It’s hard to disagree with Gavin Maclure most of the time.  He’s usually very level headed.  Of course he’s wrong on the High Speed rail projectl, but then so is most of the rest of the local politicians – not simply the usual crowd of in-denial Tories like Alastair Ross and Gaia worshippers like Ben Gummer but also usually sensible people like Kevin Algar and Paul West.  So I just had to say that I was the only one marching to the right tune.  And in twenty years time there are only two certainties, I will be two decades older (or my corpse will be) and I will be proven right on High Speed 2 being another collosal waste of public money.

If it’s hard to disagree with Gavin Maclure on much, it’s even harder to agree with Ben Gummer when also disagreeing with Gavin.  It just goes against nature.  So I’d like to skate over the fact that Gavin is wrong on the bonus and Ben is right.  It is distasteful to pay someone just short of £1 million, even if it is in three year’s time, but if the alternative is to signal to the markets that RBS is going to be run as a less commercial organisation (and so knock around half a billion off the share price) then let’s remember that we don’t have much of an economy to play with.  Let’s keep Britain open for business during the recession.

The real issue is that we now have a large Scottish albatross around our neck with the Royal Bank of Scotland.  It was probably politically impossible to hold the line on the bonuses, but this now signals that the Royal Bank of Scotland – and other brands such as NatWest bank – are going to increasingly become very expensive political playthings.  The bonus is the start of it.  We will see the loan book become more and more oriented towards keeping jobs in marginal constituencies and less about making money.  This may sound good in the short term, but it will end in the same way as Tony Benn’s industrial loans to motorcycle co-operatives, or for that matter Stephen Byer’s loans to the four dodgy directors of Rover.  Only this time there are billions and billions to play with.

Over the long term this will become a drain on the system, as the only way that the Royal Bank of Scotland can hope to pay off the vast amount of our money that Gordon Brown poured into that other badly run Scottish led institution is if RBS returns to a consistent profit.  And that’s before we look at the long term cost of the Corporation Tax that we will be losing by letting it stay an unprofitable crony lender. 

The decision by Alastair Darling and Gordon Brown, two Scottish politicians, to save two Scottish banks – rather than to focus on saving the depoitors (which is what you would normally do) will go down in history as a criminal waste of money – almost as criminal as the systematic deficit spending that put us in this mess.  However we are where we are.

The government’s plan to quickly return RBS to the private sector has clearly failed.  The longer it will stay the more corruptible it will be.  It is generally a good idea to move banks away from political control, even in a relatively clean political culture like England’s.  Politician’s should bear the words from the Lord’s Prayer in mind, deliver us from temptation (or as my more literal minded wife says “deliver us from the time of trial”).

So we need to hive off the really awful loans into a bad bank, which can wind the loans down in a way that would be impossible for a government owned commercial bank to do.  Let’s recognise the loss early while our credit rating is still good for it.  The investment banking and niche lending arms should be closed down, sold off or given to the employees as co-operatives – the senior employees seem to extract most of the profits anyway so it would be nice if they also took a hit when they maded a loss.  As for the Nat West and RBS branches, surely these can be floated off – just remember to Tell Sid.

This may sound a bit far out and radical, but it’s not as far out as expecting RBS to come back into the private sector in one profitable piece and it’s not nearly as radical as what will have to be done in ten or twenty years time if its still lingering on the government books.

A red Ford Fiesta parked on a driveway in Pembroke Close Ipswich was broken into sometime between 10pm Saturday 21st and 1.10am Sunday 22nd January. Damage was caused to the ignition and the vehicle moved approximately 200 metres along the street before being abandoned.

A maroon Vauxhall Cavalier parked in the same road was also broken into sometime between 5pm Saturday and 8.15am Sunday.

And between 5.30pm Saturday and 12.15am Sunday an attempt was made to force open a door of red Peugeot 106 in a parking area on Prince of Wales Drive Ipswich.

Anyone with information relating to any of these incidents is asked to contact Ipswich Police on 101 reference IW/12/297

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

Also car crime has been noted in Birkfield Close, Partridge Close, Pheasant Road and Ancaster Road – so it’s a bit of an epidemic.

Some people that I respect, Gavin Maclure, Kevin Algar and Paul West (err, and Alasdair Ross) all took an incredibly stupid stance on HS2 because they again missed the elephant in the living room.

Let’s not worry about the nimbys.  Sometimes they have a point, often they don’t.  In both Boris Island and the High Speed 2 cases they are wrong.

The problem is that both these incredibly expensive projects are based on massive government financial backing.

Governments are remarkably bad at making decisions about investment.  This is why people clamour for government investment.  Essentially it’s an easy ride.  There are no shareholders hustling for a return.  Risk will almost always be far too steeply discounted.  Over-runs will be tolerated.  Unions will be allowed to thwart cost control.  Decisions will be taken on political rather than economic grounds.

In short the majority will pay through their taxes for a minority’s financial advantage.  In even plithier form, Bob Crow’s in favour.

If Boris Island could be privately financed (without a government guarantee) then it would be an elegant and radical way of sorting out the Heathrow headache.  However at the moment it is just une grand projet, and we simply should not be getting involved.

Kevin Algar has a good report on the South West forum, which points to a certain futility to the whole experience. Sally Wainman also writes about the North East and North West area forums although without Kevin’s rather biting style. She still thinks that this is not a game to Labour, bless her. Sally had one very good idea – monitoring public attendance.

From various reports we seemed to have the following results

• Resident participation for all four forums put together was in single figures
• The forums were held for the councillors’ rather than the residents benefit – being in the council chamber which is closer for Phil Smart or Bryony Rudkin than a drafty church hall in the middle of Bridge or Chantry (not to mention councillor’s parking)
• The meetings were far too formal
• There was no notification to people who had attended before
• As Ipswich Spy has pointed out the forums seem to have one over-riding aim now – to replicate what had gone on before

The acid test of this change – supported by the Liberal Democrats and Ipswich Spy, and with Tory abstentions – was whether it would bring more people in. It brought in less. Fingers on one hand type numbers.

There had been no attempt to see if similar changes had been tried before in other councils, no attempt to debate other changes and suggest these to neighbourhood forums. It’s a complete shambles.

Neighbourhood forums are not important to councillors and council officials but they are the closest thing to direct democracy that we have in Ipswich. They are important because they are a chance, admittedly an imperfect chance, for the people to control the agenda.

This was not simply a failure of the Labour Party in Ipswich – that David Ellesmere is an incompetent manager is hardly news – it’s a failure of the whole political class in Ipswich.

From the Suffolk Constabulary:

Police are asking residents to be vigilant when using ATM machines to withdraw cash after a device was found on an ATM on Austin Street in Ipswich at around 3pm on Tuesday 10th January. A resident went to withdraw cash from the machine that didn’t dispense the money. They returned to the same machine later on and found a plastic strip over the dispenser. £20 had been stolen. Police would like to trace a man who was seen loitering around the area talking on a mobile phone and left when staff discovered the device. He is described as white, around 5ft 6 tall, of medium build and was wearing a dark coloured jacket with a hood and dark coloured trousers.

If you have any information about this incident please contact Ipswich police by dialling 101 quoting reference IW/12/134.

It may not be immediately apparent to ATM customers that there is anything suspicious about the machine, so Police would urge people to be alert, and check for any signs that the machine has been tampered with. If there is anything suspicious about the machine, then customers should either alert the branch immediately, or contact police.

Customers can also take extra measures to protect themselves against fraud, such as covering the keypad with their hand when they enter their PIN, and checking their bank accounts regularly to keep track of their funds.

Details about all types of card fraud in the UK can be found at www.cardwatch.org.uk including tips on how to prevent it happening to you.

Anyone who feels they may have been the victim of fraud should contact their banks immediately. If you have concerns that a device is attached to an ATM then please contact the police on 101.

Or

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

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

This will be meeting at 5.30 at Grafton House.  I know that this is a work unfriendly time but if you want to kill off local democracy like David Ellesmere does, you’d want to hold all four committee meetings in two evenings.  That way you’d get the unpleasant business of local representation over with as soon as possible.

Forget the annoying Nimbys, this is a massive misallocation of capital – that’s why it should be stopped.  It’s not a good time to grow the deficit.

To stop this unfairness it’s time for Ipswich’s own camel lookalike, David Ellesmere, to come to Ed Miliband’s rescue. 

So here’s my proposal.  David Ellesmere should get his picture taken with Ed Miliband.  A lot.  I’ll plaster them all over this site, just as I did with Gordon Brown and Chris Mole.  All in the interests of fairness, you see.

In this way people will realise that Ed Miliband is not Britain’s ugliest man.  That’;s beacause this individual will be in the photograph.

So go on David, use your unique powers to scare young children and turn milk sour to your party’s advantage.

Time to take up the load, Ellesmere