Over a week ago, I was re-elected to Ipswich Borough Council, to represent Rushmere Ward. there is no hiding the fact that the Ipswich Labour party did not have a great night, we expected to lose some seats after probably over achieving when these seats were up for election last in 2016, but it was still very disappointing to lose a number of seats on the Borough and County Councils.
We also lost some very good councilors and many were also very good friends, but they will return and it is up to us who are left on the council to continue their good work.
Ipswich is a well run council, we have gone the extra mile to help our residents and businesses during the pandemic - but we still lost seats, why?
There is no doubt that the Tories locally are better organised than they have been for a while, and they now campaign in wards where they would never have been seen before. Unfortunately they also seem keen to copy Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and even Corbyn in acting as 'populist' politicians - hiding away from the real issues, real facts or bothering looking at the costs. More worryingly they also in some cases act like our local Tory MP and seek to divide our local communities, willing to allow certain communities to be used as scapegoats.
No surprise then, that they have allowed former UKIP candidates to stand for them in local elections, many of the UKIP policies were openly racist however I hope that those former UKIP members now elected as Tory councillors in the town, do not hold those racist beliefs that many UKIP politicians were proud to display.
I hope for the sake of this town, that Shayne Pooley and Tony Gould look to represent all their constituents fairly and we must give them the opportunity to show that they are willing to do so and not revert to UKIP rhetoric of 'send them all back'.
But back to why did we lose seats? - We have made mistakes locally, we have concentrated on protecting our town during the pandemic and maybe needed to spend some of our time on telling residents what we hope to do in the future, I am sure residents will be very impressed with what we have got planned for the next few months, however it was not possible to go public with what we have in the pipeline, in particular some interesting announcements about the town centre.
It is also obvious that Boris Johnson is popular, even if in the end it will be shown that he has lied to Parliament on a number of occasions and at times was more interested in his own wallet than the future of this country. He has benefited from a vaccine bounce, but we may see a similar drop in his popularity at the end of furlough. Worryingly, he may 'ignore the science' and we will continue with his 'roadmap' out of the pandemic even if the Indian variant starts to kill many of our population. as he is loathe to go back to a further lockdown.
Keir Starmer and his front bench have also struggled to get their message over to the population, difficult as Johnson has managed to fool voters in forgetting that the Tories have been in power for 11 years, a trick Mr Hunt attempts in Ipswich when talking about crime - who would think the Tories have had 11 years to sort it out but high crime rates are still not the fault of the Tory Government or the Tory Police and Crime Commissioner for Suffolk, some even attempt to blame me!!
We also still have the problem of Corbyn, most former leaders, tend to keep a low profile, whilst we have Corbyn who is very happy to go in front of the press to say where Keir went wrong in May! No humility at all. I for one hope that most Labour members will see by the way the far left have behaved over the last few months that it is now the time they are given the message from members, that they are no longer wanted in our party, never before have I seen a protest group within the party act like Momentum have - we are fighting elections whist at the same time they are having campaign strikes! Time they were kicked out, they are not wanted in Labour by most members and in particular by labour voters.
What I can say to Rushmere residents, is that I will continue to represent you to the best of my ability- it doesn't matter if you did or did not vote for me, and as lockdown measures ease, you will see plenty of myself and our local Labour team on the doorstep over the next year.
Take care.
One seat contested.
Turn out: 43.62%
| Surname | First name | Party | Votes |
|---|---|---|---|
| FLETCHER | Julie | Liberal Democrats | 126 |
| ION | Stephen Richard | Conservative | 1,159 |
| MORRIS | Rachel | Green | 200 |
| ROSS | Alasdair Donald Mackenzie | Labour | 1,208 |
The Labour run Borough Council in Ipswich have called on Tory run Suffolk County Council to turn back on the street lights at night after the tragic murder of Sarah Everard. So far the Tories have refused.
The Labour run Borough Council owns about 5% of the towns street lights, mostly footpath lights, and we will be turning those back on throughout the night.
So, it's disappointing to hear from a resident that the lights in the Angus Close/Sidegate Lane footpath have not been working at all for the last two years.
When Cllr Sandra Gage took this up with the County Council, they admitted they had known since 2019 that the lights did not work, but they had found it too hard to get scaffolding past the cycle barriers, so they had not bothered to fix them - or even inform the Borough who own them!
This is not good enough; these lights are owned by the Borough Council and we have a contract with the Tory run County Council for them to be maintained.
After pressure from Sandra, the County have now agreed to fix the lights - the Rushmere Labour team will keep the pressure on, to make sure they do.
Mark Hale
Paul Harding
Network
Rail – ‘We got it wrong’
Over the last few weeks, Network Rail have
removed a large number of trees beside the railway line close to Belvedere Road, Moat Farm Close and Brunswick Road - with chainsaws and
large lifting equipment. Now they admit they got their communications very
wrong. They sent a stock letter saying they were just going to be cutting
foliage back with hand tools. They
should have explained exactly why they needed to cut down so many mature trees.
After being challenged by your councillors, they
have claimed that those trees will be replaced at ecological projects somewhere
in East Anglia. That’s not good enough - we are demanding that they plant
replacement trees in Ipswich.
They have also still not fully apologised to
residents. We will carry on contacting
them on your behalf. In future they should consult with residents first before
undertaking such work.
As you can never tell if Mr Hunt has taken any posted comments on board, I decided to email him and he replied- twice- but with his last email stating he would not be responding again.
In his email he did not apologise for comparing the Ipswich Labour Party emblem (1924) with the North Korean Workers Party emblem ( 1950s) and it was obvious he could not understand any hurt that it would cause to Labour members and voters like myself whose father had fought in the Korean War.
Mr Hunt did admit he had sent messages to at least one local Tory with a previous attack on the Cambridge Labour Party for having a similar emblem to the North Korean WP, so he could not even be original in his attack on the Ipswich Labour Party. Best bit was he seemed to imply he just sent it to the local Tory Leader for interest, he was not asking him to use it to attack myself again. So he would take no responsibility for two local Tories using it to defend him/attack me! Make a mistake, you should own it! Best thing about when the Tory Leader used it, he left Mr Hunt’s name on the message. Not sure MI5 or MI6 will be calling to ask for his services.
Now I have received his replies, I feel now I can answer the points he made in his Facebook post/rant/attack.
He did not like my comment that he was playing to the ‘right-wing crowd’. His explanation was > I think I'm simply expressing the views shared by the vast majority of my constituents, We don't like it when people come here illegally and then when here commit criminal damage and threaten members of staff.
How does he know what his constituents opinion is? He has blocked many on Facebook, does not answer on twitter and when I looked down the replies to his posts, many were from people outside Ipswich - Kent, Essex, Mansfield, Felixstowe – so not sure he will know how many are from Ipswich.
He also used the line – when people come illegally – no mention that these people are refugees- some may be economic migrants but others will be fleeing war torn countries – interesting the same day, he was retweeting a Tory post that highlights that a refugee from North Korea was to stand as a candidate to be Tory Councillor in May – Did she come here illegally? Should he not just want to send her back to where she came from, as many of the comments on his Facebook post seemed to wish?
His next paragraph was his bizarre attack on Ipswich Labour for our emblem being similar to the Workers party of North Korea, which I have already commented on.
In my original tweet that seemed to cause this rant – I said he would be better of spending time on Ipswich issues such as the Northern by-pass. This caused the local Tory Leader to tweet in a supposedly humorous way that did I not know that the by-pass had been shelved, Mr (student politics?) Hunt liked the tweet.
What was funny – in his Facebook post, Mr Hunt stated > As for your advice for activity on local issues Cllr Ross, perhaps you ought to give my Facebook page a follow or look at my website.
I took the advice of my MP and guess what? On his website, he declares > I will continue campaigning for a Northern Bypass to ease congestion through the middle of Ipswich.
Does he not know it has been shelved? Scrapped by the Tory run Suffolk County Council? Maybe he should have told me to take a look at his 'out of date' website?
In his letter to me he indicated that by reading my social media posts that he had decided I was defending and explaining away criminal behaviour. How wrong he is.
In fact, I expected my tweet on the subject to see criticism from the left as I stated that as I knew Napier Barracks well, having spent my 20th birthday there and operating from the camp as recently as 2009, that I doubted the arson was due to the state of the accommodation.
In later tweets, i did comment that how a COVID outbreak had been dealt with by the private security firm had been given as reason for the unrest. Again at no time giving this as an excuse for the criminal behaviour, what is probably more telling, that even when the COVID outbreak became common knowledge, Mr Hunt failed at any time in his post to mention COVID, as if that would dilute his message of dealing harshly with illegal immigrants.
Some of the comments on the post by Mr Hunt stated that they thought I wanted the camp closed and the asylum seekers/ human beings/immigrants- choose your own title - should be put up in hotels. Again I never mentioned anything like that, in fact it was the Tory MP and Tory Council leader for Folkestone who demanded that the camp is shut.
So do I still think Mr Hunt plays to the 'right-wing crowd'?I am afraid the answer still has to be 'yes', when he commented on Millwall fans booing players for taking a knee in support of 'Black Lives Matter' - he defended the Miwall supporters, I expect he would say he was speaking on the behalf of his constituents, however a week later Ipswich played the first of two games at home permitted by a relaxation in lockdown rules. On a miserable (football wise) afternoon, when both teams took a knee, the vast majority of the crowd stood up and applauded in support of the players, i am not sure if Mr Hunt was in the Directors Box, could not see him as he may have been sat down and too far away to ear him booing!
If you want further evidence of why I think he craves the support of those on the right just look at some of the comments to his original post attacking me, some are disgusting, some outrageous, some sensible but very few are factual, however at no time does Mr Hunt comment or attempt to put the true facts.
Terms used, and quite often include > 'illegal immigrants' 'Send them back to where they came from' 'they only look after the scum who can't be bothered to work' and then 'they support anything or anyone who is not from the indigenous population' ( hate to see that person go on 'Who do you think you are? he might be in for a few shocks).
So if you read this Mr Hunt, I do believe you go after the Far right vote, your comments do not help build relationships between our many communities and in fact I find your comments embarrassing and would not expect them from any MP- Tory or Labour. At times you sound more like a UKIP candidate than a Tory MP.
As a son of a Korean veteran and former Labour Councilor, I found your comment comparing the Ipswich Labour logo to that of the North Korean Workers party disgusting.
As a veteran and one who was proud to serve for over 24 years in the army, you remind me of those jingoistic MPs, stood up in Parliament, waving their union jacks as Tommy Atkins is sent off to war, but nowhere to found when he returns.
You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook- room slops, but prove it to our face
The widow's uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
