My week ahead 11 - 16 February 2013

Monday 11 February, 6pm – Labour Group meeting

Tuesday 12 February, 6pm – Culture Working Group

Wednesday 13 February, 9am – Visit Sidegate Primary School
11am – Walkabout in Bixley Ward, Ipswich

Thursday 14 February, 6pm –Scrutiny meeting

Saturday 16 February, 10.30am – Labour campaigning in North West Ipswich

The week ahead seems quite varied with visits to schools, walkabouts, culture working groups, and scrutiny.

Finishing on Saturday with campaigning, all Suffolk County Council candidates now selected and so we continue to get out on the streets to get our message over. A number of Labour councillors will have been in Nottingham this weekend, debating on how to save locals services that are under threat from the savage Tory (Lib Dem supported) cuts. Labour takes local government very seriously and the councillors would have heard speeches from Ed Miliband .

I am sure those councillors will come back inspired, and it is not just in Ipswich we want to get our message across, we need to reach into every town and village in Suffolk. As a county we have been let down by this Tory run county council. Andrea Hill and Pembroke may have gone but the likes of Colin Noble are still pushing through their ‘sell everything off’ plan. Suffolk along with Barnet seems to be the leading Tory authorities bent on a very right wing way to run local government and with Colin Noble we seem to have an Eric Pickles clone.

So we have a county promoting ‘Free Schools’ selling off care homes, and we even have Tory cabinet members who are happy to say they will not even vote for their own Tory MP as he does not seem right wing enough with his views on gay marriage.
In Ipswich we could see most Tory County councillors lose their seats – can you see Ipswich getting a good deal off a rural controlled county council? That is why it is important that we win seats all over the county – and we can do it.