Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

I rather like Sandy Martin as there isn’t the air of old timer, permanently angry-man or pole climber that there is with too many other prominent and not so prominent Ipswich Labour councillors.  But he really seems to have muffed what could have been the gift of the county reorganisation, the so-called “Suffolk-ation” (great if misleading phrase, by the way).

Of course as he’s a man of the left there will be some problems with what Suffolk county council are trying to do.  That’s fine.  The ideological attachment to the command and control model of council services is barmy, but it’s understandable, has some resonance and the subject for another post.  The problem is that he’s allowed the opposition to be led by the unions, when there’s simply no sense in it.

The case from the Conservatives, which has the benefit of being accurate, is that there is going to be less money coming from central government, the council tax payers will not put up with massive and regressive tax rises at this time and that the only alternative is to cut the administration or the front line services.

So if the alternatives are cutting the administration or the front line services, the unions say don’t cut the administration.  Which is their job.  However it is not the job of the Labour Party to say cut the services to preserve the union members.

The public sector unions are like fox hunters are to the conservative party – a great source of activists and funds but an utterly dependent source.  The fox hunters have no sizeable set of political friends outside the Conservative Party and the Conservatives and the fox hunters are quite aware of the damage that the fox hunting issue could do if the public actually voted on it.  The Labour Party is going to learn this lesson about the public sector unions in a far more brutal way.

Labour in Suffolk can’t afford to let Jeremy Pembroke say that his way is the only way to preserve services.

So on to party donors, and why this demonstrates my point.  A fascinating piece on Conservative Home shows the issue for Labour:

Total donations (cash and non-cash) received by the main parties between July and September were:

• Conservatives -  £3,695,947
• Labour – £2,317,723*
• UKIP – £454,234
• Lib Dems – £350,645

* £1,903,949 of Labour’s funding came from trade unions, of which the bulk came from four unions:

Now on one level that doesn’t matter as Labour are coming a respectable second to the Tories in the brute fund raising.  It’s an important number, but it shows Labour in a different light if the union donations are stripped out (I’m also stripping out the Tory donation from David Rowland):

Conservatives -  £2,629,980

Labour – £413,774

UKIP – £454,234

Lib Dems – £350,645

That’s lower than UKIP (and Tories should watch UKIP closely, as they ain’t taking Labour votes and donors).  That’s a worrying weakness.  But it’s not my main point.

The main point is that the unions have been treated reasonably shabbily by Red Miliband since he came in with their votes.  Not dreadfully but rather shabbily.  And yet they still give money.  As they did through the Blair years, when they were treated shabbily in the first two terms.

The Labour Party can take the unions for granted, the unions can – and from a political point should – be treated like dirt in the next few years.  And they will learn to be grateful, as they’ve got no where else to go.  The fact that Sandy Martin is treating the unions as masters and not servants is a catastrophic lack of judgement.  And one that will mean that Labour could still have a minority from the Ipswich delegation at the next County Council.

Related articles

• Suffolk council plans to outsource virtually all services (guardian.co.uk)
• Council to ‘outsource everything’ (bbc.co.uk)
• Len McCluskey’s election strengthens both Labour and trade unionism | Seumas Milne (guardian.co.uk)

The People’s Community Garden are having a Halloween Fun Day on Friday 29th October from 11AM to 3PM with pumpkin carving, face painting and a smoothie bike.

It’s free.

All being well I will be on my way to Birmingham to see the Pope, or at least be in the crowd, and I’m very excited.  I’ve seen his predecessor twice, once in Paris and once in Rome, but I’ve never seen Benedict XVI nor have I seen the Pope in England.  I’ve also not been to a beatification, although I was mistaking it for a canonisation for a few weeks.

We are going to see some awful behaviour from the organised atheists, Paisleyites and (it seems from the news) Islamist terrorists that won’t exactly convince me that I’m on the wrong side.  Thankfully with 72% of the population at the last census this is still a Christian, if not a regular churchgoing, country.

However I fear that the Holy Father may have more formidable opposition than assorted overgrown teenagers, and that is the  Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales.  They really don’t seem to have been able to organise anything very well.

But the sun is shining and the Pope is here.  Long Live The Pope.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Pope Benedict In State Visit To Britain (news.sky.com)
• Pope on UK Visit Admits Failures in Abuse Scandal (beliefnet.com)
• Pope’s visit: cured deacon flies in for beatification of English cardinal (guardian.co.uk)

I’ve heard it a bit in Belstead Avenue, and it’s been heard a bit louder in Chatsworth Crescent. I’ll keep people informed if anything else goes on.

In the meantime here’s how to complain. If you want to get on the Noise Action Group’s email newsletter then please email noise@bridgeward.org.uk .

It’s only a temporary office, but Ben Gummer has moved his constituency office from the Park Road office to one in IP-City complex at the top of Wherstead Road, which can be found here:

View Larger Map

He’s going to be opening a permanent office in (I think) Fore Street if the planners let him convert the office.

The contact details are telephone 0845 634 9197 and email is ben@bengummer.com

This letter found its way to me.

The bottom line is that the meeting will be at the Gainsborough Labour Club, 394 Landseer Road, Ipswich, IP3 9LX on September 1st, from 4pm to 7pm.

Here’s a link to the map.

We’re writing to let you know about some work we are proposing to do at our Cliff Quay waste water treatment works in Ipswich. Our plans will not increase any odour that the site generates, and will increase its capacity.

Waste water to you – fertiliser to us!

You might wonder what happens to the water you flush down the toilet, empty out of the sink, or tip into the drain. But it’s at the point the waste leaves you that Anglian Water steps in. We treat the water and clean it up before it’s returned to the environment.

One of the by-products of this treatment process is a nutrient-rich soil improver that we provide to local farmers to use as fertiliser on their land. At Cliff Quay, we treat most of the waste water for this area, and produce approximately 48,000 tonnes of this soil improver each year.

But with proposed growth in the Ipswich area, we know we’ll need to handle more waste water, which will produce more of this fertiliser product. To do this we need to enhance the treatment process at Cliff Quay, and increase the capacity of the waste water treatment works.

We also plan to look at the possibility of further developing the existing commercial composting service at the site, in keeping with national plans for minimising waste.

Please come and see what we’re planning

Anglian Water intends to submit a full planning application to Suffolk County Council, but we’d like you to have the chance to see our proposed development before we submit plans for it.

We’d like to invite you to a public exhibition at
Gainsborough Labour Club, Ipswich on September 1st,
from 4pm to 7pm, so we can share our plans with you.

Any questions?

We know you may have questions about our plans. Here are some answers to the queries we’ve already received.

Will the new works cause an increase in smells from the site?
No. Overall, our proposal will not increase any odour from the site. And new installations will have required odour treatment mitigation equipment installed.

Will you be expanding the site?
No. All development will take place within the existing boundary of the works.

What material will you treat on site?
The site will treat all the waste water from your area, and will continue to treat liquid sludge from other works such as at Bury St Edmunds just as it does now.

Will the scheme have any impact on the environment?
We asked Suffolk County Council for their opinion on the need for an Environmental Impact Assessment, and they told us that our plans “would not produce any unusually complex or potentially hazardous environmental effects” and that “it would not be likely to have significant effects on the environment”.

What will the development look like?
The proposed layout and appearance of the development will be submitted in support of the planning application. But if you come along on September 1st, we will be able to share these plans with you.

What if you can’t make the open day?

If you can’t make it on September 1st, our planning application will be consulted on by Suffolk County Council, and you are welcome to get in touch with them to express your opinion. You’re also welcome to get in touch with me – my contact details are below.

We hope you can make it though, and look forward to meeting you. Don’t
forget – September 1st, between 4pm and 7pm.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Swan
Anglian Water Special Projects
sswan@anglianwater.co.uk

Public Meeting. Planning permission. Public nuisance. Cliff Quay. The memories are flooding back.

Unlike last year’s heritage day this year’s open day is not very well publicised. As I’ve been getting some searches on this I thought I’d put in some details for this year.

The Ipswich heritage day in 2010 will be, as usual, two days, Saturday 11th Septembter and Sunday 12th September. English heritage list the following attractions:

* Admiral’s House
* Arlingtons Brasserie (the original Ipswich museum, hence why Museum Street has no museum on it)
* Bethesda Baptist Chapel
* Broomhill Pool
* Christ Church, Tacket Street
* Freston Tower
* Holy Trinity Church, Bishops Hill / Back Hamlet
* Ipswich School – Exclusive school and Socialist blogger hangout
* Ipswich Unitarian Meeting House
* Pykenham’s Gatehouse
* Ipswich Institute Reading Room and Library
* Sproughton Tithe Barn (totally refurbished apparently)
* St Lawrence’s Church
* St Peter’s Church
* The Old Custom House
* Town Hall
* Waterfront Building, University Campus Suffolk
* Willis Building (surprisingly good if you haven’t seen it)

The opening times vary so please go to the English heritage website.

Earlier in the week I had a knock on my door from a rather charming person who explained that they were putting up windows at a near neighbour’s of mine in Belstead Avenue and would I be interested. The notepaper he gave me was from “L Joyce Ltd Windows & Doors”. No telephone number or email address (I’ve looked subsequently on Google and they are legitimate, but without much of a web presence, I guess they’re going to have a higher web presence now).

Any way, despite the fact that I have very good builders I quite like the fact that people pay some attention to this, and so I arranged for a quote on Friday with the proviso that he call first.

Then on Wednesday a neighbour said that he had seen this man on my front lawn looking at my windows. “What are you doing?” he asked, to which he got a rather aggressive reply. As I didn’t have the phone number for L Joyce Ltd I thought I’d wait for the call and tell them that I could not deal with them due to the aggressiveness and rudeness.

Well today he called round, without a telephone call first. I explained that I did not want a quote, and why I did not want a quote. And then I got an aggressive response back, “Thanks for wasting my time” (no swearing or intimidation, just a raised voice).

So I can’t vouch for the work of L Joyce Ltd Windows & Doors, but I can tell you that if you do use them, make sure that you don’t get into any misunderstandings, as it could turn very ugly.

This should be a good day. It’s at the Halifax Bowls Pavillion and there will be a climbing wall and a children’s fancy dress parade. The mayor will be opening it around 11 AM and the fun goes on until 4pm.

I know the Ipswich Stoke transmitter is not due to go digital until 2011, but until Tuesday we were getting a digital signal. Now there’s no digital or analogue signal received at all and so no TV. It’s probably good for us, but is it general – or is it just our aerial.

(Yes it’s poor throughout Old Stoke and into Maidenhall).