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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

We all produce election leaflets hoping to convince electors why they should vote for us.
For a sitting councillor I have always felt they should be positive and reflect what you have actually done.
Unfortunately many now seem to be an excuse for claiming the impossible.

So I read one of the Ipswich liberal democrat leaflets with some surprise. I get on well with most of the county liberal democrat group. On a number of issues they have similar policy positions in opposition to the conservative administration. And they were in a joint administration for 12 years in Suffolk with the labour group until 2005.

However in Ipswich at the borough council we have the strange situation of the liberal democrats keeping the conservative borough administration in power. I see little difference between the fundamental conservative policies at the borough and county councils on key issues.

Yet the county liberal election leaflet in Ipswich spends most of its time attacking the conservative county council and supports restoring policies like the free home care system I introduced back in 2003.

Which raises the very interesting question of which polices they would support if elected at the county council. Because a number of both the Ipswich conservative and liberal democrat candidates are existing borough councillors currently running the borough council. And the conservatives are certainly fighting a conservative county manifesto that makes clear that the existing county policies on cutting social care spending and on charging for home care will continue.

I cannot seriously believe that any conservatives elected in Ipswich will want to radically change the county policies. Whilst they might have some marginal influence on the conservative group it will still be business as usual as we have had for the last 4 years.

So where does that leave any radical liberal in Ipswich wanting change at the county council. How can you promise the electorate to oppose conservative policies at the county and support them at the borough. Indeed how could you be both in a partnership at one council and opposition at another against some of the very same people.

No doubt some libs in Ipswich will say you can do both. For me not only will most electors be confused but I think it is promising something you cannot deliver.

Unless of course you do have two heads.

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