Letting down our soldiers?

Last night at the Ipswich Borough Council meeting, our Labour Group put forward a motion asking for the Government to consider scrapping the 1% pay cap on Public Service workers, Cllr Bryony Rudkin proposed the motion and it was seconded by Sandra Gage, both commented on how hard some public workers were finding it hard to get by with some nurses now having to rely on food banks.

Even members of the Tory Cabinet are now considering supporting the removal of the pay cap but currently the Chancellor is holding firm on his strict stance. The election result in June plus what their own residents are telling them has caused a number of Tory MPs to consider their own position on the wage cap. Philip Hammond, the Chancellor may not be happy with some of his MPs wavering but he would have been much more comfortable with the response of the Ipswich Tory Group.

Cllr Harsant stated she did understand the hardship that public service workers were bearing but she would still vote against the motion because she felt it was better for the country, I do not agree with her but she at least made a decent attempt at explaining her position, the same could not be said of the other Tories who spoke.

Many said that the current economic situation (all down to Gordon Brown, according to them) meant we could not afford a rise above 1% for anyone - none could explain how it was OK for some of them to vote for a much larger rise for the Tory leaders on the County council last week! Some of the other comments were far more outrageous - Cllr Carnall decided to focus on tuition fees and Corbyn (not sure what that had to do with the wage cap) but when he did speak on the motion he described the contributions by Cllrs Gage and Rudkin as 'sob stories'.

Many of their front bench seemed to enjoy informing us all that public service workers would not get a pay cut, Nadia Cenci stated she would like to give all soldier pay of £100,000 but still would not vote for the lifting of a 1% pay cap on our armed forces.

Cllr Phillips indicated that independent pay review boards settled public service pay - he was almost right, in the case of the Armed Services the Government just ignores the findings and pay review boards for other public service workers are often told that they can't recommend pay rises of over 1% before they start. So much for any form of independence.

As Bryony Rudkin later commented, the mask had slipped and the 'nasty party' was back with a bang. By this time, I had decided to speak not only because of the anger I now felt after listening to the Tories speak but also by the hypocrisy of some who stayed silent.

Robin Vickery is both a Borough and a County Councilor and has often spoken up for the Armed Services, no real surprise as he is a dedicated member of the British Legion and holds a senior post within the Suffolk British Legion. Earlier in the meeting he had asked a question about Suffolk Day where he had lamented the lack of floral displays at the recent event, his last comment had been that he had hoped their would be a better show when we remembered the battle of Passchendaele on Monday., not a surprising comment due to his role in the British Legion, but when it came to voting for a motion to ask the Tory Government to lift the 1% wage cap on our current soldiers, sailors and airmen he refused but only a week earlier he had voted for a 15% pay rise for Tory County leader, Colin Noble.

As a senior member of the British Legion I would have expected him not only to vote for but speak up for any motion that supported our current armed forces. I had earlier spoken to say that a 1% pay rise would not have stopped me from wanted to be a member of the army but this Tory Government is not just asking soldiers to take home just a 1% rise it is actually reducing their weekly pay packet as they look to introduce the 'Armed Forces Future Accommmodation Model' - a plan that is so flawed that serving senior officers are even going public in their criticism of the proposed scheme. This would mean that some young soldiers could actually see an 8-9% pay cut. But this did not seem to sway Cllr Vickery who still voted against the motion. Maybe now is the time that Cllr Vickery looked at his position within the Suffolk British Legion.

Cameron can't answer questions and Ipswich Tories can't ask them!

At Prime Minister’s Question time this week not only did David Cameron fail to respond to any questions he was asked with a thoughtful answer (on Google, Saudi arm sales) he also managed to demean the role of Prime Minister by describing those who are living in atrocious conditions in Calais as a ‘bunch of migrants’ – remember this the same week we mark ‘Holocaust Day’.

Many believe this was not a slip of the tongue but a pre-medicated move to either take the focus away from the Google cock up or to try and look tough on migration so to appease his Eurosceptic colleagues. Whatever the reason, it was not the sort of comment that a Prime Minister of the country should be making.

Unfortunately his comment looks quite Liberal when you compare it with the right wing drivel (and scaremongering words) that were posted on a blog by the Ipswich Tory leader, Nadia Cenci. Her comments declaring that many stuck in Calais were possibly terrorists on their way to UK, were quite sickening to read and again not the sort of words you would expect or hope to see from an elected politician. – “all the infiltration of terrorists (and I bet there's quite a few of them at Calais so frustrated at not reaching our shores as easily as Merkel's now very new and unrecognisable country). “

She then turned her piece into an anti EU rant, using such terms as “EU and all it's horrible socialist experiments” and “if the EU doesn't collapse before then under the weight of it’s own corrupt, poisonous and egotistical head. “

We are informed by many that our Tory MP, Ben Gummer is pro EU – if he is, he should now stand up and inform his constituents that he does not agree with the comments of his local Tory leader.

There are so many rumours and bits of miss-information floating round, it is important that politicians stick to the facts, the comments of Nadia Cenci do not help. Last night we invited a local refugee charity to a Labour meeting so we could discover the truth.

I was shocked how little Cameron intends to do- in the next 5 years, the Tories propose to allow 200 Syrians to settle in Suffolk- just 40 a year, so expect about 10 families at the most – whilst at the same time Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have millions of refugees living in their countries.

 

 

If Cameron can’t answer questions it seems Nadia Cenci and the local Tories can’t ask them! On Wednesday I attended Ipswich Borough Full Council Meeting, and as always at the start we have a series of questions, mainly from the opposition and sometimes the public. This week we saw 10 questions from the local Tories and even independent observers had to admit via social media that the quality of questions was very poor. In fact even being very generous only two were worth asking, one from Cllr Pope about IBC working with the college and Cllr Debman on the number of football teams now using park pitches.

Even then Cllr Pope failed to follow up his questions with a good supplementary whilst Cllr Debman is correct that park football now does seem a thing of the past, it is not IBC who are to blame, the FA for one should look at their own actions quite closely and Ipswich dies provide quality facilities at Gainsborough, Whitton and now Ransomes.

Cllr Pope is right in questioning how much work has gone on between the council and the college but his timing was poor as this week the college has launched it’s own ‘vision’ document which will see more cooperative work between the organisations.

Then we had the really  bad questions starting with Cllr Cenci! She asked how much to council spend to cover their union facilities agreement, but she could not help herself and turned it a pre-election statement and asked how much does it cost the council tax payer. The amount is £45,00 but she was quickly informed that only a small percentage of that comes from council tax, we could have added that Tory run Suffolk spend more on when the Tories were in power in Ipswich they did not try and stop paying this money- which is probably the most economical way to run Human Resources at the council.

We then had Cllr Phillips ask how much our legal costs were for work on the Ravenswood inquiry, seeming to forget the fact that we were only having an inquiry because Pickles and Gummer called the project in as a blatant piece of electioneering.

But that was not the end of it, we had Cllr Vickery ask about the Olympic 2012 legacy, only weeks after the local paper had published a report that lavished praise on Labour run Ipswich for all the work we had done with sport but he made even more of a mess of an earlier question when he asked why groups such as the Friends of the parks were no longer invited to the Culture and Leisure working group, he did not seem to realise that parks had not been part of the culture portfolio for the last 8 months.

What the night did highlight is that this group of Tory councilors and candidates are not capable of running a council, and let us make sure in May that they never get a chance.

Fly(er)ing off the handle

Last Wednesday was the budget setting meeting of the Full Council in Ipswich. After savage cuts forced on us by Erick Pickles and the Tories – with Lib Dem support (though Eric seems to be ignoring his own 50 top tips!) we had to increase Council tax – this will help save frontline services and the cost to most residents will just be 9p a week.

The Tories had to withdraw their own alternative budget – as they only handed it in a few hours before the deadline! Now one Tory blogger has commented that Labour never presented an alternative budget in 7 years – forgetting that when the Tories/Lib Dems were in charge we were not able to see the accounts till the last minute whilst the Tories and Lib Dems have been involved in the budget making process through working groups and Scrutiny.

So no Tory budget but they did use the meeting to say where they would save money – scrap area committees seemed to be their number one plan – or it seemed their only plan.

But after their leader said scrap the committees and in particular the pay the chairs of those committees get it all started to unravel quickly. Cllr Vickery forgot it was the Tory leader who was the first to claim the Chair’s allowance. Cllr Cenci then also attacked the area Committee (but only a day later was tweeting how good the last SW Area Committee was) but then mentioned bringing back Area Forums (cost?) and then said it would be better to give Cllrs locality money – so no saving just moving money to a different pot!

The whole of the Tory response was turning into a farce, only saved by their former leader – Cllr Harsant making a speech that displayed any passion for this town.

When you thought it could get no worse for the Tories – Judy Terry rose to speak – she did not get off to a great start, quoting from confidential papers but then she mentioned her great money saving idea – only hold elections every four years – what price democracy? Many other types of council do hold elections every four years but it can lead to Cllrs being invisible for the first three years then suddenly appear at election time. With elections every year, it forces political groups to campaign all year long – of course with very few members the Lib Dems struggle to leave St Margaret’s and the Tories seem to have lost a large number of members and more importantly- activists, so in Rushmere we have only seen one leaflet in the 10 months since the last election and some wards have not seen anything for over a year. Maybe she thinks it will mean we will cancel next year’s election? Probably the only way she will save her seat!

So after we had heard all the great Tory money saving ideas – well the two of them – scrap area Committees and hold election every 4 years – David Ellesmere the Labour Leader took to his feet and indicated that Judy Terry had forgot to mention her plans to spend more money – a referendum on the Northern Fringe!

Straight away, I thought how strange – she wants to reduce democracy and have elections every 4 years then on the other hand she wants to hold an expensive referendum on a plan that originally had all party support! I also wondered why she had not proposed referendums on the sale of Kiln Meadow, the Wind Turbine contract or the sale of the Ipswich Bus Company.

When did Judy Terry suddenly become anti-development on the Northern Fringe? She was on the executive that put the original plan forward and voted for it – how do the 6 Tory Cllrs from the North West feel (well the 4 who are left) one of their members even gave up his front bench role over the plan. I guess her sudden change of heart is caused by realisation that she is in great danger of losing her seat in the May election – she even seems to have persuaded the County Council cabinet to suddenly become anti Northern Fringe development.

Now when David Ellesmere mentioned the referendum, Judy Terry quickly jumped to her feet to say she had not said that- Cllr Ellesmere told her she had put in her column in the Ipswich Flyer- she said she never wrote that (allegedly she thought David said her column in Ipswich Spy!) The Mayor eventually got her to stop behaving like Boris Johnson and to sit down. After the meeting David showed her the Flyer column. Still not happy she said she could not remember writing it and may have written it last year! Funny as she has a column each month and in the infamous column she mentions attending a meeting on the Northern fringe at the end of January! So much for last year!! She got caught out and instead of putting her hand up she has continued to keep digging- Cllr Cenci offered me some advice last week about engaging brain before writing- maybe she should phone her Tory colleague up before we read the April Ipswich Flyer- unless she wrote that column last year as well!

So let’s get this Northern Fringe debate straight – Judy Terry would rather see more houses built on brown field sites in the town rather than the Northern Fringe, so every spare space off Foxhall Road? St Clements? – So her own Rushmere residents will see more traffic and congested routes into town- Woodbridge Rd, Spring Rd and Foxhall Rd whilst her Lib Dem NIMBY friends on Westerfield Rd will have the occasional car? I hope Cllr Terry gets that message over to the residents of Rushmere, St Johns and Bixley at the next Area Committee!