Kevan Lim the former deputy leader of Labour in Suffolk County Council, after a lifetime of voting Labour has decided to vote for Ben Gummer.

Despite the fact that he comes from a totally different political tradition from me (although I used to be a Labour activist, but years ago) he comes up with a couple of points that I wholeheartedly agree with:

1) Like it or not we are in a big hole with this deficit, and some painful things need to be done now
2) Ben Gummer’s strongest point is not that he’s a Tory but that he’s independent minded and, let’s be honest, more than a bit mouthy
3) Mark Dyson doesn’t understand Ipswich and it’s a mystery as to why the Liberals didn’t choose a local candidate

Kevan Lim firmly remains a man of the left, but he has switched because Ben Gummer will be a stronger voice for Ipswich – not because he’s suddenly fallen in love with the Conservative Party.

Don’t worry Ben, I’ve not cracked yet.

So I have a go at the UKIP candidate for not living in the constituency. And he replies.

So my obsession is sated. For now.

I have no doubt that Chris Streatfield is an honourable, intelligent and well meaning man. And he’s right to worry about Europe – it may have made sense in the 1970s but the present structure has no future for us. He may not win the prize for world’s most charasmatic man, but I think that the treatment at the hustings was appalling. It reminds me of the non-debate on immigration in the 1990s, and we’re reaping that particular harvest today.

However I have to agree with Pan Scourer’s blog. In Ipswich a vote for UKIP is a vote for Mole. And a vote for Mole is a vote for him:

Gordon Brown's candidate

OK, I’m biased, so I asked a few other people what they thought. Here’s what was said:

Tim Glover (Green)

Pros:
Engaging personality
Was prepared to deal with the issues rather than simply laugh them down

Cons:
Seemed to be on drugs
Advocated a massive default and inflation that didn’t work too well when tried in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe would vote for him.

Chris Streatfield (UKIP)

Pros:
Seemed to shape the debate far more than the other minor candidates (including the Lib Dem)
Wanted us all to remember Europe – and he did this again and again, and again

Cons:
Charisma bypass – at least in front of a large audience
Went on and on about Europe – although that was his game plan it became dull

Mark Dyson (Liberal Democrat)

Pro:
Good TV voice

Cons:
Knew nothing about the area
Mentioned “Vince Cable” 27 times in the debate
Talked about replacing capitalism – I’m not sure that this is national Lib Dem policy

Sally Wainman (Save Broomhill Pool – walk on part)

Pro:
A great single issue campaigner

Con:
Only a single issue campaigner

Ben Gummer (Conservative)

Pro:
By far the sharpest of the performers (but we knew that any way)
Landed some sharp blows on Mole

Cons:
Sore throat
Seemed to treat UKIP as a bigger threat than Labour
Overly dismissive on climate change and anything to do with Europe along with Dyson and Mole, but I didn’t expect better of those two

Chris Mole

Pro:
Turned up on a bike
Best joke of the night, “I’ve heard Vince Cable speak, and there’s no superman shirt”

Con:
Really odd delivery – monotone and then stressing the most irrelevant words
Only seemed to spout government talking points, and then not very well
Looked bored whenever he wasn’t speaking, usually looking up at the ceiling

I spoke to a number of people, both Conservative and Catholic (it’s next to St Pancras). Among the Conserviatives there was a general satisfaction with the debate. I spoke to a Lib Dem who was seething at his “parachuted” candidate (does anyone know any more on this?). Among the Catholics there were a lot of people who were rather disappointed in the moderation which seemed to have skewed the questions away from abortion and end of life issues, unusual for a church based event and very unecumenical as these issues are exercising a lot of traditionally Labour voting Catholics.

This picture is from when Ben Gummer went to Madrid to meet with Cementos Portland, the holding company of Southern Cement’s holding company to talk to them about their reaction to the port noise.

Although at the last minute they refused to meet him they did fit a silencer on the concrete extractor shortly afterwards with very few complaints about night time noise. So if you add this to his heart campaign Ben Gummer can so far boast that he has helped send a lot more people to hospital and a large number of Ipswich residents asleep.

Ben Gummer presenting his letter on the Ipswich Port Noise in Madrid

(Whenever I put up a picture of Ben Gummer it is customary for me to make some joke about his appearance. However in town yesterday I was mistaken for him three times. The poor lad’s suffered enough.)

The Liberal Democrat disappearing act in Ipswich is getting comical.

On Ipswich Spy, there’s a fantastic little reply from a Liberal Democrat on their fact that the Times is only giving the Lib Dems a 1% chance of winning Ipswich:

The only reason that Mark Dyson has come in at 1% is because no-one knows who he is. Once they meet him they’ll know that he is a thoroughly decent chap who will represent this town better than the career politician spending all his time with transport and the little boy only doing it coz daddy did.

Now how would they meet him? I thought I’d try to find somewhere where he would be. So I went to the Liberal Democats national site where they had a nice little profile of him, good start. So they had a Twitter account for him, so I went there. Four posts at the time of writing. The last post was on 27 March and he was selected on March 4. No posts between then. Trying hard. I wonder what his links to Battersea and Tooting Lib Dems are?

So back to the Lib Dem national site and they mention a website for Mark Dyson with the catchy title votedyson, only problem is – it’s a hosted site.

So I went to the Ipswich Lib Dems, surely they’d have something? They did have something about choosing Mark Dyson, but no meet the candidate page, like the Tories and Labour have. Perhaps they’d have something in their events page, a chance to you know, meet, the candidate. Well I could go to a committee meeting of the Liberal Democrats on 21st April, but there’s no guarantee that Mark Dyson would be there – and I’d have to be a member of the Liberal Democrats – which is rather expensive to meet a former local TV reporter even if I will find out that he will represent Ipswich better than anyone else.

So one month after he’s been selected there’s no publicised events, a Twitter account with four posts, no contact information on the local party site and no candidate site. The only thing showing he’s alive is a couple of press releases and candidate information on the Ipswich Lib Democrats page.

The problem with saying that “once we meet” Mark Dyson is that it’s so very hard to meet him. With Ben Gummer the challenge is NOT meeting the blighter.

EDIT: I thought I’d give Mark Dyson a chance to tell us what he’d do for Bridge, so I’ve got an interview with him tomorrow.

Alasdair Ross and Bridge Ward News have competition for partisan spite, and this time from a supposedly non partisan source. Ipswich Spy have come all guns blazing at a Social Action Day because it was picking up litter and wasn’t at a soup kitchen. As Ipswich Spy are supposed to be anonymous then we’ll have to assume that they were out manning the soup kitchens on Good Friday themselves barely leaving them to post five (yes, five) times on Good Friday.

Personally I didn’t take part in this because as a Catholic I tend to get all Sabbatarian on Good Friday and try to avoid anything that doesn’t make me a bit miserable. That’s why you got no blog posts yesterday However any other day of the year and I would have been out. These things are important. Only a Banksy buying Guardian reading Labour activist wouldn’t understand how dispiriting graffiti and litter are in their own street. And only that sort of person would think that taking care of the urban environment is not “truly worthwhile”.

EDIT: A keen eyed reader has pointed out that Ben actually has been helping with the soup kitchen (one occasion was on 28 October). So inaccurate as well as mean spirited.

OK, this is outside Bridge Ward and in Rushmere, but some of the Tory activists (Ben Gummer’s on the phone)  have been spotted by the Google Street map van canvasing on the Rushmere Estate:

View Larger Map

(You’ll have to go to Ter to see them.)

As Comrade Alasdair Ross seems to be spending all his time in Bridge or on Twitter these days they were getting some good results.

This was actually taken a while ago, as I looked at my house and the old owners’ cars were in the driveway.

It’s election time, you can’t really escape politicians at the moment, at least I can’t.

The one particular politician that I can’t shake off is Ben Gummer.  And as luck would have it he’ll be at Wherstead Road (the top end) at the The Shipwrights Arms, near the Starfish chip sjop, Colwill’s butcher and the Jorna restaurant.  If you’re one of the many people who’ve walked into the Shipwrights Arms when it was a closed social club (like I did about three years ago) then you’ll be glad to know that it is now a public bar.  For those with a Sat Nav its postcode is IP2 8JJ and the full address is 55-61 Wherstead Road.

He’ll be canvassing beforehand, so although it says he’ll be there for 8pm, expect him to be about ten minutes late.

Never heard of Nick Herbert?*

Well if the Tories do win the General Election you will hear about him a lot more.  He’s the shadow environment spokesman for the Conservatives, so it’s a good chance he’ll become a minister if the Tories get in.

When I heard that he was coming down to help Ben Gummer I lobbied the Ipswich Tories to get him down to the docks to get him to talk to some people from the Noise Action Group and the Wherstead Road Residents’ Association about the way in which the port was operating.

The Noise Action Group then got the chance to tell the man who could be the next Environment Minister about how the port can be dismissive of its neighbours, and that engaging people who want a working port that’s a good neighbour will be better than in three years time trying to engage people who don’t want a working port as any sort of neighbour.

Hopefully ABP will at some point see sense and engage with those who wish it well.

Nick Herbert also became a fan of the Steamboat Tavern, which is as it should be.

A photo of Ben Gummer in this blog that he won't object to. Ben Gummer takes Nick Herbert to the Steamboat Tavern to meet the Noise Action Group and the Wherstead Road Residents Association

*I actually had heard of Nick Herbert, but I’m a political anorak on the sly.

The Evening Star has a piece about a substantial step forward in the campaign to stop heart services being removed from Ipswich hospital.  Would it have been at all possible without Ben Gummer’s campaign and investigation?

In other words if had been left to Chris Mole then the heart services would have gone.  There’s no use denying this.  No matter how much Labour councillors hate it, being a marginal constituency – or ward – has its advantages.