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 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.

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.

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.

More »

We seem to be getting finally some action on the whole issue of MP’s expenses.  Whilst the latest agreements on restricting the amounts that can be claimed is progress, I hope that  that all the parties will implement any recommendations from the independent review by Christopher Kelly.

However its no wonder why people get angry with some MP’s.  As I was delivering my latest leaflets, I heard Sir Anthony Steen on the radio, Conservative MP for a safe Conservative seat in the South West.  One of the MP’s standing down because of his gardening claims.  Claiming it was a witch hunt and that it was the governments fault because they brought in the freedom of information act and without it no one would have ever known what he was claiming.  They say power corrupts, but in his case its even worse as he was MP for a liverpool seat in the 1970’s. Clearly real life passed him by a long time ago

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I have written to Gordon Brown in connection with the ongoing scandal of MP’s expenses. My letter is set out below.   I resent having to face an election when I will be judged on the behaviour of MP’s some of whom have clearly been ripping off the taxpayer.  The system has to change.  I cannot blame any elector who thinks we are all the same.  It just makes the work of a local councillor so much more difficult if national politiicans first priority seems to be their own personal interest rather than the public interest.

Having looked at my own expenses claim for last year as listed in the county council accounts its £420.  Wouldn’t have paid for some MP’s pot plants.

County Councillor Kevan Lim

Deputy Leader, Labour Group

and Labour Councillor, Ipswich St Helens

Suffolk County Council

Ipswich

Suffolk

Tel 01473 216097

Email Klim55@googlemail.com

Blog kevanlim.agilityhoster.com

10 May 2009

Prime Minister,

MP’s Expenses

I am writing this letter in a personal capacity but I suspect I speak for many of my colleagues.

I and many of my colleagues are currently fighting elections to the County Council. We had expected to fight these elections on the work we have been doing locally on behalf of our constituents and on the clear differences between our Labour policies in Suffolk and the policies of the Conservative administration at Suffolk County Council.

In areas like home care and social care, the future of recycling policy, the scandal of the Chief Executives salary and the issue of road maintenance, there are clear differences between our policies and those of the local Conservatives which give the voters a clear choice. We have been very successful over the last couple of years especially in Ipswich in winning and retaining seats.

However the ongoing scandal of MP’s expenses is overshadowing the local elections and is bringing the whole of the political process into disrepute.

I like all of my colleagues operate under an allowance scheme determined by an independent panel and our expenses are strictly controlled both by national rules and by the Inland Revenue.

I do not see why MP’s should not also operate under salaries and expenses set by an independent body.

It is a disgrace to read on a daily basis of the ways in which MP’s and Lords of all parties have manipulated the system and these abuses have to end. I am extremely angry that all the hard work and dedication shown by Labour councillors in Suffolk could be undone by the shameful way in which some MP’s have used the system to enhance their own personal lifestyle at the taxpayers expense.

You have a responsibility as Prime Minister and Leader of the party to ensure urgent action is taken to end this damaging fiasco and to restore some credibility in the public mind to the political process. The government should commit to accepting the recommendations of the independent review and should ensure that MP’s will no longer able to determine their own salaries and expenses.

I am happy to stand on my record as a local councillor and be judged by my electorate. I suspect however that some of us will be judged by the electorate not on our own records but on the behaviour of greedy MP’s.

However of even more importance is the ongoing damage the revelations on MP’s expenses are doing to all politicians. This is damaging for the political process in the UK and for the long term future of the Labour Party.

I hope therefore that you will take decisive action to ensure that trust in the parliamentary process is restored and that the scandal of MP’s expenses ends as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

County Councillor Kevan Lim

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.