My week ahead 22 - 28 July 2013

Monday 22 July – 4pm, Culture Portfolio meeting
6pm, Labour campaigning, South East Ipswich

Tuesday 23 July – 2pm, East Ipswich Housing Panel tour

Wednesday 24 July – 8pm – Visit to Gainsborough Sports Centre

Thursday 25 July – 7pm – North East Ipswich Area Committee, St Johns Church – Cauldwell Hall Road

Friday 26 July – 2pm, Meeting with Football Leagues about use of park pitches,
4pm, First meeting of the Ipswich World War I Centenary steering group.

Saturday 27 July - 10am, Labour campaigning, North West Ipswich

Sunday 28 July – 7pm, North East Ipswich Labour, Curry night.

A bust week ahead with a number of meetings linked to my role as Deputy Portfolio Holder for Culture and Leisure. This week will see a meeting about park football pitches and a chance to attempt sequence dancing! It is a very varied portfolio. Last week we also launched our next cycling event in Ipswich. A major road race being organised in conjunction with UCS and Suffolk Coastal. With Chis Froome likely to win the Tour in Paris tonight, cycling is still on a high and it is great that Ipswich is one of British Cycling’s biggest partners when it comes to putting on top events’

Another interesting meeting this week will be the first steering group meeting for the WWI Centenary. It is important that we remember the losses this country suffered between 1914 and 1918, and that the centenary is used to remind all of us the dreadful consequences of a World War and it does not become some jingoistic flag waving event.

Why doesn't Ben Gummer talk about MP expenses?

David Cameron was quick to attack the 3 former Labour MP's who are attempting to claim Legal aid to fight the corruption charges against themselves. Locally Tory activist Jamie Spencer seems to have a weekly rant about Chris Mole and his use of expenses to pay for an office in Ipswich but Ben Gummer would rather talk about legalisation of drugs and job prospects for graduates. Many would wonder why Ben is not following the Cameron trick of blaming Labour for every expense scandal. Now it may be because, Chris Mole was found to be one of the few MP's who did not have to pay anything back to the government and has also led the way by publishing all his expenses on his own website. But many may believe that the silence from Ben on the subject is more likely to do with his father and his exorbitant claims he made on his Suffolk property, claims for Mole removal, removing Jackdaw nests and various other garden tasks, many that never saw a proper receipt. The release of those Gummer expenses by a Tory paper ( you can read here) may have been the reason that John Gummer stood down, because I am sure if it had been a more planned decision to retire from front bench politics we would have seen Ben standing in Felixstowe not Ipswich. So I look forward to Ben and maybe even Bridge News talking about the MP expenses scandal that seemed to pass Ipswich by but did see a sudden departure from politics by the Suffolk Coastal MP - over to you Ben and Jamie!

Tories campaining for Labour in Ipswich?

The Tories seem to want to help us win back Ipswich- and I must thank them for all the help they are giving us:

• Paying the new Suffolk Chief Executive almost a quarter of a million pounds a year
• Spending half a million pounds on buying and improving a small private road in Kesgrave
• Keeping the Ipswich buses empty and our car parks full by charging £1.70 to get to town on the bus!

So thank you very much to the Ipswich and Suffolk Tory Party- and we are not just sitting around laughing, we are getting out on the streets of Ipswich, door knocking, leafleting, phoning- over 20 of us on the Racecourse Estate yesterday- the only blue win in Ipswich this year will have been at dinner time today when Ipswich Town beat Norwich- 2-1- All in all a good weekend.

Reselection of Richard Howitt MEP

Last night I attended the Management Committee of the Ipswich Labour Party, we had a a larger than normal attendance as we had the company of members from our neighbouring Labour Parties, Central Suffolk and Suffolk Coastal.

Richard was reselected unanimously- no surprise as he has been an outstanding MEP- I have been fortunate enough to have been campaigning with him in Rushmere and other parts of Ipswich, but it is not just as a campaigner that he shines - he is one of the few MEP's from any party that you hear about in the local and national media- he is passionate about Europe and the benefits it can bring the Eastern Region.

It will be great that at the next European election that we can send Richard back to Europe and manage to get a second or third labour MEP elected to serve with him.

The remainder of the meeting was run as a "Question time" with the panel made up of Chris Mole MP, and the Parliamentary candidates for Central Suffolk and Suffolk Coastal- Bhavna Joshi and David Rowe they were also joined by David Ellesmere the Leader of the Labour Group on the Ipswich Borough Council.

Topics discussed included: Faith schools, Trust schools, NHS, Political funding, Iraq, Police pay and Unitary Ipswich.

It was great to see so many members of the Party participating in a political debate, I was also impressed by the dedication of Labour members who have to live in Tory hot beds like Suffolk coastal but who do not lose their desire to help those in their community.