Pass the baton and lazy journalism?

Last Monday, Suffolk and Ipswich were fortunate to be one of the few English locations chosen to host the Commonwealth Games Queens Baton Relay.

I myself was even more fortunate as I was invited to attend the ‘Quads’ Athletics event at Northgate School, the event would see local primary schools compete against each other and then have their chance to complete a lap of the track with the Commonwealth Games baton.

The young athletes also had the opportunity to meet some of Olympic and Paralympics stars from 2012 – with gymnast Beth Tweddle the most well known of those present. She was a great ambassador and so obliging to all those who asked for autographs or to have their photo taken with her. Though it seemed to be the teachers who were the keenest have a ‘selfie’ taken with Beth!

A quick dash across town took me to Christchurch Park, after picking up my wife and nephew as the baton made its way to the last event of the day as it was paraded through the park before a short charity run. The baton in the park was carried by our own Paralympics star, Zoe Newson and 80 year old (keep fit enthusiast) Ken Webb .

The event was maybe more low key than the Olympic Torch event in 2012 but all there seemed to be enjoying it and it has certainly given me a buzz as I look forward to attending the games in Glasgow in July,

Our events and sports staff hosted the event on behalf of Suffolk County Council who was the organiser of all the events that were held in throughout the county on behalf of the Commonwealth Games.

It was good to see a number of Labour councillors attending the event with Sarah Adams even attempting the charity fun run – in sandals!

So it was surprising to read in ‘Ipswich Spy’ how disappointed he was that unlike the Olympic Torch event that no councillors had attended. Well I was there as were at least 5 other Labour members.

There were hundreds at the event so I can understand why their writer never saw us but you would think he may have checked first. In the past the ‘Spy’ writer has been both critical of my blog and my twitter feed, if he had checked both this time he would have seen that I had indicated that I was going to attend the event and my twitter feed included photographs from the event.

He implies that more councillors attended the torch event two years ago, not sure how many did but that was a ticket only event and other than the Mayor, no tickets were given to councillors – if they wished to attend they had to queue at the town hall like every other resident. This event was more low key however I would have still thought that the County Council would have made more effort to promote the baton events. We did try and help, I did a radio interview with BBC Suffolk and there was also publicity in the local paper that was arranged by the Borough. I did ask one of our Labour County councillors if she had been informed about the event and she had not and it seemed the same had happened in Lowestoft where no Labour County councillors had been informed about the event there but Tory Leader Mark Bee had made sure he had been seen and photographed on the beach.

Did the County play a political game and not invite Labour councillors or are they so disorganised and just forget to invite anyone?

Not sure either way but both explanations could be true with this joke of a County Council.

My week ahead, 9 - 15 June 2014

Monday – 9 June, 2pm – North East Area Committee Agenda setting,
3pm – Commonwealth Games Baton – Schools Athletics event – Northgate School
5pm – Commonwealth Games Baton – Celebration in Christchurch Park

Wednesday – 11 June, North East Area Committee – Councillors meeting

Saturday 14 June – 10am, Labour campaigning

It looks like I have a hectic (but enjoyable) week ahead. Now the new municipal year has started we begin the first set of meetings, I have high hopes for the North East Area Committee and I hope the Conservatives will now become more involved in the Area ‘Action Plan’ rather than sniping from the side as they have done over the last few years.

Monday will be busy but enjoyable as we welcome the Commonwealth Games Baton to Ipswich, this will be a great event and I see it as a reward for the town. We are getting known as a local authority that can put on big sporting events – the Olympic Torch, Tour of Britain and the Sky ride. But it is not just having a proactive authority and a great events team, the baton is coming to Ipswich as the organisers know the Ipswich public will turn up and support the event.

This week Mr Gummer has been involved in a number of arguments on twitter. The arguments started after commuters were handed out the latest glossy (expensive?)Tory leaflet. The leaflet focuses on planned improvements to the Norwich – London rail link. Norwich in 90 and Ipswich in 60 seem to be the targets that Mr Gummer and his fellow Tory MPs seem focused on but that will not happen without new trains and new tracks. This is where the arguments start – the leaflet mentions new trains and Mr Gummer admits that improvements in speed will not happen till the new trains arrive, he then stated that the new franchise will bring new trains then after further tweets it seems that is not for certain and not all the existing rolling stock will be replaced and that any new trains will not be seen for at least 6 years! Making the use of the words ‘new trains’ on the leaflet seem rather misleading – deliberate?

Mr Gummer may have more to worry about this week than the state of local trains as his boss faces MPs after having to apologise to the Prime Minister and a senior civil servant after a spat with the Home Secretary.

From the outside it seems both Gove and the Home Secretary have broken the Ministerial Code, but yet again as with Mr Hunt it seems Mr Cameron is either unable or unwilling to discipline senior ministers. It will be interesting to know how involved Mr Gummer is in the whole shenanigans.

The losers in this whole event? The children in Birmingham as they have been let down by this Tory Government the only real issue is by which Tory Ministers door the blame lies.

Expect this post to lead to a local blogger/Tory/Gummer apologist to state (without knowing) that Gummer is not implicated as he was away on his honeymoon. Now as most of the briefings from Gove and May have taken place the day before the Queens Speech, I hope Mr Gummer was back at work – he deserves a honeymoon but he does have a long break in the Summer to fit that in.