The last Tory MP for Ipswich is leaving from the Station

Much has been made of the announcement yesterday by the Chancellor, George Osborne that we are about to see a great improvement in our local rail network – but are we? And if we are to see an improvement, when?

Mr Gummer has been campaigning for an improved railway system from even before he was elected and he should be congratulated for getting the Chancellor to promise…. Well.. something – but what exactly?

The local paper here in Ipswich has run this as the main story today, with praise for Ben Gummer plus the Tory MP’s from Norwich and Witham, and Mr Gummer is also keen to mention Ms Smith and Patel but no mention of Dan Poulter or even the regional Lib Dem MP’s – but the official statement from the Government does credit the campaign to the three Tory MPs and the Lib Dem MP for Norwich. Even the Lib Dem for Colchester gets a brief mention, though he can’t be too happy as any plan to speed up the trains to London will probably mean less stopping at Colchester.

Mr Gummer was not happy with a number of my responses on twitter, and accuses me of (yet again) being 100% wrong but I have been looking at both the Government statement – here and other information on the rail infrastructure and am not sure Mr Osborne is announcing anything more than a task force being set up to look at ways of making it Norwich in 90 and Ipswich in 60.

But is that the main issue? Is it not the crowded carriages, the reliability, cost of tickets? Ipswich is already only 70 odd minutes to London and one train already 59 minutes – it only took 73 minutes to get to London in 1961!

There seems to be from research, three ways to speed the route up and the task force has just been set up to look at the three possible options- no mention of secured funding other than funding that was already in place for track improvements.

The three essential ingredients are,

1. A more modern fleet with better acceleration capability and 'automatic' doors. The announcement only happens to coincide with the start of the program for refurbishment of existing trains, good news is that they have not just gone for the East Coast cast offs, but it seems Government policy is when it comes to rolling stock it is for the train operator to determine. Which means after the cock up over the West Coast line we might still be two and half years from the franchise in East Anglia being sorted out.

2. Rail infrastructure design. There are several places where the overhead lines would need re-engineering and this is not only costly but will cause major inconvenience when this does happen.

3. New Track - The faster you run trains, the sooner they catch up the ones in front (if they are 'stopping' trains). There are 2 ways to solve this. Either you make the 'stopping' trains stop in fewer places (not a good idea) or you create extra track capacity by putting extra tracks in. This was already planned in Chelmsford – linked to new housing development and here in Ipswich we have the Bacon Cord, which should reduce freight trains.

So all the above have to be looked at by this ‘task force’ but it seems to be for all the talk by Mr Gummer it will only be when the franchise is sorted that we will see any progress.

Then we get back to the A14 Toll road- what we also need is an improved cross country service, Cambridge in an hour and very infrequent trains to Peterborough means that people are forced onto the A14 – no plan there, yet again we all seem focused on just London.

So I welcome the announcement by the chancellor, but let’s see the real details before we start getting too excited- how much will be spent? How much of that will come from the treasury 9not the passenger)? And when will we see it start? Plus how many trains will be London in 60?

Flashback to 2007 - selection the Tory way!

A number of Tory blogs seem to think their use of a Primary = open to all - to select Ben Gummer was a roaring success. Below I have posted my original piece from 2007 to remind us all it was not!

Just after the Ipswich Primary, the Tories in the South West of England used one to select a candidate. The person selected was not the choice of the local Tory Party, so they just did not endorse him.

So Mr Spencer, West and Algar - remember that the local party could overturn the decision of the primary.

I attended the Ipswich Conservative Party's new fangled "select a candidate" Primary in Ipswich last night. Two big adverts in local papers plus they distributed 9,000 flyers in Ipswich advertising the event and the outcome? 55 Ipswich constituents turned up to attend the evening, and as well as myself there were four other non Tories from a Pro Life organisation attending. At least 14 Conservative councilors attended and the remainder were made up of their partners and other Tory party members. So it had not got the people of Ipswich that interested though the local Tories are hailing the Primary as a publicity success.

The Four candidates were, Chloe Smith, James Tumbridge, Samantha George and Benedict Gummer.

The evening consisted of each candidate being interviewed for 10 minutes by a moderator then facing 20 minutes of questions. The second candidate, Chloe Smith was asked two questions by the Pro Life supporters- on abortion and embryo research, when she gave her answer it led to a shout of "shame" from the back of the hall. Now the first candidate had not been asked that question, so a quick pause and the Tories decided to make sure that the remaining two candidates received the same questions that Chloe had received.

Gummer replied that he would like to see a restriction on 'abortion on demand', this answer was welcomed by the Pro Life activists.

All four candidates were asked for their Three Tory heroes- all named thatcher and Churchill, Gummer's third choice was Lord Shaftsbury.

I thought that Samantha George, the most experienced candidate but the only one without an East Anglian connection was the best candidate, but after the vote it was announced that Benedict Gummer was the winner with over 50% of the vote.

So now we may see a father and son double act as John Gummer MP's seat borders the Ipswich constituency- maybe the local burger vans will do a roaring trade when the Gummer family are posing for local media pictures!

Tories lead in 'Democracy?'

Eric Pickles has been in most of the broadsheet papers recently claiming that the Tories are leading the way in giving politics back a good name (did it ever have one in the first place?) How are they doing that you may ask?
Well even before the expenses scandal, the Tories have been using the open Primary to select candidates in some of their seats, in Totnes they have even used a Postal Primary. Now for many the word Primary smacks of copying the US system, hardly one that lends itself to the cleanest way to run politics.
Pickles forgets that the Tory party suffers more than most for having MP's who contribute little to public life but sit in Shire constituencies with large majority's- we have a number who fall in that category in Suffolk. Once sitting there seems little chance of a Primary being used there. It just seems to be for seats that the Tories currently don't hold.

Now I talk from first hand experience as I attended the Ipswich Primary where Ben Gummer, was selected. well run? It seemed so at first but take away the party members, there were very few members of the public there, and even after the selection the local constituency management committee can throw the choice out. (As happened in Plymouth Devenport)
Why was Ipswich a failure (other than selecting a candidate who will jump to Suffolk Coastal, once his burger eating Dad retires)
Well those who were not Porty members (not including me) seemed to come from the Far Right Christian movement, and as only some of the candidates got asked about abortion and such like, the questioning was not fair. this done for Chloe Smith- who may have had the last laugh as she is now the MP for Norwich North!
So the contest was a straight shooing for Gummer with his Fathers religious views helping. Of the Tory party members who were there, an obvious split between the younger Gummer supporters and those who were after a Council leader from Surrey who had led a Unitary Council.
Some of the Tory members who did not even live in the constituency were also able to vote, I saw a number from Ipswich and Central Suffolk voting. Wonder if that is the last time they will vote together as they divide into build/don't build on the Northern Fringe debate!

So Eric, yes- all parties should be doing more to restore confidence in democracy and politics but pretending these gimmick Primary's are the answer is a joke. Maybe a start will be to stop Tory Councils calling a council meeting that costs hundreds of pounds and had only one thing to discuss but in the same year cancel council meetings when councilors would have had the opportunity to discuss the proposals for unitary Councils. Plus all the working groups that seem to never meet. Well Mr Pickles- democracy with or without a Primary certainly does not look alive in Ipswich Tory circles!

Ipswich gets Gummer Mark II

I attended the Ipswich Conservative Party's new fangled "select a candidate" Primary in Ipswich last night. Two big adverts in local papers plus they distributed 9,000 flyers in Ipswich advertising the event and the outcome? 55 Ipswich constituents turned up to attend the evening, and as well as myself there were four other non Tories from a Pro Life organisation attending. At least 14 Conservative councilors attended and the remainder were made up of their partners and other Tory party members. So it had not got the people of Ipswich that interested though the local Tories are hailing the Primary as a publicity success.

The Four candidates were, Chloe Smith, James Tumbridge, Samantha George and Benedict Gummer.

The evening consisted of each candidate being interviewed for 10 minutes by a moderator then facing 20 minutes of questions. The second candidate, Chloe Smith was asked two questions by the Pro Life supporters- on abortion and embryo research, when she gave her answer it led to a shout of "shame" from the back of the hall. Now the first candidate had not been asked that question, so a quick pause and the Tories decided to make sure that the remaining two candidates received the same questions that Chloe had received.

Gummer replied that he would like to see a restriction on 'abortion on demand', this answer was welcomed by the Pro Life activists.

All four candidates were asked for their Three Tory heroes- all named thatcher and Churchill, Gummer's third choice was Lord Shaftsbury.

I thought that Samantha George, the most experienced candidate but the only one without an East Anglian connection was the best candidate, but after the vote it was announced that Benedict Gummer was the winner with over 50% of the vote.

So now we may see a father and son double act as John Gummer MP's seat borders the Ipswich constituency- maybe the local burger vans will do a roaring trade when the Gummer family are posing for local media pictures!