Kevan Lim

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.

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.

Maybe some progress on the Mint Quarter.  I have been talking with Paul Clement who heads up the Ipswich Business Improvement District, a fancy name for the businesses in the town centre.  He agrees with me that the borough council need to take action to ensure the shops are occupied probably by offering very attractive short term rents.  He is meeting with most of the key players including the potential mint quarter developers this week so I hope we can make some serious progress.

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In between election delivery and canvassing I have to try and live an ordinary life especially this week as it was my daughters 5th birthday. So I went into St Helens primary for the “goldilocks and the 3 bears” event where parents along with their children heard the story and then attempted to make a storybook, face masks and model chairs. Great fun for the children but terrifying for parents like me who are not great at turning paper plans into model chairs. My bear mask looked more like a werewolf than a bear. Still cara and all the other kids enjoyed it.

I have been impressed with St Helens. They really involve the parents. Indeed both the schools in my area St Helens and Clifford Road seem to be doing a good job. Schools have done pretty well over the last couple of years from government funding, but a school is only as good as its teachers and St Helens seems to have a good group of committed teachers.

No canvassing last night as it was cara’s birthday party and we took her to pizza express. Scary, she’s 5 already and it seems only yesterday she was born.

I had an interesting conversation with some residents in Newton Road, the Hollywells part of my county seat. A year ago during consultation on Ipswich Borough Councils Local Development Framework document, some bright spark at the borough council decided to reassess all potential housing land in the borough including large gardens. As a result the draft proposals they created for the area include redeveloping the conservative club site on newton road for housing and identified two areas of residents gardens which might be suitable for housing.

The latest plans still show the areas as potential housing but only the conservative club site has so far been possibly allocated as future housing.

Having spoken to a senior planner at the borough its clear there is little prospect of the rear gardens being taken for housing and when the final housing plans are announced later this year the garden sites should be eliminated from the plan.

But what seems ludicrous is that they ever consulted on such a proposal. Even worse the local conservative got up a petition opposing the redevelopment of the gardens. Which is very strange considering its the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats who run the borough council and who are responsible for the Local Development plan.

Its issues like this that frustrate residents and create confusion.
Why even start a debate about taking some of their gardens when it was never a serious option especially as the complexity of negotiating land acquisition with multiple owners meant that the scheme was probably never viable anyway.

Its strange how the conservative running the borough council never seem to want to take responsibility for decisions of the council they actually run.

Makes you wonder who is running the council.

I always find it difficult when canvassing how best to deal with those people who raise the issue of the growth of “foreigners” in ipswich. In most cases it is more to do with the conservative and traditional nature of some people in ipswich who may find it difficult to deal with something new.

Coming from a family with a vast mix of racial elements to it, I tend to use my own experience to emphasis how beneficial most immigrants have been to this county.

My grandfather emigrated from China in the 20′ to Manchester and helped establish one of the earliest Chinese laundries in the city before they moved into restaurants. In the days before washing machines it was a great success.

Now the Chinese community in Manchester is an integral part of the success of the city.

I also have Irish links into southern Ireland.

My wife was Ukrainian although from the Russian speaking Donetsk. Its one of the reasons why I am being forced to watch eurovision tonight as its coming live from Moscow.

And whether I look at my own family or my wife they all have one thing in common. They learned the English language quickly, either set up business or studied to get work. And my daughter is continuing the tradition, already at 5 fluent in english and russian.

Indeed I find little evidence that the new migrants to ipswich whether Polish, Kosovan, Russian or from the Indian sub continent have done anything other than improve the success of ipswich and contribute to its economic well being.

Indeed I myself was a migrant from the North and I suspect most people if they look into their family tree will find someone who migrated to Suffolk.

The diversity now in the town is a good thing and I believe that ipswich would be a poorer place without it.

Crazy 24 hours.

Firstly an interview for Radio Cambridgeshire in my role as Chair of the Europe panel of the regional assembly. They wanted someone to explain why European issues were important.

Then, Suffolk Colleges “any questions”. Run like the real thing with the media students running the studio. Facing Jeremy Pembroke, Mike Baxter from Ipswich town and a representative from federation of small business. Interesting. Of course first question of the night was to me about MP’s expenses. However my views that the whole situation is disgraceful and damaging to democracy seem to be shared by most of the audience.

Most interesting session was when we got onto UK debt, an issue I will return to.

This morning Cambridge for further discussions about the future of regional arrangements in the east. A complete mess because of the governments insistence on some regional grouping that can only contain leaders of councils. we have made some progress but my problem is convincing government ministers to leave the best arrangements to people in the region rather than imposing from London.

And then back to ipswich for the Labour Party regional launch of the European campaign with cabinet minister Liam Byrne. Probably a complete waste of time especially as nobody talked about Europe. However I did manage to grab Liam Byrne and pressed the need for the PM to do something decisive about MP’s expense.

Which brings me back to the debate at Suffolk College on debt. Whilst David Cameron seems to be projecting a voter friendly image, a bit like Tony Blair and claiming that the conservatives have changed, on the ground in Suffolk we still seem to have the old style Tories in action. One of Jeremy’s key responses on national debt was to say, that it is essential that we dramatically reduce the size of the public sector.
Which means in Suffolk more and more reductions in social care, higher charges and probably drastic cuts in staff.

Of course we will have to make choices and even if we win the county council I do not expect the choices to be easy. But its clear I could never be a Tory because Jeremy and his colleagues don’t seem to understand that what the public sector is about first and foremost is protecting the weak, the poor and the disadvantaged. In the brave new world of new Tories the Tories of Suffolk seem to be locked into the age of thatcher.

I am not sure how many people read political manifesto’s other than journalists and political anoraks.

Apologies to any anoraks reading this. It appears to be one of those political traditions in the UK.

However I remember too well the 1983 labour manifesto dubbed by some “the longest suicide note in

history”.

So manifesto’s should be clear and straight forward and focus on the key issues of concern to the electorate. Especially I don’t believe you should promise something you cannot deliver.

So I read Suffolk conservatives manifesto for the county council elections expecting it to say very little.

And then I saw the quote in the East Anglian which said “ It is in Social Care that the Tories believe they have made the biggest impact, transforming the way it is provided for vulnerable adults, a more efficient, adaptable and responsive service geared to help older people get the help they need”

Whoever wrote that quote must have either had his tongue firmly in his cheek or must have been smoking something illegal

Over the last 4 years the conservatives have cut £56 million from the social care budget, have changed home care from a largely free service where 80% of people got home care for free to a service where 80% pay and are now raking in care charges to the extent of £32 million a year. They have also managed a regime criticised by their own audit committee for failing to effectively police private contractors delivering key services at home.

In debates on these changes at the County Council I have understood the rational of some conservatives who argue everyone should pay something. Not a view I share especially as everyone already pays something through the tax system.

But to dress up these radical changes to key services to the elderly and vulnerable as a more efficient, adaptable and responsive service is quite frankly a disgrace.

With the start of the election campaign. I am now spending much of my time delivering leaflets to the 7,000 voters in St Helens. Fortunately there are a number of people who are prepared to deliver leaflets which makes my life much easier. Without them it would be very difficult to deliver to everybody in the time available.

Many electors would be surprised how limited the resources are we have to communicate with everyone. Whilst the local party has a very good election machine and an effective organisation, it is totally dependent on volunteers.

Its at times like this that you wonder what you have been doing over the last 4 years and whether it has made any difference. In the 3 years up to 2005 I was at least part of the then Labour led administration and was able to introduce several policies some of which the conservatives have kept. So at least we still have the Xplore youth card which I introduced and the renewable energy centre and the urban development corporation in Lowestoft, projects I started and the conservatives finished.

However the last 4 years have inevitably been frustrating in opposition to a big conservative majority. However I think I have still had an impact. The investigation into the failings of one of the private home care providers in Ipswich which I persuaded the county council to investigate has I hope led to some improvements in the level of service elderly people in Ipswich receive.

The audit investigation into the Chief Executives salary whilst it produced massive headlines and forced changes in the councils procedures did not stop the salary increase from being paid. I am also not certain the conservative administration have learnt their lesson from the public outcry. Surprisingly I get the impression that think they did the right thing.

But at least I had some impact on a number of individual cases in St Helens from school places to residential care. And I did manage to get changes in the layout of the New Suffolk College building to move the workshops away from the residential areas around kings avenue.

I also played a part in getting the European unions renewable energy policy adopted and I have got the regional development agency promoting to businesses in the region the use of European research and development funds to try and development the renewable energy industry in the region.

So on balance whilst it has been a frustrating 4 years their have a number of successes. So do I want to do it again.

Yes I do.

But first I have to get re-elected

Interesting email with an elector concerned about both the Labour government and the performance of St Helens Primary.

I understand the concerns about the economy. I just hope that people will not judge Labour County Councillors performance on what is happening nationally.

St Helens seems to be recognised as a good school. I am aware that the school does have a significant intake of children whose first language is not English

So I checked the performance of the school with the education department at the County Council. Whilst its true that at age 5 children at St Helens perform a little below the average for Suffolk, at age 7 the school is well ahead of the average for schools in Suffolk and its the same at age 10. Its clear that even those children who enter the school with English as their second language make massive progress by age 7.

Its nice to know that the school is dong well. I think there are major advantages for children in a school where children speak several languages if the teaching is of high quality. Encourages children to learn several languages. Indeed my daughter Cara can already speak two languages.