We MUST Remember them.

We MUST and will Remember them

Swift and Bold

We will remember them

Tomorrow, I will be joining most of my fellow Ipswich Borough councilors at the War memorial in Christchurch Park.

Remembrance Day has always been an important event in my family but this year will be even more poignant as I remember the 24 soldiers we lost from our Battle Group in Sangin this year. whilst we are holding our service, the Rifleman of 3 Rifles will be holding a similar service at the small memorial inside the Sangin District Centre.

...and hello Ipswich

In my last post, I said goodbye Sangin, Afghanistan and in this one I say "Hello, Ipswich"
My Labour colleagues managed to get me a welcome home announcement on the electric scoreboard at Ipswich during half time in the match last Saturday against Derby County. A nice touch and an even better welcome was being able to see us win our first three points of the season!
Good to be coming home, but I will never forget serving with 2 Rifles in Afghanistan as our commander stated, "it was the fight of our lives". the tragic news from Helmand today reminds us all in the Rifles of what we went through and watching the news today it made us realise the roller coaster ride our families went throughwhilst we were away.

Goodbye Sangin

Goodbye Sangin- it has been a complex, lethal, intense and nuanced campaign. But we leave Sangin and the Upper Helmand Valley a safer place to live for all Afghans.

Back from one war to join another fight.

Back from Afghanistan and now I join a different type of war - the fight for Britain as we move towards a General Election. spent the day reading blogs and tweets from Labour activists. I feel there is enough of us to make sure this election is not the forgone conclusion that the Tory Press thinks it is.
One activist I follow on twitter is BevaniteEllie - http://twitter.com/BevaniteEllie
and she is also a collector of Historical labour pictures and on the Labour blog of Chris Paul - http://chrispaul-labouroflove.blogspot.com/ we get to see this great Labour picture, and now it is up to us Labour members of today to fight like Bevan and Gaitskill did in their time for the future of this country.

A Tribute to The Rifles" The Chosen Men" High on a Hill'

Worth a look-

No more Ipswich Film Theatre

It gives the Ipswich Labour Group no pleasure in saying "we told you so", but we did warn when the Mrs Terry and her Tory cronies handed over the running of the Film Theatre to Hollywood Cinemas that it would put the whole future of the theatre into jeopardy.
Of course we were accused of scaremongering, but what do the Tories say now? Blame the Government for the economic downturn- a common thread here- it's never their fault.
Hollywood Cinemas have put in a good effort, refurbished the seats but they had no experience of running a specialist cinema, all the other venues they run tend to be in small towns where they are the sole cinema, showing general distribution films.
Now Hollywood Cinemas have left and the Film theatre will shut in a month, of course the economic downturn has not helped but now one of their employee's has hit the nail on the head - the reason why Hollywood Cinemas could see no future is because of the Tories decision to close the Corn Exchange for 6 months a year! Not going to help when it comes to selling tickets or bringing in the passing trade.
What next? The Corn Exchange closed permanently- Tory cuts to Public Services- you better get used to it.