Ipswich Tory MP - 'Twisting the facts?'

Somehow, I have ended up on the Tory MP for Ipswich, Tom Hun's mailing list - and in my inbox today arrived his latest effort.

Talk of the football, no mention this time of his criticism of players 'taking the knee'. Other pieces are on worthwhile visits to schools, YMCA and Felixstowe Docks, then I got to a piece about a recent visit by Mr Hunt and the Tory Police and Crime Commissioner to Maple Park in Ipswich.

It seems either Mt Hunt was not aware of the facts of the recent successful bid for Home Office funding or he was deliberately 'twisting' the facts. so he would not have to give Ipswich Labour run Ipswich Borough Council any credit for the work they did.

Mr Hunt, stated that " Recently Tim (the Tory PCC) led a bid alongside the Borough Council to secure money from Government (and was successful in securing £4000,000) to invest in the area to fund more work to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour problems."

I would have thought Mr Hunt was aware that is not what happened. Mr Passmore, the Police and the Borough Council put in a bid for Home Office funding, but were unsuccessful. The Home Office then  asked would we like to bid again (we were given very little time to bid). Mr Passmore decided that he would not bid this time but was happy to support any Local Authority that did. Only Ipswich Borough Council put a bid in, our Officers did most of the work with significant input from Ipswich Police.  Mr Passmore supported our application. The other (Tory run) Local Authorities did not bid.

So no way is Mr Hunt correct in saying that Mr Passmore Led the bid alongside the Borough Council!! All the leadership on this successful bid was from Ipswich Borough Council - from our Labour Laeder, David Ellesmere, myself as Portfolio Holder and from our Officers with much needed valuable support from the then Head of Policing in Ipswich, Kerry Cutler.

I have to believe in this case Mr Hunt is deliberately twisting the facts to suit his own agenda.

Was pleased to see that Mr Hunt believes the work the Borough is doing in the area is working, but again he seems to imply that much of the work that is being done is because he asked us. Where in fact the council and in particular the three Labour Westgate councillors have been working hard to improve the area with the local community for a number of years.

Mr Hunt may be just saying he was expressing his own views but I for one am not sure an MP  stating that Maple Park was the most sinister arear in the town that he visited helps anyione, in particular those who call the area their home.

My week ahead 4 - 10 March 2013

Monday 4 March, 6pm – Labour Group campaigning

Thursday 7 March, 7pm – Ipswich and Suffolk Fabians meeting

Saturday 9 March, 10.30am – Labour campaigning in North West Ipswich

This week we have had the budget setting meeting of Full Council (more details of ‘Flyergate’ here) and we got to see how disorganised the Tory opposition is – and that was before their terrible result at Eastleigh on Thursday!

Much will be made by the Tories of how they have frozen Council tax at the County Council and also the neighbouring Tory District Council have also set a 0% rise. What they will not tell you is at the County they have made savage cuts including at a time when Suffolk schools sit at the bottom of the league table – a cut of £200,00 from the school improvement fund! In neighbouring District councils the same Tory Cllrs who voted for a freeze have put a rise to the tax claimed by Parish Councils- not something we can do In Ipswich and in Suffolk Coastal, they have put the rent up on beach huts- in some cases a 20% rise – and where do most beech hut owners live? Ipswich.

Over the next few weeks you will get the opportunity to tell councillors and activists your thoughts – well you will be able to tell members of the Labour Party your views, do not expect to see the Lib Dems wander far from the streets round Christchurch Park and the Tories may only be seen in 3 or 4 wards. But you will certainly be contacted by the Ipswich Labour Party, either on the doorstep or by phone or at the very least a leaflet.

Yesterday we had over 20 out in Westgate Ward plus small teams delivering in the South West and the best bit was that we had new members joining us out knocking on doors from an 18 year old 6th Former to a retired couple out for the first time. We also saw this at our final candidate selection meeting on Thursday, with far more applicants that seats available – a problem I am sure the Lib Dems and Tories in Ipswich do not have.

What are the Lib Dems and Andrew Cann playing at?

Ipswich will continue to be run by a Tory administration - with Lib Dem support. The local paper- the Evening Star did mention that the Lib Dems would have to decide what direction they would take after a poor election result. - would they stay in the administration with the Tories? Or join in power with Labour? Or decide that their principles were more important than token power and join neither.

We can only wonder how long they debated their future plans, but all the Labour Group received was short letter asking us to apologise for a number of supposed crimes! The letter had no date for when a reply was needed and seemed lacking in any concrete proposals. so they may in future state that they did ask Labour about sharing power but in reality they quickly jumped back in with the Tories. As one of their Councilors was already talking about her plans for when she became Mayor - it seems that the decision had been made before the election!

Where does this leave Andrew Cann - for those not from Ipswich - Andrew Cann is the son of the late Labour MP for Ipswich, Jamie Cann (pictured above). after his father died, Andrew did join the Labour Party but soon left in a blaze of (self) publicity to join the Lib Dems. In 2005 he won a seat on the County Council for the Lib Dems but failed in 2006 to win a seat on the borough council. He did manage to win Westgate this year- with a majority of 13.

The Lib Dem elation at this result was short lived as the work they put into Westgate made them forgot about all their other seats/targets in the town and so they lost Whitehouse, had their majority in St Margaret's slashed and were pushed into third place in Holywells.

Andrew does have the ear of the local press and already since the election has been in the local paper criticizing the Tory run Suffolk County administration but forgetting to mention that he is now part of the Tory led administration that runs the Borough of Ipswich.

Andrew Cann has also made it quite clear that he would like to be the Lib Dem candidate at the next General Election.

Why? It does seem to be that Andrew does hold number of Labour members responsible for not helping his father as much as he thinks they should of.

I was not in the party then, so I cannot comment on that, but much of my political learning come from hearing Jamie Cann and my late father discuss politics over a pint in the Duke of York. I remember both of them during the dark days of Militant, continuing to fight for what they believed in and not taking the easy option of leaving the party. this enabled Ipswich to continue to be run by Labour for 25 years - most of that during the dark days of Thatcher.

I for one can't believe Jamie would have left the party over some difference of opinion.

Andrew may have thought he was being clever by not taking a place on the ruling executive of the Ipswich Borough Council - but Andrew YOU ARE a member of the Tory run administration- what ever you would like the public of Ipswich to think.

Election over- campaign starts!

Just over two weeks have passed since the election and we have already had two campaign sessions!
Today saw us meet up to discuss how we felt our campaign went and how to improve it in the future, over 20 members and we went on for almost 3 hours and we managed to cover most aspects of this and our next campaign.
What we do need is feedback from constituents, on what literature they received, did they read it? How did they rate the different parties?
We start campaigning in North East Ipswich this Monday, last year we started straight after the last election but both the Tories and Lib Dems did very little till after the new year. Maybe different this time - why? The possibility that the next election will be for a Council that has just gained Unitary Status (we should find out in July) and also both the Lib Dems and Tories must be very disappointed with their election result. the Lib Dems gained Westgate but lost Whitehouse and almost St Margaret's - only 1 in 5 of their voters from 2006 voted for them in 2007. The Tories failed to build on their victories in Bridge and St Johns in 2004 and must be worried that they may lose these seats in 2008.
So expect to hear from the other parties this year- makes a change!

Rushmere Campaign Update

Tuesday saw another early start as I delivered leaflets in Colchester Road and Shetland Close, found time during my lunch break to do some phone canvassing, a good response from the electorate. After work and saw more deliveries before heading off to St John's to help canvass. Wednesday followed the same pattern though I managed to also fit in some daytime deliveries in Westgate.
Today also started with early morning deliveries but no time to phone canvass, after school I finished off a couple delivery routes and then managed to canvass most of Sidegate Lane - strange though as they had been canvassed by Mrs Smith the Tory candidate the night before who went on about being a 'local' candidate. Not sure how you can be local and not even live or work in the ward!