Sabbatarianism

Sabbatarianism , as readers of this blog will know, Northern Ireland and football are two topics that are often featured on this site. So a story on the BBC website caught my eye this week. Glentoran are the main protestant team from East Belfast, and I spent quite a few Saturday's watching football at the Oval, one of my favourite locations for a football ground, with the Harland and Wolff cranes in the distance.

Football and politics are often linked in Northern Ireland but this time the story is not of a link to sectarian conflict, this time it is Sabbatarianism that has reared it's (ugly?)head. Unlike the rest of Great Britain, Sunday is still a day of rest in the Province, very few shops are open and the only football to be watched is from this side of the Irish Sea on Sky TV. But this Sunday saw Glentoran play Bangor in the first Irish League game played on the Sabbath.

Now the Oval is a ground used to political protests and hosting games which need a large police presence, they even have a set of turnstiles that are only used when they play the Catholic supported Cliftonville. But this time the dispute was protestant against protestant, Football supporters easily outnumbered the "Keep Sunday special" gang, about 50 protesters turned up in their Sunday best, handing out leaflets and singing hymns, but they could not stop the fans from coming in for what looked like a larger crowd than normal. Now 50 protesters may not seem many but you need to look at the facts about this game in slightly more depth. The Irish FA changed the rules last year to allow Sunday football but no teams have seemed that interested in 'testing the water' and this Glentoran - Bangor game was hastily arranged after it was only postponed the day before. it will be interesting to see if a club will actually arrange a Sunday game with far more notice, or will the fact that 50 protesters turned up with less than 24 hours notice make them worried how many the fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church (whose leader used to be Ian Paisley) could get out with longer time to plan and organise.

The game was nothing special and Glentoran only scraped a 1-0 win over their North Down neighbours. Poor entertainment is probably the best hope of the "Keep Sunday special" to stopping Sunday football. it looks like crowds will be higher than Saturday matches, but that could change when a top English team or one of the "Old Firm" are on live TV on a Sunday afternoon.

Irish football will see itself having to make a number of key decisions over the next 2 years, and playing on a Sunday will only be one of them, moving to summer football and merging with the Republic of Ireland's Football League being two which will have far more influence on the future of Irish football than "playing on a Sunday",

Even so, I just had to get the word 'Sabbatarianism' on this blog!

Empty stands in East Belfast- must be a Sunday?

Would have been the top news story once!

Gerry Adams and his mates- now redundant?

True the arrival of the female bear hunter from Alaska is important but even if the "hockey mom" becomes vice president of the USA, it will not have that much effect on us. But Sarah Palin still is the big news story in the UK and I for one am disappointed by this. I know I may be slightly biased as an ex soldier but there are two other stories that should be above Mrs Palin on TV, the web and in our newspapers.

The announcement by the Independent Monitoring Commission that they now believe that the Provisional Irish Republican Army has relinquished the leadership and structures it used in the troubles. In simple words the Army Council no longer exists. Very soon hundreds of ex soldiers will be in London to remember those who died during Operation Banner (the Army name for operations in Northern Ireland), not sure all of those will think the war is over. I for one do believe that the IRA is not what it was but there is still a big worry about the dissident Republican groups and we have seen this with the murder of Paul Quinn in South Armagh and recent riots by gangs on nationalist estates in some of the smaller towns in the province. So many reasons why this story should be above Mrs Palin.

The other story? also about the Irish and the gun- today it has been announced that another British soldier has been killed in Afghanistan, and this time it happens to be a member of the Royal Irish Regiment. This week the papers have been reporting the success of the British Army of moving the power turbine in Helmand Province. the death today of a British soldier shows that this will be a long campaign but let us all hope that it is not as long as Operation Banner.

Boundary Committee - aka The Stupid Idea Club

Felixstowe Beach huts - soon to be our responsibility?? Let's hope not!

Boundary Committee - aka The Stupid Idea Club, well that is what most of the population of Ipswich thinks! As most of the readers of this blog will know, Ipswich was after unitary status, we even had cross party support, the trouble was the Tories on the Suffolk County Council wanted a unitary Suffolk. The government were not sure that the figures added up so handed it over to the Boundary Committee.

Then we had the Stupid Idea Club- not a unitary Ipswich or even a unitary Suffolk, instead we get North Haven Unitary. where is that you may ask? Well it is Ipswich plus Felixstowe, the Shotley peninsular and the surrounding rural areas. Now no one had thought of that as a good idea (though the Lib Dems now think it is a great plan!)

I can see that Unitary Ipswich may need to be slightly bigger than the present borough, but how can the committee put us with Felixstowe and leave out Westerfield village (which used to be part of the borough)

The government could put a stop to this and you can play your part by looking at the boundary committee website and letting them know your views: this is the link to their site: http://www.boundarycommittee.org.uk/.

We do not have much in common with Felixstowe, actually with the state of the roads in Ipswich (partly due to the lack of funding as we do not have a unitary Ipswich)we have more in common with Sarajevo or Banja Luka than Felixstowe or Hadleigh.

And the Tories said the Ipswich bus service was safe!

Tory election leaflets have accused myself and my Ipswich Labour colleagues of scaremongering- to quote their leaflet - "Not for the first time in Rushmere, Labour has tried to alarm residents by scaremongering, this time about local bus services to Rushmere."

Well from the 28th September, the number 11 bus service to Rushmere is being reduced- from every 15 minutes to every 20 minutes during the working week and more worrying for me as a parent- to just one service an hour on evenings and Sundays.

So only two years after the horrific murders in Ipswich, this Tory/Lib dem council want to cut bus services in the evenings, so youngsters have a choice of an expensive taxi, an hour wait for a bus or more alarming they may decide to walk home.

So much for the "Green" Mr Cameron! More cars on the roads, reduced bus service. the Tories have someone to blame (as well as themselves) the Tory run County council, who have taken away the Park and Ride contract from Ipswich Buses.

So, remember do not believe everything (or anything) in a Tory election leaflet!

Still In darkest Peru

First trip over and now in Lima waiting for the second group to arrive. Lima is far different today than it was 3 weeks ago, though neither day could be classed as normal!

3 weeks ago we arrived at the start of a General strike, we managed to get north before all the roads were closed, the strike was started by the miners but it ended up covering the whole country for 3 days, as a bit of a political spotter it was a good way to start the trip but was quite difficult to work out the level of support for the strike. The unions seemed able to cut off each town by putting in barricades to stop traffic but the demonstartions/ protest marches each day seemed to have little support. Walls were also covered with graffiti, with many of the slogans seemed to be aimed at not wanting the strike to be taken over by the communists.

As you enter each town the walls are often painted with political messages and the names of those seeking election as Mayor or local, regional or national representitive.

Today is different as it is National Independance day- 28th July. Since we have been here, we have noticed that each house has a Peru flag outside it, yesterday we found out that each house/ shop has to fly the flag for a month before Independance day, not that the people mind as they take great pride in this day and many wear a small rosette badge on their clothes to celebrate the day. Yesterday in the main square they changed the fountain from water to Pico, the local drink- large queus formed to get their free Pisco drink! Though it was day of celebration, it was noticable that at the corner of each square was placed an anti-riot vehicle or a water cannon and around the sqaure were groups of armed military style police. Then again Lima is a city of varied life styles, in the beach area an apartment sells for $400,000 and this is for the smallest one available, but at the smae time many of the 9 million population live in small huts placed on sandy hills that are not much more than pre fabricated sheds. But what has been the highlight of the trip is the friendleness of the Peruvian people, from the city of Lima to the northern villages to the former Inca stronghold of Cusco, definately a county to visit.

Off to Peru!

And not to search for Paddington- This weekend I leave for a 6 week trip to Peru - this was planned before my election. i will be taking two groups of young pupils to Peru. we will be doing the Inca Trail including visiting Machu Picchu but we will also trek in the Cordillera Huayhuash, the setting for "Touching the void". The two young groups will also spend some time in local villages, helping put in solar panels alongside the Juniper Trust.

It may mean not much blogging for 6 weeks but I should come back with plenty to blog about!

Rushmere Update

Campaigning has continued in the ward and on Monday we had a walkabout on Rushmere estate and spoke to a number of residents, many of the issues concerned the poor state of the roads on the estate.
Bristo's garage in Woodbridge Road have had two planning applications in, they wanted to demolish a house in Belvedere Road - this was refused. they have gained planning permission to build 14 houses on the site of their old car showrooms - this was passed but after a number of changes to the original plan. I passed on a number of residents concerns to Bristo's and the planners and this new development will see the retention of the wall backing onto Khartoum Road. The developers will also build a bus shelter on Woodbridge Road.
I have also been campaigning in Whitehouse and St Johns.
A number of my fellow Labour activists were in the town centre today to help celebrate the 60th birthday of the NHS.