Have you driven down Maidenhall approach recently?  Prince of Wales Drive?  Wherstead Road?  And why do you think that the bit of Belstead Road away from town is in far better repair than the big dipper impression you get when you’re almost in town.  And that’s before you take a bus.

The main roads in Bridge have always been a challenge and even under the Tories there were pot holes.  But boy are they worse this year.  It’s not as if the road budget has been cut to the bone – it’s just no longer being spent in Bridge.

Is this anything to do with the fact that only one of the three councillors lives in Bridge, and that councillor doesn’t drive or ever speak up against his party?  Or that Phil Smart, although himself a car driver is a believer that less important people should travel everywhere by bus or train?

Probably not.  It’s more to do with the fact that Labour think that Bridge is in the bag.  Labour is ruthless in funneling money to marginal wards.  If you want Bridge to get road repairs, you  better hope that it becomes a marginal ward again.

The more leaflets that Labour feels it has to deliver in Bridge the quicker your pot holes will be repaired.

Here are three not so random stories:

• A government committed to the idea of the Big Society threatens to vastly reduce charitable income to stop a fairly minor tax evasion technique
• The government plan to force email providers to store all emails
• After cigarettes are banned from display in supermarkets the government start to consult on banning distinctive cigarette packets

So what happened to the Freedom Coalition of Liberal Democrats and Conservatives to roll back the incessant Labour expansion of the state?

I’m well aware of how much Ben Gummer enjoys my unsolicited advice, so here’s some more.

There is a view going round that the unconservative (and very expensive) proposals to snoop on all our internet activity comes from the European Union.

So if Ben Gummer, a self styled libertarian, publicly questioned why we needed this then he can prove either that he is not as beholden to all things European as his father or that this massive invasion of our privacy and liberty is not coming from Europe.

 It would, however, be unwise to hold your breath.

Conspiracies happen, that’s true.  But quite often they don’t.  Let’s look at this gem from Ipswich Spy:

A fellow conspirator has uncovered that Mr Andrew Cook, who donated £25,000 to Mr Gummer’s campaign in 2009, is likely the same Andrew Cook who controversially demanded that the Government cancelled an £80 million loan to Sheffield Forgemasters back in 2010. It seems Mr Gummer later voted against a Labour motion which regretted the decision to refuse the loan to the company, a commercial competitor to Mr Cook’s company.

Interesting use of the phrase “fellow conspirator” which sort of shows the mindset, although good money would go on this particular source being one of the prominent Labour activists.   He may even have a yellow football shirt and a beard with food in it.

Let’s look at this.  “Is likely the same Andrew Cook”, well is it or is it not?  It is by the way, but I’d found that out through a couple of Google searches.  Ipswich Spy was getting better at researching, why the lazy retailing of these rumours?

But the really depressing piece was later.  “It seems Mr Gummer later voted against a Labour motion which regretted the decision to refuse the loan to the company”  I’ll ignore the lazy inability to check against Hansard but instead point out that this was a whipped vote. 

An MP who’s elected for a certain party will follow the whip in almost every case.   If the Conservative whip was that we were to start sending cheese mining ships to the moon then that’s what  Ben Gummer would almost certainly vote for, as did Chris Mole when the Labour Party was saying that we could tax our way into growth or borrow our way out of the deficit.  If an MP votes against the whip, or even don’t turn up when they’re expected, then they suffer consequences.

Is there any evidence that Ben Gummer lobbied for the Brown-era loan to be removed?  No.  I’m sure if there was even a sniff of it that the Ipswich Labour Party would send it in and Ipswich Spy would publish it.

But no, it has to be a conspiracy.  It’s that sort of insanity that inhabits the Ipswich Labour Party today.  The fact is that many of it’s most senior members are so far removed from reality that the Americans would call them kooks.

So George Galloway has won a stunning byelection victory.  Let’s look at the facts:

• Bradford West was a safe Labour seat (although it was a Tory target in 2010, it had stayed Labour in 1979, 1983 and 1987)
• George Galloway is a clown
• The turnout was 51% – compare to Leeds Central a few years ago when it was around 20%
• Respect is a minor party, it was fifth when it last fought the seat and doesn’t have the byelection machine that the Liberal Democrats used to boast
• The Tory vote collapsed in a high turnout election – they must have gone somewhere
• This was more than half the vote in a high turnout byelection, it’s not just students and Muslims

When George Galloway was talking about the “Bradford Spring” he may have been referring to the three big parties, but where it was more appropriate was the classic corrupt safe Labour culture, where the Labour Party safe in it’s knowledge that it will always hold the seat becomes obsessed with closing the political process further.  You may think that it’s like a certain large town in Suffolk.

What then happens is that every now and again there’s an eruption when the anti-Labour vote simply coagulates.  It’s often the case when you hear of a Liberal, or sometimes even Tory, winning a council seat in some safe Labour area – and sometimes a whole council in safe Labour territory.   In Scotland it’s the SNP’s way of working.  Sometimes the lack of a major party means that the Greens, the BNP or even Respect win it.

Of course the commentators, if they ever notice, think of it in ideological terms.  Why is one part of the country going green while another part has had a shock clutch of victories for the far right?  Why are the Liberals suddenly doing well in Newcastle or Brent?

Well it’s simple.  It’s not ideology, it’s just a wish to get out a courrupt local party.  Labour in Ipswich should watch this.  Stitching up nominations (of both parties) may not have an immediate effect – but by God it’s going to pay back when you least expect it.

I’ve been off line for a long time, and I don’t know how long I’ll be on air, so I haven’t been able to weigh in on this.  So as I’m surprisingly up, I’d like to put my head over the parapet and say that gay marriage is a bad idea for a whole set of reasons - and none of them to do with homophobia. 

We’ll see if my hosting service is a little more responsive over the next week and allows me to post these reasons.

A friend of mine (who is currently chasing me up for copy for a leaflet) works at Conservative Central Office.  He’s not going to like what I’m going to say.

In short it is a very bad day for the Conservative Party when Peter Cruddas promised access for money.  It’s little defence to say that he was inexperienced, as when we’re new on a job we’re usually more cautious and less gung ho than when we’ve got our feet under the table.  It’s no defence to say that this has gone on for years and it’s no defence to talk about the trade unions funding the Labour Party – although the Labour Party does still deserve some battering on this.

We’re going to have to bring in a cap on donations, and soon.  However state funding is a bad idea.  Firstly its wrong for my taxes to fund the Labour Party, just as it’s wrong for taxes from Sandy Martin to go to the Tories. 

Secondly it means that the state can decide the limits of debate.  In Belgium a judge closed down the largest party in Flanders, the Vlaams Blok as all political party money comes from the state.  Do we really want to give unelected bureaucrats even more power?

The way we’re going Yes Minister is going to be seen as a fond recollection of when the people and their representatives actually had some say.

The way around this without bankrupting political parties is to introduce a gradual cap – so £100,000 in year one going down in increments of £10,000 each year, to be applied to wealthy donors and trade unions equally (perhaps with the Trade Unions having a higher cap initially but rapidly catching up to the limits set for us commoners).  In that way the political parties will have to re-develop their mass donor base that they’ve neglected.  And if they don’t then they can go bust, but at least they’ve had a chance.

From the police:

On Saturday 10th March between 2pm and 8.50pm offenders have entered an insecure shed in the rear garden of a property on Montgomery Road, Ipswich. Three petrol strimmers were taken from within.

Were you in the area at the time, did you see anything suspicious? Do you know the name of the offender or offenders? If you have any information please contact Suffolk Police on 101 quoting reference IW/12/959.

OR Please use the following link to pass useful information to Suffolk Police about any incident.

http://www.suffolk.police.uk/safetyadvice/reportacrime/tellthepolice.aspx

But I’ve lost March’s posts (which isn’t nearly as bad as I expected).

From the Suffolk Police

Between 5pm Saturday 25th and 9am Monday 27th February on Riverside Industrial Park, Ipswich a white Ford Transit van, registration AY03 WTU has been taken from a car park.  A company name is written on the sides of the vehicle.
 
Were you in the area at the time, did you see anything suspicious? Do you know the name of the offender or offenders? If you have any information please contact Suffolk Police on 101 quoting reference IW/12/778.

Or

Please use the following link to pass useful information to Suffolk Police about any incident.

http://www.suffolk.police.uk/safetyadvice/reportacrime/tellthepolice.aspx

DO NOT USE THIS LINK IN AN EMERGENCY OR IN A SITUATION THAT REQUIRES AN IMMEDIATE POLICE RESPONSE WHEN YOU SHOULD RING 999.