My week ahead 20 - 26 August 2012

This is the time of the year where we tend not to have many meetings but it does give us the opportunity to get out and talk to residents. This week we have also been daytime campaigning, which has been a success - Ipswich Tories commented that it was not with doing it for them as all their voters work!

We have been campaigning for Jane Basham as she seeks to be elected as the Police & Crime Commissioner for Suffolk. Not many residents were impressed that the Tories have chosen a farmer - residents worried that those of us in Ipswich will be treated as second class citizens when it comes to policing, as like Suffolk County Council we will get a rural bias.

Today we had the good news that in September we will see Bradley Wiggins - Gold medal winner, Paul Weller and Gordon Brown fan - entering the Tour of Britain race that will start in Ipswich, I am sure we will get a massive crowd at the waterfront to see the start of the race. Hopefully something similar to the attendance we have had this weekend for the second Ipswich Maritime Festival. I we nt toady and there was a real buzz amongst the crowd - I would like to say a big thanks not only to the residents who attended the event but the Ipswich Borough staff who worked so hard, the Events team, security, Fire Marshalls, and street cleaners - you did a great job.

Maritime Festival

Comedy waiters join the festival

Miners strike- 25 years ago but still remembered - even in Ipswich

Last night on the BBC, 'One Show' saw the first of what will be Summer of features about the miners strike of 1984. The piece last night featured Roy Hattersley and was a good short piece that featured ex miners and an ex policemen who had been a miner before he joined the force. though 25 years has passed it is obvious from the film that the strike is far from being forgotten and in some area's- South Yorkshire - for one, there still remains bitterness. I do have a worry that many of the articles and programmes over the Summer will portray the strike in more romantic terms. A sort of 'Billy Elliot' view.


I believe the miners were right to strike and what has happened to the coal industry since has proved they were right but they were badly led by Arthur in what became a Scargill v Thatcher battle and that took away the focus from the real suffering of the miners and their families.


Of course some good came out of the strike and the efforts of the wives and mothers introduced a number of females to the Labour movement.


In Ipswich, I remember miners coming to collect money in buckets and my parents helping them on the Cornhill and putting up a number of strikers in our house. I was home a lot of that summer as I was on extended sick leave from the Army after badly breaking my leg, what I can dispel is the urban myth that soldiers helped on the picket line, I have never found any soldier who was involved. In the military hospital we did have a number of policemen as it was thought they may get a hard time from NHS staff if they went to a normal hospital.


I also remember the music of that era, Paul Weller and Billy Bragg remain my favourites from musicians who got behind the miners and who would eventually become 'Red Wedge'.


This link, takes you to a BBC site, that features a slide show of photographs from the strike with a musical backdrop featuring both Weller and Bragg. I hope we do see a number of well made programmes about the strike but let us also look at how some communities have recovered and also how some are still suffering.