My week (and the year) ahead 6 - 12 January 2014

Monday – 6 January, 5pm – North East Area Committee Agenda setting meeting
6pm – Area Committee Chairs, meeting – Grafton House
7pm – Labour campaigning

Saturday 11 January, 10am – Labour campaigning – South East Ipswich

A start of a New Year and which will include important local elections for Ipswich Borough, European Elections, plus a referendum in Scotland but with all political groups now focusing on the result of the General Election in 2015.

As a slight political anorak, I of course have an interest in all 4 elections and we in Ipswich are determined to do our bit in increasing our number of seats on the Ipswich Borough Council – including winning the last seat back in Rushmere. Plus we will be helping get the best possible result for Labour in the Euro Elections. These elections often give a slightly distorted view of politics in this country as UKIP have in the past done well in these elections but it is where those voters then vote for in 2015 that is more important.

At least this year at the European Elections we have an Ipswich based candidate in our own North East Ipswich Cllr – Sandy Martin. Is a great campaigner and also well know to residents in East Ipswich so it will be a real boost to the local campaigners in that e will be working for a local resident.

It is harder to work out what our opponents are doing, the Lib Dems have retreated into their ST Margaret’s enclave and even in that ward seem to be doing very little, not even being able to host an Ipswich Lib Dems website is an indication of how far they have fallen down the political ladder.

The Tories do little better on the social media front and seem more interested in internal fighting – mainly over their one safe seat of Bixley, a poor performance at the polls for them in late May will not be good news for a certain Mr Gummer. It is quite noticeable that one a local Tory loses their seat they often disappear totally from the local political scene.

UKIP, I am sure will do in May but they seem to have done little work in the town since winning a seat at the County Council elections last year. But with a free mail drop at the Euro Elections, they will cause problems for both us and the Tories in certain seats.

But all in all, I can see this being a good year for Ipswich Labour, increasing our seats on the local council, more people joining the party and helping us ensure we return a Labour MP to Westminster in 2015.

This year I will be more involved in the Labour Defence team at Westminster, working with the Shadow Defence team in helping set priorities for when a Labour Government returns to power next year. For anyone interested in matters concerning veterans, I ask you to read this article by Dan Jarvis MP, a former soldier and working with the Shadow Justice team – it concerns the number of veterans who ended up on the wrong side of the law. I would ask you to contact your local MP and ask for their support when Dan tables two amendments to the Offenders Rehabilitation Bill about to go through Parliament, there should be no reason that these two amendments do not get full cross party support- read more about the need for these amendments here: Dan Jarvis article in The Telegraph

Why Labour won the Election in Ipswich

The election now seems ages ago but it was just 10 days ago that the people of Ipswich put their trust in a Labour run administration in the town.

A number of other local websites have already posted and debated why Labour did so well or as in most of their blogs – how bad the Tories and Lib Dems did!

There is no doubt that the national political picture helped Labour in Ipswich and the Ipswich Tory website is already blaming their defeat on the economy and other Tory bloggers on ‘mid-term blues’. But even after 12 years of a Labour Government, we were still holding our own in Ipswich. The Tories have only been in (shared) power for 2 years.

It can be quite amusing for us to watch the other political groups tear each other apart as they look at someone to blame. We have the former Ipswich Tory Chair blaming Cameron and closer to home Cllr Terry, we have the Tory Gipping candidate blaming the wet day and then launching a very personal attack on the former Tory activist who writes for Ipswich Spy and then to top it off we have the independent candidate blaming the mother of the Lib Dem candidate.

The Lib Dems got their excuses in before polling day, blaming the heavy rain for their lack of door knocking – nothing to do with a lack of members then?

As I said before there is no doubt the weak budget and the poor leadership of Cameron did cause the Tory vote to stay at home and many will now believe in Ipswich that the Lib Dem vote will never recover from joining the Tories in a coalition. In most of the Borough they now find themselves in fourth place behind the Greens.

But the success of Labour in Ipswich can also be put down to the hard work we put in, not just in the 5 week ‘short’ campaign but every week since 2010, in fact we had increased our work and started more focusing campaign in 2004.

We had an increase in members and activists after the General Election defeat in 2010 and it was good to see a number of those who joined IN 2010 elected to the Borough Council last week. But I would also put down our success to our discipline, we do not agree on everything but our arguments/discussions are kept within the Labour Group room, compare that to the latest Tory in fighting and the reported in-fighting over the Bixley candidate selection.

That loyalty and feeling of being a united group helps create a great campaigning team- each day of the campaign (even in the rain) we had up to 20 members out all over the Borough, and on a number of occasions we had over 35 members out. The national party also helped with the visits of two ministers and our MEP. We saw the Tories out on the doorstep but obviously short in numbers (and morale). The most I ever saw was 7, and they looked very disorganised. There may be more Tory supporting blogs but even on the Social Media front we were way ahead, the Lib Dem website only re-launched a few weeks before the campaign and the Tory website never had any mention of the election or candidates – it still has Tanya Maclure down as a councillor.

On twitter- we kept our supporters updated on local news and on how the campaign was going. We even had twitter followers join us out on the doorstep.

I do not want to give the Tories (and Lib Dems) advice on how to campaign and win elections but maybe they just have to see what we were doing yesterday- 20 of us out in South West Ipswich delivering leaflets- just 9 days after the election and the Lib Dems can’t even use the ‘heavy rain’ excuse this weekend for their lack of activity.

So why we may amuse ourselves smiling at the Tory in-fighting we will continue to campaign hard with the Suffolk County Council elections and the 2015 General Election as our next two key targets.

What now for the Lib Dems in Ipswich?

Last Thursday Labour got the result they expected and worked hard for in Barnsley, but the talking point has been how the Lib Dems slipped from second place At the General Election in May to sixth place last week. The Lib Dem vote was so poor that I actually got 14 votes more than the Liberal candidate in Barnsley when I won Rushmere Ward, Ipswich in 2008! UKIP also did well, taking votes from the Tories, BNP and the Lib Dems, they now hope to position themselves as the third party in Britain.

But where does that leave the Lib Dems in Ipswich? Will the national decline in their popularity be repeated in Ipswich? Barnsley was of course an election for parliament and in a strong Labour town but on the same night in East Anglia, we saw Labour push the Lib Dems into third in a safe Tory seat in Cambridgeshire.
Nationally, many Liberals are unhappy with Clegg and it is not just Student fees, last week whilst sharing a table with a leading Suffolk Lib Dem, I was left with no doubt that many are unhappy that the Lib Dems are involved in a government that is forcing through many of the severe cuts that local councils will have to make.

I was interested to see many of the comments from Tory activists at their Spring Conference were not as critical of their junior coalition partners as I thought they would be – in fact many praised Nick Clegg – not sure that is what Lib Dem activists wanted to hear, one comment from a Tory summed their feelings for Clegg up best:

“Nick Clegg seems like a nice person. I don't think he is really a Lib Dem. He seems to be more in tune with a lot of Conservative philosophy. I don't think he ever really believed in tuition fees. He is not a proper Lib Dem but it would be difficult for him to defect to the Conservatives because he gets his power from being the Lib Dem leader.” Matthew Miller – Tory activist.

But back to Ipswich, will we see the same fall in the Lib Dem vote? Even before the General Election the Lib Dems were on the back foot in Ipswich, from having councillors in four Ipswich wards they were down to being represented in only three, and this May that could be down to only two wards. What will they do to fight back? In Stockport and other parts of the country we have even seen Lib Dems Cllrs and activists split from the main party and next week we are told to expect the Lib Dem ministers to take a pounding from Lib Dems Cllrs at their Spring Conference. With an expectation that Lib Dems MP’s will be instructed to not vote for the proposed Tory plans for the NHS, might be a difficult week for Clegg but will we see Lib Dems leaving the party in Ipswich? Will we hear Atkins, Cann or others criticizing the coalition’s plans for the NHS?

Don’t hold your breath would be my answer, the Ipswich Lib Dems are not a party that the traditional Ipswich Liberal family the Grimwade’s would recognise, two of their seven councillors are refugees from the other two main political parties and many of the others seem to have just arrived by default from a St Margaret's Ward Residents Association meeting.

Of course they would find it hard to be critical of Clegg and his fellow Lib Dem ministers, they themselves jumped in to bed with the Tories when offered a chance of (limited) power, they are so determined to stay in power with the Tories they just covered their ears when Tory councillor Wells attacked them in his final speech as a councillor, it seemed to me he was just saying out loud what most of the rest of the Tory councillors believed.

We may not have to wait for election day in May to see where the Lib Dems currently are and where they are heading , we will see when the nominations for the local election are announced whether they will stand in every Ipswich ward, will Councillor Andrew Cann stand again in Westgate Ward, try and find another seat or just not stand and concentrate on his duties as a County Councillor? Will we see leaflets in any other Wards on top of St Margaret's Ward and Alexandra? We have not seen a council election leaflet in Rushmere ward for at least 4 years. Now it may seem that most of the Lib Dem councillors in Ipswich are quite happy with the coalition government, but it is not their blind loyalty to Clegg that will decide how well they do in May, it will be if Lib Dem voters are willing to forgive Clegg for his stance on tuition fees, it will be if the voters of Ipswich are willing to vote for a party that is forcing these severe cuts (many that seem to be driven by a right wing ideology rather than because of the need to make cuts to help reduce the national debt). Not sure there have ever been many Lib Dem members in Ipswich but I am sure there must have been a number of activists who were willing to go out a deliver leaflets – even if only in a very few of the Ipswich wards, will they still be prepared to put on that yellow rosette and spend a couple of hours delivering the local ‘Lib Dem Focus’ leaflet? Not sure the Lib Dem leaflet that went out in Barnsley on Wednesday helped them – ‘it's Lib Dem or Labour here’ will we see a truthful ‘only the Lib Dems can come last here’ leaflet?




The Tories, may be slightly less popular than they were in May, but seem to have not suffered the same fate as the Lib Dems, though like the Lib Dems, very little campaigning seems to have been done, with only one Tory leaflet being seen in Rushmere between May and December last year, though we have seen two leaflets delivered in Rushmere ward over the last month.

Finding out what the local Lib Dems in Ipswich think about how the government is doing is quite hard, Cllr Pollard and Cann are often quoted in the local papers, but no Lib Dems leaflets are to be seen and their website has had only 4 news stories since last May and two of them were on the same subject.

What you will see over the next two months, is the Ipswich Labour Party continuing to campaign hard, we have not stopped to be fair since last May, and plus we have been buoyed by the many new members that have joined since the last election. I am sure we will see the Tory election machine move up a gear (seems to stuck in neutral at the moment) but will we see the Lib Dems?