April 16th, 2011 — Ipswich Borough Council
One of the stories that Paul Geater is never likely to cover is that there is considerable dissatisfaction with David Ellesmere, the leader of the Ipswich Labour group. This is despite (or because) of Geater’s close friendships with many Labour councillors.
Although there is widespread recognition that Ellesmere has been a good opposition leader there is a worry that his talents are as limited as his looks. With the departure of Andrew Cann he could be the only thing that keeps a Tory Liberal coalition going if there is a repeat of his poor performance last year where the Labour Party essentially sacrificed the Parliamentary seat to win wards in North Ipswich but still fell short on the council. It’s fair enough to fight the Liberal Democrats hard in the election, the Tories do that in St Margarets, but not treating them as human beings in peace time has been a big mistake which has given Ipswich at least one and, arguably, two more years of Conservative leadership than it would have otherwise had.
The rather prominent football hooligan element within the Labour group still love Ellesmere and there’s a lot of, out bound, support for him even from the sort of Labour councillor who have never felt the urge to issue drunken death threats (they do exist). However these things can change remarkably fast, as Jeremy Pembroke could attest (the fact that Ellesmere would never talk to the Suffolk leadership may also be a mark against him, but rather oddly it’s not a complaint I’ve heard.)
I have had wind of a bigger story but frustratingly can not find any corroboration on it. If I do, it will run.
March 5th, 2011 — Politics (general)
It’s nice to see the treasure of bridge ward, Dame Bryony Rudkin, is still going strong with her column. It is rather odd that she gets this column rather than say, Labour Group leader David Ellesmere, but I suppose that the picture editor may have had a say in that decision. It’s also nice to see that the beacon of the big society, the Ipswich film theatre gets a mention. (Understandable, as it is closer to her house than Cardinal Park.) “long may it continue” I believe she wrote.
I wonder if this is a relation to the Bryony Rudkin who poured scorn on the film theatre in the letter pages of that same newspaper a few months ago when Ben Gummer praised the enterprise?
Flip flopping faster than a Ukrainian gymnast is a desirable quality in Ed Miliband’s Labour Party.
February 7th, 2011 — Ipswich Borough Council
So at a time of rising prices and falling government support, Ipswich council has managed to cut council tax by 1%. In coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Quite a feat.
Labour run Suffolk under Bryony Rudkin (or was it Chris Mole?) managed to raise council tax by 17%. And that was when they were “moderate”, with a massive amount of borrowed money being thrown around by Gordon Brown and in coalition with the Liberals.
Just imagine what Mad David Ellesmere would do on his own. He’d tax good looks if he could, that way he could get a whopping rebate.
February 6th, 2011 — Politics (general)
A riverside view has scooped me by almost a week on yet another job to take Dame Bryony away from Bridge, she’s a new columnist for the star. Now this looks remarkably like a bid to become the next Labour candidate for Ipswich.
I wonder if David Ellesmere is feeling like he missed a trick?
Although as one Tory said to me on Friday, I should be in clover at the start of every week.
September 30th, 2010 — Politics (general)
From the Labour Party website, how the Ipswich Labour Party voted on first preferences:
ABBOTT, Diane 3.86% (National 7.34%)
BALLS, Ed 14.29% (National 10.11%)
BURNHAM, Andy 3.86% (National 8.55%)
MILIBAND, David 51.74% (National 44.06%)
MILIBAND, Ed 26.25% (National 24.93%)
In Ipswich
David Miliband ran home on the first round, considerably better than the national showing. Ouch. That must hurt. Is this the time for a new
SDP? Dame Bryony would then have some chance to represent where she lives.
It is interesting to see how Ed Balls, who like David Miliband paid some attention to the Labour Party in Ipswich came off quite badly. This is especially so when the whole Chris Mole gang threw their weight behind Ed Balls. Chris Mole, John Cook and Adam Leeder (candidate for the wholly owned
Suffolk Coastal subsidiary). After all that he only did marginally better than he did among the nationwide membership of the party.
It looks like a lot of people who were around Chris Mole are going to be thinking carefully about what this shows about Chris Mole’s influence in the party. Although you can never really get an accurate measure of an hysterical crowd, this seems to sink him. Looks like John Cook will be even more explicit in his bid for the Ipswich nomination.
Mama Bryony Rudkin must be feeling pleased, David Miliband’s most prominent Ipswich supporter from the start, and shows she has a constituency within the party. The Chris Mole / John Cook “no compromise with the voters” stance has been widely rejected. However her
result for the National Policy Forum (a reasonably narrow miss) was not so good. A shame really, as although I can’t pretend to rate her as a councillor, she’s a reasonably sensible – for Labour – voice in a party that needs a lot of sense at the moment.
David Ellesmere’s dithering was no credit to him. I’ve not heard much good said about his stance on this election and there does seem to be a sneaking realisation that he had some responsibility for the loss of the seat. Looks like wielding the knife won’t win the crown for the group leader. And even that’s in Martin Cook’s gift, so they say.
Ed Miliband scored a broadly in line with his showing among the nationwide membership, which probably makes no difference to the Tory dream of Labour running a suicide mission by putting up Sandy Martin.
By the way is the person who came last in the poll for the Eastern area in the National Policy Form vote, ”MACDONALD, Neil”, related to the Ipswich councillor?
August 14th, 2010 — Politics (general)
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?
July 25th, 2010 — Ipswich Borough Council
When we were a bit children we all tried to impress our friends by telling them that our dad was more important than he was. Then we tried to tell our friends that our job or achievements were more important than they were. Middle age is the time when we sadly realise that potential is not the same as achievement, and we’ve probably achieved less than we are capable. So with this in mind I felt that I should go a bit easy on this, where she anoints David Miliband as her preferred candidate for the leadership:
Leader of the Council? Really?
Liz Harsant, the real life leader of Ipswich Council, may have something to say on this. The Conservative group may welcome Bryony with open arms (she’s second favourite to defect among Tory activists) but I’m not sure they think she should be leader yet. Perhaps David Ellesmere, the leader on the Labour Group, may also want a word.
Dame Bryony has many, many jobs, but not leader of Ipswich council.
May 11th, 2010 — Ipswich Borough Council
Some miscellaneous notes before politics stops being as interesting. I’m going to squeeze in as much as possible, as I don’t think I’ll get away with it otherwise.
When Chris Mole saw the figures, instead of calling for a recount (as we all feared) he reached over to Ben Gummer, extended his hand and said “well done, Ben”. He then read a pre-prepared speech which was peculiarly graceless – not even mentioning Ben’s campaign in the same way that Bill Rammell had. Then on TV the next day he is gracious again.
Why this split behaviour, this departure from the norm? Well it was the Labour Party activists, who seemed to have stitched him up by concentrating on winning the borough, who had stayed to listen. It was very clear that Chris Mole was talking about an imminent election, and he dearly wanted to be the candidate. And Ipswich Labour Party was in no mood to let a conciliatory speaker be there candidate.
I think we won’t see Chris Mole stand again, and instead see a senior figure from the current Labour group emerge as the candidate. Just coincidentally they will probably be one of the same people who decided to cut Chris Mole off.
In other news Alasdair Ross is going as Labour’s candidate as mayor. Yes a real uniter, not a divider. If the Liberals do give it to him then it should keep him busy and away from internal Labour matters. Funny that he’s the candidate as he would be almost as troublesome as John Cook if he rumbled what the Labour group had done. But some people find it hard to think about more than one thing at a time.
Finally my builder called up today to talk about the coalition, he’s barely talked more than two words about politics – and that was just to say that my wife was in a leaflet. It was the main topic in the office, although the known Labour supporters were not chatting so much. At least I know where all the Tories are now should this get to be like the 1990s again.
That’s a lot done.
I will start going back to normal and courting the smaller Bridge specific readership now that the excitement of coalition building and elections seems to have worn down.
May 7th, 2010 — General Election
One of the odder points of the campaign was how the Labour Party did not seem to be piling up their vote in their safe seats but doing just enough to win their council seats. Would it have been easier to find voters on the Gainsborough Estate or in Whitehouse? This is particularly pertinent for Whitehouse as it is not even in the Ipswich constituency, but in North Ipswich. Why was Whitehouse a priority?
So was this a failure of the Ipswich Labour Party or a deliberate choice to concentrate on winning control of the council and letting Chris Mole take his own chances? We’ll probably never find out. Some of the activists certainly won’t.
If it did do this were they were following a strategy that I had suggested about six months ago. National opposition is good for rebuilding a party as is control of a council. Chris Mole has enemies in the Ipswich Labour Party.
As much as I would never wish to stoke up suspicions and infighting within the Ipswich Labour Party (who were totally behind Chris Mole as the 30% of activists who stayed to listen to his concession speech at the count showed), it’s obviously not the sort of thing that David Ellesmere or any other senior councillor would do. After all what would they have to gain apart from a nomination for a normally Labour seat?
Leader of a local Labour council has always been a good way to get the Labour nomination in Ipswich.
And I've still got my job, Chris.
August 2nd, 2009 — Chris Mole Expenses investigation
I don’t know Ipswich Labour Party leader David Ellesmere, although he represents the next door Gipping ward. He does have the reputation of being highly partisan, and so it’s good to see some sense coming through.
Councillor Ellesmere has attacked Ipswich council for an “unnecesary” meeting that cost £400. And he’s got a point. £400 to confirm a couple of appointments does seem a bit much. And it’s good to see a Labour councillor, who supports a Labour government who believe in public waste as an economic policy to support some Tory type “cuts”.
So in this bipartisanship, will we see him condemning Chris Mole for spending £5,227.95 on re-election propaganda? Or how about funnelling £500 a month to the Labour Party? Or would he be upset with spending £2,400 on a partisan Labour website? Call me cynical but I think that Councillor Ellesmere’s only problem is that the taxpayer is not wasting enough money on the Ipswich Labour Party.
I’m all for politicans condemning public waste and as a good Catholic boy I know all about prodical sons so Labour politicians are particularly welcome on this crusade. However let’s hold back on the praise until he holds his own side to account.
