The Lord Mayor’s Procession is always a fantastic event, but this year it seemed bigger and more colourful than ever. Standing outside Debenham’s watching the floats and dancers go by, it made me think what a vibrant city Norwich is and with so many community groups and businesses wishing to back the City. The girls loved all of the dragon’s and I was impressed by the sight of the MD of First Bus, Peter Iddon, leading their collection teams! Good on him, along with other businesses such as Radio Norwich and Asda leading the charge. But the best floats were those from schools or community groups where clearly decorating a full size lorry was a challenge in itself! There is a lot of talent too in the City – from the dancers to the runners, although my favourite was a certain young lady in a purple dress and red hat on a motorised scooter have huge amounts of fun! After that we went to the Civic Reception where everybody seemed to be in party mood; whatever you might say about Jeremy Hooke’s tenure as Lord Mayor, he’s certainly bought a lot of fun to the role and put a lot of smiles on faces! The massive climax was the fireworks display being launched from the Castle and wonderfully put to music. Norwich doesn’t have a great track record on such set-piece events but this was flawless and wonderful to watch.
Today, we all went along to the Sewell Park 100 Years celebration and again the team there put on a great event – from play stuff to a grafitti wall and dancing to ice cream they had it all covered. And over 40 stalls displaying the best of the local community.
It’s times like this that we are glad to have raised our kids in Norwich; a fantastic City with such civic pride. Thank you to everyone involved!
On Saturday morning I went to see the Sewell Toy Library, which operates out of the Christ Church Center in Magdalen Road. It was a pleasure to see in action – though my eldest did walk away with a deeply irritating piano – and there was a steady stream of people in and out. For a minimal cost, you can hire out toys and even play with a lot there and then. Knowing how fast my girls favourites come and go, this is a great way of ensuring they have something new to engage in every week. It is run with the help of 2 of the local – Labour – ward councillors and they and their team deserve a huge amount of praise for running a fantastic community initiative.
That afternoon we went on a fmily trip to try and collect as many “elephants” as we could around Norwich. One of the things you could never criticise Norwich City Council for is not putting on, or facilitating, enough free events for familiies in the City. We saw – at my count – roughly 27 of them. Emily enjoyed any with stripes on, although I was quite taken with the conceptual elephant on Millenium Plain outside of the BBC building. Emily literally kissed and hugged every elephant; a great afternoon in the sun.
Sunday morning we went out delivering leaflets in Eaton for our newly re-selected local candidate Niall Baxter. Niall ran one of the most amazing campaigns I have ever witnessed and no candidate could have worked harder. Niall is really well known around the ward now and I am thrilled he is to carry on working for local people; he added 4% to the Tory vote and made Eaton a real fight for the first time in years.
Yesterday and this evening we’ve spent the time putting the finishing touches to my parliamentary campaign team and writing our next leaflet and survey. Later in the week I am visiting a community group and meeting with the organisers of a youth football team. Busy, but enjoyable; so the hour I got asleep in the garden this afternoon because I was locked out was total pleasure!
For those out of the loop the current situation on Norwich City Council is: Labour 15 (n/c) Green 13 (+3) LibDem 6 (-5) Cons 5 (+2)
Hence nobody has anywhere near a majority and with a coalition not functioning, the Green Party has finally spoken about the elephant in the room – who will now run the council – saying they want an executive “of all the talents” with a 4 party administration. This idea has been shot down in flames – certainly by 2 of the parties involved – amongst a big debate about the future of the council now.
Does Labour have the strenght amongst their 15 strong group to support a talented 8 man Exec plus fill 3 key committee chairmanships? How far will the opposition Councillors fill jobs within the political system? I don’t know (for once!) but I do think it’s odd that we’re almost a week after the poll and we haven’t yet really thrashed this through.
Norwich people have voted for a patchwork quilt of political parties in the City, we now have to make it work. How we do that is vitally important and we ought to get down to working out how sooner rather than later.
The news that Hereward Cooke, the LibDem Leader in Norwich, is to stand down next year and move to North Norfolk, is a blow to debate in the chamber if nothing else. Yet the response to this news was different from inside and outside of his group.
Whilst Tory and Labour Councillor seemed genuinely sorry to hear that the council will lose one its better orators (if politically misguided), LibDem wags were less kind. One said (within my earshot) that it was “better to retire than be beaten” – a reference to the fact that Labour have won his Lakenham Ward for the previous two years and Hereward would have the fight of his life to win again. The swing that saw Keith Driver and Mary Cannell win would see Hereward lose the ultra-marginal seat.
However, now the attention will move to the leadership contest. As it was explained to me, the LibDems couldn’t go into an election with a Leader who wasn’t even standing in that contest. So if Hereward wanted to give his successor a chance to get established, he’s have to stand down around Christmas or early in the new year. When he won the leadership last year, a few councillors referred to Cllr Cooke as the Ming Campbell of Norwich … a safe pair of hands to guide the ship. Whilst Campbell fell by the layside, Hereward continues. But for how much longer? And who’ll be in the frame to take over?
Anyway Hereward, you have long been the butt of the political jousting on this blog and in the council chamber, but you are a committed and hard working councillor with Norwich at heart. A real treasure in the council, and I’ll certainly miss our political battles. Good luck for the future!
The Evening News ran an intersting story on Saturday regarding the so-called switch of the Conservative position on Unitary from being pro-home rule in 1993 to anti-unitary now. It included quotes from former Councillor Lila Cooper, then Tory group leader, advocating unitary. I liked the media coverage because, apart from producing another mug shot of myself in the press even when out of the country, it gave us another chance to state that:
“The Conservative County Council gives us a 4-star service, whilst the Labour-LibDem City Council is inadequate”
For those that know and care about this, that line has been the narrative at the heart of the Conservative response to Unitary. This story allowed us to put that point again, without the rebuttle of Morph, Cooke or Ramsay. Thank you, Evening News!
Trouble is, behind the headline, the story isn’t quite true. I recieved a phone call this morning completely out-of-the-blue from a very long standing member who attended a Conservative Policy meeting in 1993 at which the Unuaty issue was discussed and voted upon. He claims to have evidence that, in fact, the position of the two-woman Conservative Group at the time was anti-Unitary – although the minutes do not state by what majority it was defeated. Cllr Cooper’s group member was absolutely against Unitary and remains against it to this day. So on what authority did Cllr Cooper pen her words for “Citizen” magazine? Because it certainly didn’t have the backing of the Norwich Conservatives.
So something is amiss here. I am not sure what the truth is, but it certainly isn’t as cut and dried as first presented. We’ll never know!
After last night’s excitement, and with Emily safely tucked away at Nanny and Grandad’s house, Louise and I decided to enjoy some time together and go out for breakfast. Norwich at 10am on a Sunday is a strange but pleasant experience. I am a city-boy … I need the buzz of City life and love the fact that Norwich is always busy. But this morning it was so quiet – almost disturbing but actually quite relaxing. We managed time round the shops, bumped into friends around the book shops (how did we manage without coffee shops inside book shops?!?) and ate breakfast without having cereal pinged at either of us.
After lunch, we picked up Emily (and of course, the ever-ready Auntie Katie) and headed out to the contrasting quiet of the county to travel in style, via firstly a small wooden motorised boat (yes… it did just cope with my weight) and then miniture steam railways. Emily, of course, loved it and thought it was Thomas the Tank Engine. Olivia … well, just slept.
We are very lucky to live in a county like Norfolk with so much to do … who ever said I’d be bored after the election finished? Last weekend we went to little Chloe’s christening down in Kent and next weekend Lousie and I are away again! This week is the AGM of the Council, first meeting of Scrutiny, post-OFSTED party and the Notre Dame VI Form Leavers Dinner. Don’t expect much blogging…
I like Gordon Dean – which is now probably the kiss of death – and I think he made an excellent contribution to Norwich civic life. It is therefore good news that I am told he is to re-stand for Council. However it is bad news that I hear it is for Lakenham Ward. Mr Dean will attempt to overturn Labour’s wafer-thin 15 vote majority here – tougher than it sounds because Labour’s candidate is the equally well known Keith Driver. Whatever happens it’ll be a close and tough fight and whoever loses, then the council will have lost a good person. Why don’t the LibDems bury the 2004 hatchett and give Gordon Dean the seat he deserves … assuming they have any safe seats left in the City?
Tonight I attended a very well attended consultation meeting between the Clerks and Chairs of the parish councils which could be swallowed up by the Norwich Unitary bid. It was well organised and Council Leader Steve Morphew gave a very professional report on the current bid.
However, the assembled masses (who currently reside in Broadland or South Norfolk District) certainly didn’t hold back in their vehment criticism of the plans. We were told – on more than one occasion – that not a single member of their council backs these plans. There were worries about the lack of consultation, the shabby state of the polls, the concerns on council tax, the current level of services offered by City Hall and the political direction of unitary. Cllr Morphew and his team of officers did well on some of these points – normally falling back on a catch-all excuse of “ignore the failings of the current Norwich City Council, this will be a NEW council”! Even at one point the meeting was told not to worry because any new council would have lots more conservatives on it and we normally sort most things out. That was nice.
It was a good meeting but I cannot express the strong feelings against this plan – particularly from places like Taverham, Trowse, Drayton, Horsford and Old Catton. These people are happy with the current settup and don’t see a reason to change. A lot of the flimsy reasons for unitary were torn to shreds and Steve Morphew did have a bit of a rough time tonight (apparently a similar meeting yesterday went better).
Unitary doesn’t need to have unamimous support but it does need to have broad ranging support. The MORI poll won’t hide the fact that outside of the City itself, support for Unitary is very, very low. The government will see that and if they go on with the unitary idea still, it will certainly be a political decision being taken where we were promised an economic one.
Now, before I go into this I should say that I did pledge to put less obvious point-scoring posts on my blog and focus more on the work of the council and national politics generally. I have failed miserably on this, and will continue to do so today.
The LibDems appear to have been delivering a newspaper – an awful one to boot – around the place and a neighbour kindly put one through my door this afternoon. Attached was a note which says:
“They don’t know North from South and clearly their arse from their elbow.”
And ringed on the front of the newspaper, amongst the places this was delivered to (which include Eaton, Bowthorpe, New Costessey etc.) was two words … Mile Cross.
Oh, dear. Now for the uninitiated, Mile Cross falls into Norwich North, not Norwich South. You might have thought that this was a City wide newspaper then? Well, if that was the case then Catton, Sewell and Crome were mysteriously missing. Only Mile Cross made it into the wrong constituency.
As my laughter drew to a close, after some minutes, I am ready to draw one of two conclusions.
Either the LibDems don’t know where the constituency boundary is or the LibDems are as fixated on Mile Cross as Steve Morphew is meant to be. We wonder why …
Cheap party political point scoring over, begin the angry LibDem posts…
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