Sadly there were no councillors from Bridge there. No newly re-elected Jim Powell, no soon to stand for re-election Philip Smart and no double County and Borough councillor Bryony Rudkin. For shame.

The other two county councillors from the area were present and there were councillors from the other three wards in the area. There was a debate in which the policing priorities were set for the South West area of Ipswich. Not surprisingly Bridge did very poorly in this. Last year it was generally remarked upon by other councillors of both parties that Bridge was being better represented as the councillors were scared that they could lose to the Tories. It’s now been commented that as Labour thinks Bridge will be in the bag next year that the Bridge councillors are returning to their bad, self indulgent habits of quango hunting and wittering on about pet subjects. I didn’t want to believe it, but when the bread and butter of local representation is neglected like this, then what can you believe?

This is why Bridge must never revert to being a safe Labour seat.

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1. Ipswich councillors – Better than the MPs
2. Bridge Ward to Labour: Don’t take us for granted
3. The pressure starts to show on Mark Dyson

Here’s a link to a map.

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1. South West Ipswich Area Forum: 2nd September 2009
2. Cement Ship – South West Forum announcement
3. Bridge Councillors don’t show when police set area priorities

Leader of the Council? Really?

Liz Harsant, the real life leader of Ipswich Council, may have something to say on this. The Conservative group may welcome Bryony with open arms (she’s second favourite to defect among Tory activists) but I’m not sure they think she should be leader yet. Perhaps David Ellesmere, the leader on the Labour Group, may also want a word.

Dame Bryony has many, many jobs, but not leader of Ipswich council.

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1. Dame Bryony to run the council?
2. Southern Cement: Report from the Council Executive
3. So did the Ipswich Labour Party follow the Spencer Strategy?

So who are Ipswich Labour party supporting? Ipswich Labour Party’s strength and abiding weakness is that they have stayed tribal when the rest of the country is far less tribal than it was a generation ago. This is why they didn’t see Ben Gummer’s challenge until it was too late. However it also means that they should be able to keep the whole show on the road and not implode after government as other Constituency Labour Parties seem to be doing.

Ed Balls image as a “no compromise with the voters” candidate should appeal to the Ipswich Labour Party. That is, however, the Ipswich Labour Party’s problem.

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2. How you pay the Ipswich Labour Party £500 a month
3. So did the Ipswich Labour Party follow the Spencer Strategy?

Ben Gummer was also there, doing the MP sort of things. What’s really striking is how many people he knows already. I got mistaken for his brother, twice. Now I have no problem with people thinking that I look like Ben, he volunteered for public life and insults are a new way of life for him. But his poor brother, what did he do to deserve the calumny?

If they do decide to hold this event next year it is a really good idea to go down.

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1. Vegetable games
2. Reminder: Vegetable games this week
3. Art in the Garden – Maidenhall Allotments

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1. Save the local pub
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3. Ben Gummer’s maiden

Dear Mr Ball,

On your website you say that you want to get emails from any “journalist, campaigner or member of the public with a story you think the Bureau should be investigating”. I have a rather puzzling investigation.

There have been two investigations done on Channel 4 about expense investigations. These have covered six MPs, Zac Goldsmith, Ben Gummer, Gavin Barwell, Dan Byles, Sarah Teather and Phil Woolas. Four of these were Conservative, one Liberal Democrat and one Labour. That’s not that interesting.

What is interesting is the identity of the second party. In Croydon Central, Ipswich, Warwickshire and Brent Central the second party was Labour. In the other two it was Liberal Democrats. It seems very odd that there are no Conservatives in second place. Was Channel 4 and whatever third party outfit they were using biased on this? And how unusual was it?

I did a quick count of all the seats that had a majority of less than 4,092 (185 seats) where the Conservatives were second (75 seats). 4,092 is one more than the highest majority among these six (Zac Goldsmith with 4,091). Now the probability of any one of these seats at random having a Tory runner up would be 40.54%. So getting a non-Tory is a perfectly respectable 59.45% chance. To get two non Tory runners up and no-one else would be a lower but credible 35.22%. Three non-Tory runners up would be 20.7%, four would be 12.2% and five would be 7.15%. This would be very hard to justify as a fair representation. However six non Tory runners up would actually have a probability of 4.175%. Just under a one in twenty four chance.

Perhaps it was only the Conservatives who overspent, but I got an email today from the Sunlight Centre who said that they “have this week begun a new investigation into the election spending of Zac Goldsmith, Chris Huhne and Ed Balls.” In two of these cases the second place candidate was a Tory and in one they were not. Which one did Channel 4 and Anthony Barnett cover?

I must declare an interest on this (on which more later) and I am a constituent of Ben Gummer and I even wore one of the now famous Tee Shirts. I do like Mr Gummer but even his biggest fans would not claim that he was more newsworthy than Chris Huhne and Ed Balls, one of whom is a cabinet minister and one of whom was a cabinet minister in the recent past. Why have they not been covered?

On declaring an interest, I have watched the two broadcasts and read a lot of the articles on this and the main journalist is a Mr Anthony Barnett. It is not made clear that he was a director of the broadly anti-Conservative Charter 88, a writer for the Labour supporting New Statesman and on the editorial board of the Marxist New Left Review. It makes the one in twenty four chance look very odd indeed. I also notice that he has shared a platform with Chris Huhne in his role as the Co-Director of the Convention on Modern Liberty. Perhaps conflicts of interest of this one time soft left campaigner and new born journalist could be investigated?

I understand that the (non-partisan) Sunlight Centre have scooped you on all the major stories on MPs expenses, so perhaps this would be a story where you could scoop them?

Yours,

James Spencer

UPDATE:

Welcome to readers from ITN (the producers of Channel 4 News), the Labour Party and the Channel 4 Corporate division. You may want to see Panscourer’s post on this. He chides me for being mild.

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2. Ben Gummer at the Steamboat Tavern
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There’s events will include:

• Arts and Crafts Competitions
• Vegathon Games running all day
• Health Bus/ Barbeque/Tea and Home made cakes
• Samboomba Samba Band / Live Music in the Summer House
• Smoothie Bike-make your own healthy smoothies with pedal power

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3. Heart Debate reminder

The next one is tomorrow (Wednesday 14th July) in Bourne Park (ost code IP2 8RE, if you need to use your Sat Nav, councillors). Here are the details:

Meet at 12 noon at the People’s Community Garden, off Halifax Rd, Maidenhall. Access through the pedestrian entrance, please follow the signs. From the garden we will walk to and around Bourne Park and then back to the Garden for a relaxing lunch. Please bring a pack lunch with you. Refreshments will be available. Composting Toilet on site. Transport – No 16 bus. Everyone welcome, please come and join us and find out more about the People’s Community Garden.
Grade 1
Led by the Town & Bridge Project

Other Bourne Park walks are on 28th July, 18th August and 8th September – all at 12 O’Clock. There are also walks around Christchurch Park, the details are in the document.

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1. The Dovecote, Bourne Park
2. Date for your Diary: Meryamana walk
3. Vegetable games