How Ipswich Labour voted

September 30th, 2010 — Politics (general)

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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?
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And that’s why you need to vote for Ed

September 18th, 2010 — Politics (general)

There'll be a lot more than thisI was canvassing with Ben Gummer and quite a large group of us on the Maidenhall Estate, and I was shocked not at the hostility to the cuts – which is still not there, although the fear certainly is – but at an anger that people still have with Labour for lying to them about the finances.  When you’re being compared to Greece you’re in trouble (actually that wasn’t this week, but it’s been heard many times before).

As some of my Labour readers have still not yet decided how to vote I will just point to that anger and also point to the best way to get yourself out of a hole is to stop that Ed Balls with his bloody big excavator.  Which is why it can’t be David Miliband.  He will allow Ed Balls in as the shadow chancellor and it will simply be telling the British public that they need to borrow more to spend on sundry Labour donors.  We Tories are going to be merciless if you do that.

Ben Gummer said that my previous endorsement of the younger and less odd looking brother was “the worst piece you’ve ever written”, which is saying something as that includes my pieces on Europe.  I would like to point out that David M got in trouble around about the time of Ben’s endorsement, and yet Ed started to pull away when I endorsed him.  A tribute to the influence that Bridge Ward News yields that even surprised me.

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Ipswich Labour edge towards Ed Balls

August 3rd, 2010 — Politics (general)

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.

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