Drowning under a backbench rebellion in the House of Commons last night, a spluttering David Cameron grabbed the only lifeline on offer – Labour’s £4bn bail out of the Bill to redefine marriage.

In exchange for rescuing him from the raging ocean of discontent, the Prime Minister backed Labour’s idea of an immediate review of civil partnerships, including whether to extend them to heterosexual couples.

The pensions minister says that could cost the country up to £4bn in public service pension rights alone, but some politicians will do anything to tear up the centuries old definition of marriage.

While the rest of us struggle to pay our bill in an economy that still needs fixing, the metropolitan elites are prepared to splash billions on meddling with marriage.

We always said this Bill would unravel the meaning of marriage, and now we’ve been proved right. Once you move away from the real meaning of marriage, it all comes undone.

C4M’s Colin Hart said last night: “The Government has allowed Labour to attach a £4bn ticking time bomb set to explode after a brief consultation on civil partnerships. It’s yet another twist that wasn’t in anyone’s manifesto.

“Civil partnerships are cracked open to allow in heterosexual couples. The Government has lost control, marriage has been left in limbo, it’s a complete dog’s breakfast, and the Bill should be dropped before more damage is done.”

Well if, C4M hadn’t have taken such a hard line from the start, we wouldn’t have this dogs breakfast.

 
Now, here is an instruction: get both hands and grip the sides of your seat whilst you read this.  You will soon know why.
 
Many of you will remember the speech given by Suffolk-local and retail legend, Sir Stuart Rose, last September about our town centre.  He started with what was potentially so good about Ipswich.  It could have one of the most beautiful town centres in the country, with stunning buildings and quaint streets sitting between some fabulous parks and our new waterfront.  Suffolk is a rich county and should provide the shoppers to support a range of shops.  But somehow none of it is working.  The bit that was reported, of course, was his list of criticisms – the lack of a full range of shops, the fact the main retail area is too strung out, the expensive parking, and the dowdy appearance of so much of the space between Crown Street and Stoke Bridge.
 
Frankly, you could have had a similar analysis from most people in the town, who say pretty much the same thing as did Sir Stuart whenever I knock on their door.  The state of the town centre is almost always the top of people’s list of local woes.  And they know what the problems are: the parking is poorly situated and poor value for the range and quality of shops that are there; the distance between Westgate and Carr Street is simply too large – it is further from one side to the other than Westfield at Stratford, which has many more shops in between; there are not enough major chains that people want – like Zara; and apart from a few highlights, like the new Giles Circus, the whole place feels a bit depressing.
 
We may all know this but sometimes it takes someone like Sir Stuart to shock us into action.  It is a pity but it is also a fact.  The problem with one as big as this is knowing where to start.  And this is where Sir Stuart really helped.  Sensibly, he said the Cornhill had bags of potential that at the moment was not being realised.  Most people agree.  So he threw down the gauntlet: get on with sorting out the Cornhill and that may be the necessary spark.
 
And here is where you may chose to hold tight, for fear of falling off your seats.  David Ellesmere and the Borough Council could have sat on this issue and done nothing; in the past, this and other councils have done precisely that.  But on this issue they’ve picked up the challenge and run with it.  Last week I sat round a table with David, with some council officers, and with representatives from Ipswich Central, who are responsible for driving the regeneration of the town centre.  We had an exceptional meeting, deciding on the shortlist of landscape architects who want to bid to redesign the space and working out how to proceed with the competition.
 
I really believe now that this will happen, and we are only eight months away from Sir Stuart’s speech – a fraction of a second in local authority time.  This is precisely how it should be: every part of the town working together, putting political differences aside, to make Ipswich better.  As a consequence, we will have a world-class competition for a wonderful local space, attracting the very best designers that do this kind of work.  You and everyone else in Ipswich will be fully involved and at the end, I hope, we will have something of which we can all be proud.

Talking about making things up as you’re going along, Ipswich Labour claimed that they were going to ‘save libraries and lollypop patrols.’ This claim of course, was completely made up. They also claimed that they were going to ‘save Ipswich buses’ this was also made up.

After getting elected on things that they had made up as they went along, Ipswich Labour, under Ellesmere’s leadership, continued to make things up as they went along. First there was the forums replaced by Area committee’s the bit that was made up as they went along was the bit about Area Committees moving democracy closer to the people.

Then they started claiming responsibility for what the last administration did. They claimed that they got Waitrose and John Lewis in the town, making it up as they went along. They claimed to have supported the Tesco Grafton Way development which they voted against, making it up as they went along. Ipswich Labour then claimed that they saved Kiln Meadow, making it up as they went along. They also claimed that they got the closest to opening Broom Hill than the last administration, making it up as they went along, not mentioning that it was a Labour administration that closed the financial millstone in the first place, making it up as they went along.

Making things up as they went along, Ipswich Labour claimed credit for tickets for Troops which was first suggested by former Ipswich Conservative Group leader, John Carnell.

Then to begin with, Ipswich Labour kept the Conservative’s budget and then claimed credit for it, making things up as they went along.

Ipswich Labour are saying that new council houses are being built in Ipswich because of them, when it is the coalition government that allowed them to do so while Labour didn’t. But Ipswich Labour don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, as they make things up as they go along.

Ipswich Labour had a plan to evict Ransomes Sports Club and when it became public knowledge, they started making it up as they went along, openly lying to the public about it, claiming that they wanted Ransomes Sports Club to thrive.

Then Ipswich Labour are continuing to make it up as they go along about the Thorington Barns Wind Turbine Proposals. They claim that it’s nothing to do with them, even though one of the turbines is on Borough owned land and say it’s Babergh’s problem.

During the County Council elections Ipswich Labour made it up as they went along they put it across that the county council was closing care homes and leaving vulnerable people without care, making it up as they went along, when the reality was that Suffolk Conservatives Are making A £270 Million investment in care facilities.

Under David Ellesmere, Ipswich Labour are constantly making things up as they go along.

Mr Spencer gets really nasty though.

We all know that Ben Gummer has a, well, interesting look. But put him (or anyone) next to the drowned camel that is Ellesmere on a good day and Gummer looks positively glamorous.

Admittedly next to Captain Mainwaring, Dame Bryony seems quite glamorous and obviously Mr Gummer looks brilliant next to anyone from the Labour Party. But referring to Mr Ellesmere as ‘the drowned camel’ is absolutely uncalled for. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been any mention of it on the dRoss Blog though Alasdair seems to be to busy getting out of his pram about being called a moron by a 15 year old boy on Twitter.

If James Spencer thinks Gipping Ward’s David Ellesmere is bad, he should look at his own councillor’s. Bridge Ward has three Labour Councillors and one’s a county councillor too and though she may have more brain cells than virtually the whole of Ipswich Labour put together, she still isn’t very good.

An example of the uselessness of Bridge Ward’s Labour Councillors is the issue of fly tipping near the bottom of Wherstead Road. Someone had abandoned a mattress and broken furniture alongside the bins on the Wherstead Road,alongside the start of the Victorian semis. It had been present for at least two weeks and looked terrible for anyone coming into or leaving the town at one of the main entrances to Ipswich. The local Labour councillors did nothing. But fortunately for the residents of Wherstead Road, Conservative councillor for Rushmere Ward, Judy Terry did. Because of Judy Terry, Encore Estate Management who maintain the site, have agreed to pay Ipswich borough Council to clear the waste.

It takes a Conservative councillor to get something done in a ward which is represented by three Labour councillors, and a Labour county councillor!

So much for their community leadership!

So, though Gipping Ward’s councillors are rather lousy, they’re probably slightly less lousy than Bridge Ward’s. Though, thinking about it, they’re all useless.

You can watch it here.

Ukip’s leader of Lincs Council Chris Pain, the party’s East Midlands regional chairman, wrote on Facebook:

“Have you noticed that if you ­rearrange the letters in ‘illegal ­immigrants’, and add just a few more letters, it spells, ‘Go home you free-loading, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, baby-making, non-English-speaking ********* and take those other hairy-faced, sandal-wearing, bomb-making, camel-riding, goat-********, raghead ******** with you.’”

Now, if that was a leading BNP member people will be rightly outraged. That this comment was made by a leading UKIP official is even more disgusting.

Were you in the area at these times? Did you see anything unusual? If you have any information that could help please contact Suffolk Police on 101, quoting reference number: IC/13/1989

Or

Please use this linkto pass useful information to Suffolk Police about any incident.

In remarks immediately seized on by Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, the senior Tory said that the party’s MPs have to rebel against the leadership because they face pressure from hardline associations.

Farage, who knows the identity of the Tory, tweeted: “If you are a Conservative supporter who believes in Ukip ideas then your party hates you. Come and join us.”

As the whole thing is a UKIP smear campaign, Nigel Farage would be saying that wouldn’t he.

Hilariously the Guardian says that it was in earshot of journalists. So why hasn’t any journalist said who it was? Is it just hearsay with caution being taken after the plebgate lies told by them?

Even if the story was true it’s not unusual for party leaderships to have contempt for their grass roots activists and here is an example

It’s Labour who have contempt for their grass roots support, not the Tories.

It has begun a legal process that could see four colonial outposts illegal settlements given legal approval under Israeli law. Story here.

In my ever helpful way I thought I’d remind people of what Ben Gummer said (1 February 2013)

For these reasons, I have lobbied within government for reform and a referendum. I didn’t believe that we would be able to make the positive and strong case for Europe, on which our peace and prosperity has relied for so many years, without the requirement to consult the people again. So I am delighted that the Prime Minister has pledged to do precisely that. We will get change and you will get your say. In the meantime, we can have a proper discussion on the merits of the EU.

And what did he do, on a free vote calling for a referendum? Well not what the paragraph above would suggest. He abstained.

So is Ben for a referendum or not?

I don’t think Ben is being duplicitous, it’s just that he thinks that the EUSSR is a good thing and can’t understand that our masters in Brussels are against referenda and any form of democracy because they believe that democracy is a failed system. They strongly believe that democracy is a failed system because it doesn’t allow them to do what they want regardless of public opinion. This is because they are socialists and socialists strongly believe that they were born to rule.

I tell you who are being duplicitous though.

How did the Lib Dems vote? All except one voted against a referendum and always will. This is because the Lib Dems are nasty Euro-fed, duplicitous liars.