be the lowest of the low – conscripts, civilians – not the Generals.

But what if a cruise missile hits a dump of chemical weapons- will that not cause the spread of those chemicals?

If I want my car fixed, I ask a garage not the Minister of Transport, so if I want to know if a cruise missile strike on Damascus would work I ask a General not Hammond or Hague – serving Generals are not known for giving out their opinion publically but only one former general could be found who agreed with the Government, General Rose, ex Guards and SAS – every General who got up to speak in the House of Lords spoke against attacking Syria, so why was Cameron so keen?

There is also the problem of the Syrian opposition – many factions a number who are seen as the enemy of the west – Iranian backed, Shia’s from Iraq - many who would like to attack the west. If Assad did go now it would leave a power vacuum – similar to what we had in Iraq.

Something of course has to be done about the use of chemical weapons, more pressure has to be placed on China and Russia and the use of the veto on the UN Security Council needs to looked at seriously to stop the UN becoming just a talking shop.
So I agreed with Miliband – Cameron made a big tactical error, his whips got it wrong it seemed almost arrogant to allow ministers to stay on holiday being so sure he would win the vote- he should have supported the Labour amendment but maybe he thought defeat on Thursday was better than being defeated on a second vote on the use of force this week?

The Tories accused Labour of playing party politics but as opinion polls showed that the country supported the stance of Ed, they are now saying that Cameron showed the way by letting Parliament decide and that Obama has since followed his lead in the USA- Clutching at straws.

Mr Gummer used his Star column last Friday to give us some indication of how he would vote, he also seems to blame Blair and the Iraq situation – even before Cameron lost the vote- saying how the mistrust of politicians (all Tony’s fault) has caused the drop in the number of people voting – He then (correctly) describes the Syria debate as a very important issue- the issue of waging war. Well what made me wonder if I could trust MP; s Mr Gummer was not what happened about Iraq but in the debate on waging war in Syria last Thursday – which you correctly declare an important issue is that over 100 MP’s did not even bother voting, many did not turn up and even a number of Government Ministers stayed on holiday.

As a soldier on a number of occasions I had to cancel leave because we had been warned that we might be needed, in 1998 we spent 6 months in Bosnia and expected to spend more time at home in 1999 – it never happened , instead we trained for Kosovo and deployed there less than a year after returning from the Balkans – we all deployed – all 650 men and women – none missing because they stayed on holiday – that is one of the reasons the public do not trust MP’s nothing to do with Blair or Iraq.

On Saturday I and a large number of colleagues spent the morning canvassing in Bridge Ward, Ipswich – and not one person mentioned Syria on the doorstep – instead it was the bedroom tax, immigration, lack of jobs and the mess the Tory run county were making of the roads in Ipswich. You can’t blame that on Toy Blair!

My week ahead, 2 - 7 September 2013

Monday 2 September, 6pm- Labour campaigning in South East Ipswich

Friday 6 September, 4pm – World War I centenary events , Steering committee - Grafton House

Saturday 7 September, 10am - Labour campaigning, North West Ipswich

What a week in national politics, Cameron and the government losing a vote on intervention in Syria, large Tory rebellion, Number 10 accusing Ed Miliband of succour to Assad (but not the Tory rebels who he invites to a BBQ at Chequers the day after!) and the ending of our ‘special relationship’ with the USA.

As an ex-soldier I have some strong opinions on Syria and the stance taken by Cameron over the situation. I intend to do a separate post on the issue later.

But there is no doubt in my mind a number of the Tory rebels and certain Labour MP’s voted against Cameron because of public opinion was against attacking Syria – you might say that is what they should do – but what I believe is that many did support intervention in Syria but were more concerned about votes and losing their seats in 2015.

The press, politicians, political commentators have not stopped , blogging, tweeting and writing about the events of last Thursday but out campaigning in south west Ipswich yesterday with a large group of Labour colleagues, not one resident mentioned Syria – wonder if the Tories found the same situation when out in Stoke Park yesterday? What I did hear about were the Tory attacks on the benefit system and the much discussed ‘bedroom tax’. It seems from the papers today that Ed and Labour will announce their policy on ‘bedroom tax’ this week with rumours that being that Labour will scrap it- if that is the action to be taken – well done Ed. Because many mentioned this loathed tax yesterday but no one mentioned Assad.