David Miliband got an unimaginable boost to his campaign when our very own Dame Bryony Rudkin announced that she would anoint him as her candidate for the leadership of the Labour Party. Former councillor John Cook, who seems to find any excuse to come down to Ipswich, is spreading the gospel for wounded candidate Ed Balls (as is Tory Councillor Paul West).

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.

So I get two emails in fairly quick succession on the blog about Comrade John Cook. I got a rather nice email from a person called Clive:

Hi James

Just reading your blog, John Cook is no Town fan, Iain Dale made the same assumption when he was chosen as candidate http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/11/norwich-north-labour-party-gives-up-on.html but John is a season ticket holding Norwich city fan, which should at least garner him some sympathy from blues supporters in Ipswich

Clive

Compare that polite tone to Comrade Alasdair Ross, a man that parents pay thousands of pounds a year to teach their children good manners:

James
Need to check your facts, J Cook is a Norwich fan, Norwich born and a City season ticket holder. John supervised the ITFC Trust elections as a neutral and as an expert on election counts, that is why his name is on the Trust page. By John doing it, we (the Trust) saved a considerable amount of cash that could be used for the benefit of fans.

Of course John Cook was neutral and Alasdair Ross was a succesful candidate. Oh well. It’s a small cosy circle in the Ipswich Labour Party.

Comrade Ross didn’t tell us if John Cook has sold his home, because that’s where he’ll consider his roots to be, whatever he says on his election leaflet – he wasn’t exactly keen to put his support for Norwich on his Ipswich leaflets. A mortgage is a bigger financial commitment than a season ticket. Even in Norwich.

I also note that Comrade Ross didn’t defend John Cook’s IQ. But even a private school rugby coach knows when he shouldn’t fight.

It looks like Ipswich Town supporter and Ipswich Borough Councillor John Cook’s attempt at getting Norwich North has suffered a bit of a set back when Harriet Harman publicly doubted his ability to win the formerly safe-ish Labour seat.

It looks like he’ll be moving back to Ipswich soon, which is a shame as his temporary defection to Norwich raised the average IQ of both towns.

Sorry for the Daily Mail type headline, but this little comment invited it:

http://www.davidosler.com/2010/01/hewitt_hoon_and_hubris.html#comment-40564

Ipswich’s very own Andrew Coates manages to fit in quite a few little allegations:

- Ipswich Labour, led by John Cook the Norwich North candidate (the “full-time Secretary-Agent”) is busy building links and working closely with the “hard left”
- The Ipswich Buses campaign is a front for a hard left campaign
- Sandy Martin (“Comrade Sandy Martin” no less) was elected as leader of the Suffolk Labour county council group (all four of them) because of non-Comrade Bryony Rudkin’s Blairite deviation

John Cook is definately left wing enough to be comfortable in a BBC editorial meeting but I suspect that he won’t welcome Andrew Coates blowing the cover on that non-existent plot.  Chris Mole, who’s the minister in charge of bus privatisation, could stop the bus privatisation in its tracks, but he won’t.  Ipswich Labour councillors, including the alleged Brezhnevites of Cook and Martin, could force him to block it, but they won’t.

They know that if Labour gets in they will have to privatise it in some shape (which is why they are saying it’s not the right time) and that currently it makes a great signature magnet and vote propellant.  I’m not saying this as a condemnation as I know that all parties do this.

The Ipswich Buses campaign is a way of getting some last gasp of life from the grass roots, no more, no less.

I can’t claim any insight into the machinations of the Suffolk Labour group of four, but whatever they may tell their former comrade about their Leninist sympathies I somehow think that the fact that Sandy Martin comfortably won a marginal seat in the face of a concerted Tory campaign while Bryony Rudkin almost lost one of Labour’s safest county seat in the face of one Tory leaflet (I was her Tory opponent and I spent most of election day in Sandy Martin’s seat) probably had more to do with it.

I know who I’d want to lead me.

Why the contrasting fortunes?  Sandy Martin is a good local campaigner and he’s loved for it.  If he was a right wing Tory or a dripping wet Liberal doing the same sort of assiduous work he’d win with the same ease. 

Bryony Rudkin may have other qualities, but she’s not interested in being a ward councillor and everyone knows it.  In four county council elections, she’s never sought re-election in any ward, and when she tried to to represent substantially the same ward as she represented in the borough she got the second worse Labour result on the night (after Gainsborough – and no one saw that coming).  Not only that her previous ward, the rock solid Chantry elected a Tory for the first time since the estate was built.  If I were Andrew Coates I’d be asking why Labour lets her float around safe wards like a butterfly making safe seats marginal.  Obviously not much sympathy for his revolution in the self-destructive Labour machine.

There may be some pseudo-Marxist plot to get rid of all traces of the Blairite deviation from Suffolk County Council, but just perhaps it may be that Labour councillors recognise that they’re better off with a leader who wins marginal seats than one who almost loses safe ones.

We now know that Chris Mole channels £500 a month to the Ipswich Labour Party for a service which the council ould do for free, but there is a smaller but still odd anomalies.

If we go back to the money we pay to the Ipswich Labour Party:

http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/chris-mole/Chris_Mole_0708_IEP.pdf#page=[115]

…we see a line (you may have to go to page 115 manually, depending on your browser) :

Newspapers EADT/Evening Star Online editions       £195

Was the online access to the Evening Star used by any of the Labour staff in the building?  For example, Councillor John Cook the Labour Party agent (who us taxpayers don’t pay for, officially) is very, very fond of commenting on stories some political, some not.

If true it’s a tiny problem, but there really does not seem to be enough care for the seperation of the public and the party political from Mr Mole.