Bridge Ward News » Councillor John Cook

What is John Cook’s game?

James Spencer — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:07:33 +0000

So John Cook the defeated candidate for Norwich North is back in his old stomping ground of Ipswich, as I predicted he would be before the election. It’s not online but he’s been doing some good old fashioned stirring about the fact that Ben Gummer’s office although functioning (I’ve had some dealings with them) does not yet have a shopfront office, like the Labour MP for Rochdale.

I also understand from a Labour mole (no, not that Mole) that he is now the agent for Ipswich.

Surely his first love was Norwich North? For the life of me I can’t understand why a failed Parliamentary candidate would hang around a constituency without a nominated candidate where the incumbent majority is just over half of his old constituency. That’s a real puzzler. Maybe Chris Mole, David Ellesmere or Bryony Rudkin would be able to answer this? I bet they love a bit of competition.

How would you fancy a Norwich season ticket holder as your next MP?

Ipswich Labour edge towards Ed Balls

James Spencer — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:48:38 +0000

I predicted that the no-one likes us, we don’t care attitude of Ipswich Labour would mean that some of them would swing behind Ed Balls, and look here both Chris Mole and John Cook (the ex-agent here, and an important player still in the Ipswich Labour Party) are backing the Conservative’s best hope.

While it’s understandable why Chris Mole would back a public school boy who’s keen to hide his privileged background, it’s a bit of a puzzle with John Cook. John Cook attacked his Tory opponent in Norwich North for hesitating if asked whether she would have been tempted by New Labour in 1997. “She talks a good script, but I don’t know where her politics are coming from.” He added: “I couldn’t ever have been anything other than Labour.”

Now that’s not in itself a wrong thing, although it could explain why they seem to be having an uphill struggle in Ipswich at the moment, but Ed Balls was something “other than Labour” and in fact was a member of the Conservatives when at University, in the middle of the 1980s. He may have claimed in that article to have ridden both horses (politically) but that’s hardly tribal Labour.

Was this overlooked because John Cook is a Norwich season ticket holder and so is Ed Balls? And you wonder why those two lost when Labour candidates with lower majorities in 2005 won.

So who are Ipswich Labour Party supporting?

James Spencer — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 08:14:40 +0000

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.

John Cook is not an Ipswich Fan, he’s an Ipswich Fanclub Fan

James Spencer — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:25:01 +0000

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.

Poor John Cook

James Spencer — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 20:45:28 +0000

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.

Is Ipswich set for a hard left takeover?

James Spencer — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:23:44 +0000

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.

Chris Mole’s expenses – Wholly, exclusively, necessarily?

James Spencer — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:41:40 +0000

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.