Ipswich Borough Council: Mayor Making Ceremony

My wife stepped down as a Conservative councillor at the elections on 4th May. She only had a majority of three so with the current political storm encircling the Conservative Party, her old seat - St John's - was naturally snapped up by Labour whose candidate romped home with a majority of 647.

But last night Tanya was invited back to the Council to receive her Certificate of Service from the Chief Executive, Russell Williams, so that gave us an excuse to go and watch what turned out to be a right Labour love-in.

Last night's Ipswich Mayor Making ceremony at the Corn Exchange
- when is the Council going to start web-casting these things?

Each year a new Mayor is 'elected' to serve a year's term. Of course, it's never an 'election' and instead the next Mayor is picked beforehand and because of the Administration's majority the nominee just gets nodded through. The nominee even sits up front ready to robe up and not in the councillor benches. At least when they elect a Speaker in the House of Commons they pretend to not want the job. 

Labour have had more Mayors than any other Party. It is somewhat sinister on Remembrance Day when the Town Sargent calls out for all "former mayors" to come forward to make up the procession to the Cenotaph. It always made me laugh when two thirds of the Labour Group bounded forward - it takes about five minutes for them to line up! So, as Labour gained another four seats in the local elections the new Mayor of Ipswich is Labour Councillor Mary Blake. 

Ipswich is a funny old place which seems to buck the trend and the Mayor Making at the Borough Council is no exception. Last year's Mayor Councillor John Le Grys (also Labour) now becomes this year's Deputy Mayor. In any other walk of life, the Deputy would do his apprenticeship first then step up to the top job - not so in Suffolk's County town!

Anyway, democracy needs to be seen to be working so Mary Blake's nomination for Ipswich Mayor was proposed by Labour councillor Peter Gardiner and seconded by Labour councillor Jeanette Macartney - both with gushing speeches about the "wonderful Mary". Outgoing Mayor Cllr Le Grys then asked if there were any other nominations. Hmm, considering Labour have 32 councillors, the Tories have 12 and the Liberals have 4, it was a rhetorical question. 

Cllr John Le Grys and then Cllr Mary Blake swapped robes. Outgoing Deputy Chairman Roger Fern who had been Mayor of Ipswich before back in 2004-5, so could not be Mayor again, then gave his robes to Cllr Le Grys, who funnily enough was also elected unopposed. Mayor Blake then gave a vote of thanks to the new Deputy Mayor for being Mayor! 

After the Mayor's speech it all turned into a love-in. Cllr Le Grys replied and reminisced about the year and the antics he got up to; he then name dropped Morning Ipswich Star editor Nigel Pickover who he went tobogganing with or something. He then asked aloud "Is Nigel here? No. Oh Paul is!" referring to Morning Ipswich Star's political editor, Paul Geater. Labour must think the local rag is their mouthpiece but considering the Morning Ipswich Star's circulation figures, not many people are listening these days.  

I'm failing to understand why Mr Geater gets his own table and jug of water at Council meetings. What's the circulation threshold for getting a seat at the Media table? Because there is a good chance the Morning Ipswich Star may have dipped below it. I think I might apply to the Council for media accreditation - considering the blogs are giving the dead tree press a run for their money, it seems only fair we get a place at the special table at Council meetings!

Then the political business end of the meeting started and up popped our old friend Labour leader Councillor David Ellesmere. He couldn't help but make a party political point when he said he had offered places on the Executive (the Council's Cabinet) again this year to the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. They had - in my view rightly - declined. What planet does Cllr Ellesmere thinks he lives on? Why would the Tories and Liberals want to be associated with a failing Labour Council with no power because of their minority position. But there is a clever tactic here: Labour want to try and build a bomb shelter around themselves for when they inevitably have to go to the electorate for more council tax. The Tories are certainly not falling for that trick, David.

Committee places were then formally voted on. Labour all voted 'For' but the Conservatives and the Liberals reneged on their responsibilities to represent their voters and abstained. I thought they would have turned over a new leaf this year.

The final business item was to nominate two councillors to fill Ipswich's places on the new Police and Crime Panel for Suffolk, part of the Coalition Government's new Police Commissioner model for police accountability, and will basically act as a Scrutiny Committee. Elections for Police Commissioners take place in November. Cllr Neil Macdonald, portfolio holder for 'Safer Ipswich' (very New Labour speak!) took the opportunity to bash the new police accountability policy (which to be fair I'm not exactly in favour of as I've posted before*) then he nominated Labour Councillor Peter Gardiner and new Labour Councillor Glen Chisholm to represent Ipswich on the panel. Again, because of Labour's whopping majority they duly ensured their boys ended up on the police panel despite better talent existing on the Opposition benches - purely partisan!

The meeting then closed but to just remind everyone the People's Republic of Ipswich was firmly back in the red after it's dalliance with the Tories and Liberals, a chorus of "Happy Birthday" started up to pass on our best wishes to our Dear Leader, Mayor Blake. May she live for a thousand years!

*The Police Commissioner legislation was eventually got through the Lords by the Government after amendments.

Household energy costs set to rocket

As if our electricity and gas bills weren't high enough already, the Coalition Government - who you have probably guessed by now I am not particularly happy with - have carried on as if Chris Huhne was still the Energy Secretary and decided to press on with an Energy Bill to encourage more "investment in low carbon generation and clean energy". In other words, wind farms. But where will the money come from for this "investment". Do you think the nice people at npower or E.ON are going to cough up themselves? No, of course not. They are going to put up your energy bill to pay for those turbine monstrosities.

So, for the Coaltion Government to be able to meet EU carbon emission targets for non-existent anthropogenic global warming, they are going to force the energy cartel that provides our electricity and gas to whack our bills up to the tune of an extra £200 a year according to the independent Committee on Climate Change.

I was having a chat with my MP, Ben Gummer, last weekend and I politely advised him that talking of climate change in his weekly missive in the Morning Ipswich Star (not online) was not such a great idea. Most people in urban centres in the provinces don't care for climate change when we are experiencing the coldest May for a century and they especially don't like paying ever higher energy bills to ward off non-existent global warming. Mr Gummer listened carefully and told me that the Queen's speech was going to have a Bill in it to "reform the energy market" and I thought at the time that is not the same as saying there would be a Bill to tackle the exorbitant energy bills his constituents have to pay. I know Ben Gummer's views well as I selected him to be the Conservative Party Ipswich parliamentary candidate in 2007 so I took his reassurances with a large pinch of salt. My doubts were well placed when the Queen spoke a few days later.

The Government did indeed, through Her Majesty, say the Energy Bill will "reform" the electricity market but it won't be the type of reform that will have a positive disruption. It won't break up the energy cartel and force down prices - quite the opposite.

This is another example of the Coalition's priorities and leadership being woefully lacking. The economy is in a complete mess - the BBC Question Time panellists last night, including the hapless Caroline Spelman, the repulsive Chris Bryant and the arrogant Lord Oakeshott didn't have a clue on how to bring back growth to our industries. Only The Daily Telegraph columnist Peter Oborne had a partial solution - the orderly break up of the Eurozone.

So whilst our economy flat lines, the Government still has time to put in a Bill on House of Lords Reform and, as if people weren't suffering enough, an Energy Bill which will increase our electricity charges once again in the service of our EU masters.

It would seem our Prime Minister, David Cameron, has learnt nothing over the last week.

Sir Humphrey's contempt for elected representatives: Part V

The saga continues. As I reported back in March, Ipswich Borough Council finally got round to publishing the Order to create a paved footpath for the entire alleyway between Gladstone Road and Foxhall Road. The deadline for objections was 19th April. Or so we thought.

Dirt track between Gladstone Road and Foxhall Road is still not paved

It seems the Sir Humphreys down at Grafton House have found another way of extending the "consultation" period even further. The following email was sent to Holywells Conservative Councillor Liz Harsant yesterday from a mandarin down at the Council:

"The legal process required to enable work to be undertaken to surface the alley way in question is underway.

The legal advertisement of the desire of the Council to create a footpath was undertaken in April.  The consultation period for this has now closed.

The order of confirmation now needs to be circulated to residents who have access rights over the land and copies placed on-site.

There is a further 6 week period where anyone can question the validity of the order and for residents to claim compensation for depreciation or damage for disturbance associated with making the footpath a public right of way.

Once all the above has been completed, without objection, then the Council will be in a place to programme the surfacing of the alley way." [my emphasis]

Oh terrific. So after three years since I approved the footpath scheme at my Committee, after the scheme was approved at the Executive committee and after all 48 councillors on Ipswich Borough Council approved the scheme, Sir Humphrey is still stopping the first slab from being laid. The only reason the Order was even advertised in March is because a) Cllr Harsant and myself put pressure on the civil servants at the Borough in writing and in person at a public meeting, and b) because newly elected Councillor Pam Stewart (when she was the Conservative candidate for Holywells ward) also asked Labour's transport chief Phil Smart what the hold-up was at the Full Council meeting in March.

When Douglas Carswell complains the bureaucrats are really running the Coalition Government, they are obviously learning the dark arts of obfuscation and intransigence from the civil servants in Ipswich.

I am trying to find out the exact date when the next round of consultation finishes to help us best guess when the paving work might actually begin...

Boris wins, Conservative Party loses

As everyone now knows Boris Johnson is the newly elected Mayor of London. Some pundits are tipping him for the real top job one day when we might see him park his bike against the railing of No. 10. That could well happen but let's not kid ourselves: Boris solidly outperformed (44.01% of the vote) Tory London Assembly candidates (31.98% of the vote) - it was the man that won it not the Party. In a General Election, hundreds of individual Conservatives would be up for election to Westminster and all would heavily rely on the Conservative Party brand to achieve victory. Not every parliamentary candidate has a personality like Boris. Therefore, unless the Conservative Party gets its act together, even Boris can't save them.

Anyway, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Why would we want Boris as leader? He wouldn't be much different from the liberal Prime Minister we have now. Boris, you see, is from the same stock as David Cameron. The kind who don't have to worry about the common man on the street and his problems as they can live far enough away from them. They are relaxed about mass immigration as they don't have to live in the same cramped neighbourhoods competing for scare GP places but they quite enjoy the rates of pay foreigners charge for cleaning their houses. Failing schools aren't a problem either as they send their kids private. And quite frankly a moribund economy isn't much of an issue either as people like the Cameron's and Johnson's have been recession bomb-proof for generations when it comes to their personal finances. 

Therefore, I find it a bit strange that arch-critic Nadine Dorries MP says she would back Boris in a leadership challenge (which, by the way, is not going to happen). The only difference between Boris and Dave is Boris has a personality which makes people laugh but underneath he is still a person who is intensely relaxed about gay marriage and doesn't really want to shake the EU apple cart too much. 

Political geeks like me enjoy Boris' antics on the political stage and his staged mumblings with an uncomfortable Dave at City Hall on Saturday were amusing but if we are to bring Britain back from this economic mess Labour bequeathed us, get control of our borders and make British people proud again it's going to take more than a few jokes to achieve.

Ipswich Local Elections 2012 Analysis

Firstly, and not wishing to blow my own trumpet (oh why not, it's one of the trappings of writing my own blog eh?), every single one of my predictions in the Ipswich Borough Council elections and also the Suffolk County Council by-election turned out to be correct. Mr Geater over at the Morning Ipswich Star parish boasted his predictions were a clean sheet as well but he only forecasted the number of gains and losses not precise ward results.

Anyway less of the gloating, let's get down to business.

This was a very bad night for the Tories. Their vote collapsed across the Borough. You know you are in trouble when your majority in one of your safest wards collapses to just over 200 - as in Castle Hill - when you are used to a thumping 1000 gap from your nearest rival. What were the reasons for this? It's two fold: Labour continue to gain from the collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote, which has not recovered from last year, and, more importantly the Tory vote, as I predicted, has this year stayed at home. The difference between hanging on in some wards and political oblivion for the Tories rested on their Get Out the Vote campaign, which patently failed:

- The literature failed to emphasise voting Conservative, instead majoring on unknown candidates.
- There was no use of social media from the constituency party as is seen with Ipswich Labour.
- The Ipswich Conservatives website elections page was left blank throughout the campaign.
- The dead tree press media were not informed of Tory MEP and MP visits until late after the event.

A telling moment last night was the Bixley County by-election. This was the only seat where UKIP fielded a candidate and as predicted Chris Streatfield stole over 200 votes, undoubtedly, from the Tory candidate Alan Murray. Even if UKIP had not been standing Cty Cllr Murray's majority would still have been only 600 in a normally safe Conservative seat where he should be polling close to 1000. As it is, his majority is a slim 300. This is very worrying sign for the Tories.

Overall in Ipswich, the Conservatives lost three seats on the Borough Council: St John's, Stoke Park and Whitton. Labour gained these three Tory seats and one seat - in Alexandra ward -  from the Liberal Democrats, where Cllr Adam Leeder romped home with a majority 656 with the Lib Dem and Tory vote collapsing further. A very good result here for Labour. As the night wore on the Conservative vote just kept hemorrhaging: hundreds of voters deserted the Tories in Whitton, St John's and Stoke Park.

Rushmere was one of the wards to watch and even the last minute upset over Ransomes Sports Club failed to prevent Cllr Alasdair Ross storming back to Grafton House with a massive majority over the Conservatives. Back in 2008 Cllr Ross had a majority of 13 - he now has increased this to 547.
It was a major strategic error for the Tories to target Rushmere - it was as plain as day that in this political climate the Conservatives would never come close to beating incumbent and one-man Labour campaigning machine Alasdair Ross. But still the ward was chosen as a target seat. Would this have anything to do with Rushmere Borough and County councillor Judy Terry now being the Ipswich Conservative Party chairman and also being up for election next year? I feel sorry for Chris Chambers - I know what it is like to lose after fighting tooth and nail (as I did against Sandy Martin in St John's back in 2006). So I really hope his expectations weren't raised by people who should know better as last night would have been a bitter blow for a young man and could put him off active politics for a while, which would be a great shame.

The Tories would have done better to target Holywells because if it wasn't for Labour's poor choice of candidate and the lack of a right-wing independent on the ballot paper, Pam Stewart would have been toast. The majority in this seat is becoming very thin. Former council leader Liz Harsant won by 93 votes last year. Cllr Stewart scraped home with 49 votes after a re-count this year. If Labour sort our their Selection Committee, this ward will be there's for the taking in 2014.

Another close result was, as predicted, St Margaret's. This ward also went to a re-count. On a lower turnout than last year (40% to 54%) Liberal Democrat Cllr Andrew Cann pipped Tory Stephen Ion to the post by 97 votes. This was a tricky result to predict. On polling day both the Lib Dems and the Tories had difficulty getting their vote out -  Labour's share of the vote actually increased by 1% compared to last year - but Andrew Cann's name recognition allowed him to just pull ahead of the Conservatives.

So back to the Conservative collapse and how this might shape the political landscape over the next few years and beyond. People who have voted Conservative for decades no longer feel at home in the modern Conservative Party and yesterday they told Tory high command exactly what they think. Conservative voters are passionate about getting the economy moving again. They pay most of the nation's taxes and want to see they are getting value for their money. Instead, the Government is borrowing more now than when Gordon Brown was last in office. The national debt is now at £1Trillion! The Government should be doing everything it can to sort out the British economy in a targeted fashion: Why are they cutting defence spending but increasing international aid to nuclear-armed India? Why is Cameron pandering to the metropolitan chattering classes by trying to legislate for gay marriages when we are back in recession? Why look at House of Lords reform when energy prices are crippling household budgets?

UKIP's vote across the country rose last night as the Tory vote nosedived. Finally, after months of posts from right-wing commentators like myself, Conservative MPs - other than the usual suspects - have broken cover to denounce the Tory leadership for pandering to the metropolitan liberal elite over the ordinary mainstream British voter. The normally über-loyal Gary Streeter - Conservative MP for Devon South West - went on the BBC last night and said Cameron and his Tory ministers needed to be more Conservative and less Liberal. You don't say? The only time in the life-time of the Coalition Cameron has done well in the polls is when he wielded a pseudo-veto against a financial arrangement in Brussels to prop up the monopoly money Euro. There's a message somewhere there.

To add salt to the wound, Baroness Warsi on the same election result programme likened UKIP to the BNP. Someone needs to whip round a copy of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence people to Central Office. It's never a good idea to smear the voters who you need to win back.

David Cameron is not standing up for Tory voters and yesterday, as a consequence, they deserted the Conservative Party in their droves. As I've said before, Mr Cameron is still likely to become the only Conservative leader to lose two general elections in a row unless he wakes up, smells the coffee, and realises his own supporters have had enough. There might just be enough time for him to pull out of the death spiral...

Ipswich will always be a backwater until the railway improves

My wife today had an important job interview in London but because of the incompetence of Network Rail and Greater Anglia (owned by Abellio) her train was cancelled. Supposedly there is a points problem at Liverpool Street. In private businesses, problems happen which affect customers but no where near to the same extent as the number of problems Network Rail and Greater Anglia create for the very high-paying public.

I work for a company with a massive network infrastructure used practically by the whole country every day (not everyone travels by train every day and some never do) and the number of problems which affect our customers are minuscule compared to the problems Network Rail and Greater Anglia inflict on their customers. I work for BT and if our business had the same woeful customer service as Network Rail/Greater Anglia I guestimate there would be a 50% chance your telephone (both mobile and landline) wouldn't work on any given day or a 50% chance your debit card transaction in the supermarket wouldn't work on any given day. If that was the reality, BT would go bust very quickly. It isn't the reality because we are an efficiently run private business.

Why are the rules of commerce different for Network Rail/Greater Anglia - perhaps it's the massive tax subsidies which keep on coming however badly they perform? This model doesn't work: look at the NHS for instance - hardly the bastion of efficiency and good service.

As a result of the woeful rail infrastructure in the East of England, Ipswich will never become a regional centre, which the Borough Council pretends it already is, unless the Great Eastern mainline between Norwich and London Liverpool Street is overhauled. As regular reader Stephen points out, the track is only a single track each way north of Shenfield, which is over 50 miles from Ipswich!

Basically, by definition Ipswich is still a backwater because of our railway line. This IS damaging Ipswich economically. I like Ipswich, which has been my home for eleven years - it has a feel of a Northern England town in the middle of the Suffolk countryside with a strong sense of community. It's compact size means it is easy to move around and although the shops and restaurants could be better it is still has most things one needs in terms of leisure facilities.

But it takes for ever to get anywhere else in the UK either by road and, of course, rail and this stops Ipswich from growing. Companies don't want to be based far from anywhere - there is a reason why so many global businesses are based around the M4 corridor!

Unless a miracle happens and Ben Gummer and his fellow MPs win millions of pounds of investment for upgrading the Great Eastern mainline, more and more young people will know their futures do not lie in Ipswich.

UPDATE 12:35: Things have just gone from bad to worse. Some poor person has just jumped in front of a train. The trains which were still running have now also been cancelled.

How long will it take Greater Anglia, Network Rail and British Transport Police to "clear up" after this incident? It usually takes hours. My wife reports Liverpool Street station are telling the public the police have not yet been able to find the body!

Ipswich Local Elections 2012 Update: Liberal Democrats leaflet

Finally, the Liberal Democrats have bothered to deliver their election address to the voter, albeit two days before polling day. You could call it a Get Out the Vote leaflet but considering it is blanket-distribution and as they put it through the door of a former Tory councillor and a current Tory councillor (well at least for another 48 hours) it isn't.

I don't think the Lib Dems are taking Holywells ward very seriously despite saying on page two of their leaflet that Holywells has only ever had Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors. I can only remember Tories in Holywells and I've been knowledgeable of Ipswich politics for ten years. Last year's election results saw the Yellow Peril come a distant third in with only 213 votes so I'd suggest they are being a tad optimistic with their rhetoric.

The Lib Dems would seem to have a big problem in attracting people to stand as candidates. Robert Chambers, son of defeated councillor Jane Chambers in last year's elections, is their Holywells candidate. Next door in Alexandra Ward, her daughter, Catherine Chambers, is the Liberal Democrat candidate. The Chambers are either trying to create an Ipswich political dynasty or the Yellow Peril are desperate for candidates and activists - I bet it's the latter.

The front-page of the election address - Holywells Ward Focus - promotes the candidate over the party - oh dear, that's probably lost them a few votes. No one is going to go to the polling station (apart from may be ten people for a completely new candidate) and look for Robert Chambers - if they want to vote Lib Dem (and I suspect only about 200 will again want to) then they will look for the bird. The Yellow Peril really have lost their campaigning touch!

The leaflet is poorly laid out throughout. It's looks as if it was designed using Microsoft Publisher. I bet they wish they had a graphic designer like local Tory Stephen Ion in their camp who only uses state-of-the art Apple desktop publishing. Better text formatting, rather than inconsistent fonts and spaces in the wrong place, plus more action pictures on the story subjects would be more hard-hitting. Political campaigning is advertising, that's all.

Putting aside the dreadful text formatting in the middle section of the leaflet where you can't separate the wood for the trees it is so poorly laid out, the Yellow Peril have included a poster, which majors on both the Party brand and the candidate's name. A good tactic!

The back-page is just plain dreadful. It makes one's eyes hurt just trying to read it - and I don't mean because it has a picture of Andrew Cann. Writing in block capital letters is a school-boy error - it never helps to shout at your electorate! The mixture of stories is confusing - what is the central message? The white text on yellow looks washed out and can't be easily read. "£45 a Month better off" and "£90 a month better off" (note their difference in case for the word 'month' - oh dear!) but better off for who and why??

On a positive note, the Lib Dems have used their mass-distribution leaflet to drum up financial and activist support for their Party. Labour never miss this trick but the Tories did this year (which as the former constituency chairman, I find particularly grating!).

The Lib Dems used to be a campaigning force to be reckoned with but along with their vote their skill-base is draining away as well. Whoever designed and wrote this leaflet needs to be assigned duties elsewhere in the party machine. Not that it matters in Holywells - they will be lucky to beat the Greens into third place!

UPDATE: I have uploaded the front and back of the Liberal Democrats election address to ElectionLeaflets.org at http://www.electionleaflets.org/leaflets/7216/