Kevan Lim

Well the reality of defeat hit home today. I had to go into the county council to close out all my files and transfer my emails to my own account.  Unfortunately someone had decided to switch off all the computer access for councillors who were defeated.  I never cease to be amazed at the insensitivity of some people.  Apart from the fact that I did not end my term as a county councillor until the end of today, how does anyone think you can access your files if they have closed down computer access.  It is important because I still have several important personal cases which I want to make sure are transferred to appropriate officers for action before I end.

Anyway when the computers were switched back on I received a number of emails both from opponents and residents regretting my defeat.  Whilst I appreciate the thoughts it only added to my depression.

The defeat also meant I am  no longer the UK representative on the European bodies I was involved with.  As a consequence I have to arrange  votes to be provided to the Norwegian vice president in connection with an important meeting in Odessa Ukraine this week.  Fortunately she is happy to vote on behalf of the UK delegation.

One good email arrives from one of my French local government contacts who regrets my defeat and complains I should have told him earlier so he could have sent over  his  Corsican brotherhood to campaign on my behalf.  I remember reading the book by Robert Ludlum “The Matarese Circle”.

Not sure having a campaign run by a brotherhood intent on world domination through corruption and anarchy would have helped, although it gave me a laugh and lightened my mood.

I have one final task which is to attend my last meeting of the European energy group in Brussels on the 19th June.  Then its time to really decide what I am going to do.

Chambers, Jane Liberal Democrat 678

Carter, Paul Justin Conservative 561

Lim, Kevan Labour 526

Cavanagh, Brenda Patricia Green 387

Bad result. This was my 7^th election, once in Bedfordshire, 3 times in Manchester and then this was my third in Ipswich. I had never lost so the defeat was even harder.

Its Saturday night and I am coming to terms with my defeat. Although in comparison with many other places especially Lowestoft, I can look on my result with some pleasure. I always knew it would be a tight call.

Based on last year I have only lost about 220 votes. The libs are hardly up and the conservatives have made limited progress with all the extra votes on the waterfront. In reality my defeat is down to a protest vote with labour votes switching to Green. I can live with that . In some parts of Ipswich and in Lowestoft the labour vote has gone to BNP or UKIP.

In some ways today was a difficult day. I have to start deciding what I do.

But it was helped by my daughter who performed with the co-op juniors at the Sidegate fate. She was great, 5 years old and a confident ballet dancer.

I have enjoyed my 6 years on the county council. At least I leave some things behind like the Explore card which I know would never have happened without me.

Will I stand again who knows. The one thing I do know is that some of the Labour Cabinet have betrayed every basic principle I believe in. Their first concern has been their own self interest and not that of the party or the country.

This will be my last post before the election results are declared.

Like 2005 the count is not until friday.  However in 2005 I knew on the thursday night I had won.  The first stage in the count is to verify the total number of ballot papers.  During this stage its possible to watch the ballots being checked and to calculate how well you are doing.  Unfortunetly this time that won’t happen until friday morning so it will be a very nervy thursday night.

The decision today by Hazel Bleers to resign from the cabinet is typical of the attitude of some at westminster who think that elections are all about the national government. Its quite frankly arrogrant disrespect for those of us who think the election is about local services and who is best to run the county council.

However I am still confident.  I think I have done enough to win.  All I can hope for is that people will go into the polling station and vote on my what I have done over the last 4 years and who is best to represent their interests in St Helens.

Thats all I can ask

The current campaign about the future of Heart Attack treatment being lead by the Ipswich evening star has generated an enormous amount of correspondence and views.

Everyone seems to assume that the transfer of some patients to specialist centres will be dangerous for those patients in Ipswich.

However it is clear that the professionals recommending this change seem to believe it will save lives.

The real problem is that none of the implications of the change were clearly spelt out a year ago when it was approved by the Strategic Health Authority which was a major blunder and the evening star never campaigned against the change until a few weeks ago just before it was due to start. Another big mistake.

That’s why I have been pressing the County Council’s scrutiny committee to discuss in detail the proposed changes to understand what they actually mean for patients and why it is claimed they are better for treatment.

That will now happen on the 20th July.

Unfortunately this whole debate has been turned into a political football with the leader of the county council claiming that the changes will put lives at risk and he will stop it.

I don’t think such statements are helpful. We need a decision that saves the most lives and makes the care of heart attack patients better. I am not certain yet whether that should be in specialist centres or in Ipswich.

What we need on the 20th July is a full and clear explanation of the implications of the changes and then the review needs to determine what is best for Ipswich patients.

The current campaign against the changes has given us a delay which now enables a sensible review of the implications.

That review should produce a decision that is in patients and families best interests whether or not it is necessarily in line with any editor or politicians view.

The final weekend before an election is always a very nervy time. You can never be sure if you have done enough.

If you read the newspapers and the opinion polls over the weekend it makes for pretty depressing reading if you are a labour politician. However I still remain optimistic.

Almost every house in St Helen’s has had a least 2 leaflets outlining some of my views.

I get the impression that people will vote differently between the county elections and the European elections. Indeed several people have said they will vote for me, but not for labour at the Europeans.

As my seat is the most marginal in Ipswich then i clearly will be under pressure if there is a swing towards liberal or conservatives..

However all I can do is ask people to vote based on my record over the last 4 years.

The most frustrating thing is when someone says to you, yes you have been a good county councillor, but I want to send the government a message. It does seem strange that often it is someone who does not like what the conservatives have been doing at the county council but are happy to vote against me even though the consequence is a return of a conservative county council doing the very things people have been complaining about. Its not a logic I can follow.

Certainly this is one of those occasions where if I am to win then I will have to persuade enough people to ignore national considerations and vote for me.

Come Thursday I will know if I have been able to do that or whether I will be reaching for the Valium.

When ever we have a local election campaign there is one issue that I can guarantee will come up in discussion with electors. Its the highly likely prospect of residents not understanding the difference between the county council and the borough council.. For most people its the council and they have almost no idea of the difference between the two councils. And why should they.

A typical example was a letter from a resident supporting improvements around Clifford Road School for children’s safety, but blaming me for allowing a planning application in the area which will increase traffic even though its the borough council who made the planning decision.

There is absolutely no reason why we should have two councils. Its a reason why I have always supported having a single unitary council for an area. It means voters have a clear line of accountability, one council to deal with and one councillor with responsibility for decisions in their area and we avoid the kind of duplication of services and costs the current system give us.

One issue which I hope will come out of the current public anger about national politics is greater power for local councils. But if councils are to have any impact then government has to simplify the system. That should mean that all public services including health and economic development in an area should be the responsibility of one council. It seems so obvious.

The problem is that successive governments have made it more complicated. Its no wonder voters get confused.

Well today the Evening Star has used my comments about the reduction in Home Care numbers following the conservative changes to the free home care scheme in 2007. Yet amazingly, Graham Newman the conservative executive member for adult care at the county council is claiming its nothing to do with changes they made. In a bizzare quote he says it was the fault of the Labour led county council and changes made in 2003.

Well I think he needs to get his diary out. The conservatives won control of Suffolk County Council in may 2005. According to official figures from the county council, in 2004, 5300 people were receiving home care, went up to 5600 in 2005 with 80% getting it free. In 2006 it had gone up to 5725 with still 80% getting it free.

Then the conservative changed the scheme. Indeed we managed to delay implementation of the ending of the full free home care but it still went ahead in 2008.

And guess what, the numbers dropped in april 2008 to 3523 with only 20% getting it free.

So how could anyone but the conservatives be responsible for the fall in numbers. It would be much more honest if they accepted thats what they had done. As one conservative said at the time. Our priority is the 80% of people who don’t get home care. More »

Having now delivered some 10,000 pieces of literature across my St Helens seat, its always difficult to know how many people have read any of it and how much of what you say is of interest to voters. In my latest newsletter I have emphasised the work I have been doing on environmental issues and in particular renewable energy.

One of the strangest consequences of all the anger against the mainstream parties expressed in the media is the potential impact this may have on the fringe parties.

In the case of both my St Helens seat and that of my colleague Sandy Martin in St Johns, the only minor party we have standing against us is the Greens.

Which seems extremely strange considering both Sandy’s and my record on environmental policies. Whilst I have heavily involved in promoting public transport through the Explore youth card and in my renewable energy work at regional and european levels, Sandy has been a stanch campaigner against the new county incinerator, a strong advocate of recycling and one of the rare breed of cycling councillors.

I am not sure most voters realise that in our case voting green at county level will probably give the St Johns seats to the conservatives and could well also give them my seat if some liberals also vote green.

It would be a strange irony if voting green results in a bluer county. Not a very good prospect for the environment.

In any election you will get people making claims in their literature. Often its a question of interpretation.

So for example I claim that the £56 million taken by the conservatives out of spending on social care services over the last 4 years is a cut. The conservatives claim that they are spending the money more wisely mainly by charging for their services. So home care which was free for most is now a charged service.

So technically neither of us is wrong. They have reduced the budget and taken in a significantly higher proportion of the remaining budget by charging. They will argue this is fair, I maintain its unreasonable as some of the most vulnerable are paying higher costs rather than the general taxpayer.

So for the voter its a question of which direction is right.

However when election literature is fundamentally wrong how does the voter know.

The conservatives have now issued election leaflets showing all the council tax increases since 2001. Surprisingly their chart shows the conservatives responsible for the last 5 county council budgets. Which is strange considering they have only been in control of the county council for 4 years.

The problem is that budgets are set in the February of each year so in 2005 it was the Labour/Liberal administration who set the budget and with the Conservative opposition voting against. The Conservatives then won in may 2005 and inherited that budget.

So does it matter you may say.

Well I suspect most people won’t even notice. However it does raise the question, if the conservatives don’t even know how many budgets they have been responsible for, then are they capable of running the county council.

or could it be something to do with the fact that it was one of the lowest council tax increases since 2001.

With all the anger over MP’s expenses their is a tendency for lots of people on phone in programmes and television shows to claim the simple solution is to have more independents elected. The assumption seems to be that being an independent will mean that you have all the answers.

Yet we already have plenty of evidence of how an independent system can fail to deliver real accountability.

The current evening star campaign against the changes to heart attack services is a prime example of decisions being taken by so called independents with little understanding or concern about the implications or the public reaction to such decisions.

The health service now in the East of England is run by a so called independent arrangement. Members of the Strategic Health Authority and the board at Ipswich Hospital are all appointed by the appointments commission. Its so called independence means that in Ipswich for example we have a board with a chairman who does not even live in Suffolk and a board with no local Ipswich representation. Their are no local councillors of any party on the board.

Its little wonder that decisions like the transferring of heart attack services take place.

The creation of an independent culture doesn’t lead to greater accountability. I have never been in favour of the separation of health from local government.

Most of this separation has ironically happened because of demands to loosen day to day management of the health service from control by Government.

The reality is that as you create more impendent arrangements you actually divorce local councillors and other public representives from control of key local services leading to control by appointed independents who have accountability to no one and often little understanding of the needs or demands of the population they are actually supposed to be serving.