The personal is political - and David Laws should be an advocate

Can someone tell me how using the public purse to pay your partner rent is in any way justifiable?

Of course it isn't. Parliamentary rules have stated that payments to relations and partners have been prohibited since 2006. But Liberal Democrat MP David Laws got away with it until shortly after the Coalition government was formed last summer.

Privacy is once against a topic of heated debate, whether it's super-injunctions, secret recording or sado-masochistic sex orgies. And, while I have some sympathy with David Laws for his desire to keep his personal life separate from the giant magnifying glass of the media, I wouldn't be true to the strapline of my own blog if I didn't preach that 'the personal is political'. The saying is actually an old feminist mantra, but it cuts through public life whether we like it or not, and I would argue that those who go into politics supposedly to encourage a more equal and just society should live out those values.

Laws says that one of the reasons he didn't declare that he was paying rent to his partner James Lundie, was that he didn't want to disclose his homosexuality. While I'm not in favour of outing people against their will, an individual who goes into elective politics should have felt able to do so without feeling that they would somehow be treated unfairly by the expenses system for having a same-sex partner. Frankly, it's a bit cheap to expect privacy when you're fleecing the public purse to the tune of £40,000 for the weekday convenience of a smart central London property when your supposed 'main' home is in Yeovil, 135 miles away in rural Somerset.

Worse still, Laws ain't short of a few bob, with an estimated wealth of between £1-2 million thanks to a lucrative City career.

The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner has seen sense and has responded robustly to Laws' actions with a full report condemning his breaking of six rules related to the claiming of expenses. And Laws has rightly apologised for his actions, and in fairness has paid back £16,000 more than he needed to. With a seven-day ban from Parliament also imposed on him, he's paid the price in more ways than one.

I hope I'm the last person to criticise an MP for wanting to keep what's personal, private, but I'm no apologist for someone who sits in public office to expect the (admittedly flawed) systems around him to cater to his whims of financial convenience, just because he happens to be gay. It does no favours for the cause of equality. The last thing we want is the sort of Parliament where MPs feel they have to sneak under the radar of the expenses regime, hiding their sexual preferences as if they were some sort of dirty secret under the pretence of a “landlord-tenant relationship”, as James O'Brian put it on the BBC's Question Time. Parliament is in enough of a 1950s timewarp as it is.

Election reflections

So, it's all over, after a lot of shouting. Politics certainly gets rough and dirty sometimes, but the UK-wide referendum campaign certainly plummeted to new depths of scaremongering, insults, half-truths and just downright lies. And that was just the Prime Minister.

For the Liberal Democrats, both the local, Scottish and Welsh elections proved that you can't just go from being a party of protest to being a party of government overnight without there being any consequences. The impact will be certainly be felt because it begins to soften the buffer between Labour and the Tories. A weaker Lib Dem party could limit Labour's options for coalition or co-operation, come the next General Election. It is a challenge for the left of British politics because Thursday's elections were undoubtedly a victory for David Cameron. The Prime Minister's authority will become stronger – as it has begun to do so already in recent months – while undermining the junior partner in the Coalition further. Nick Clegg will hang on because there is still no real appetite for decapitating yet another leader – the risks of a bloodbath are just too high in government. And it's hardly in Cameron's interest either.

As for the referendum, it was disappointing that the public took against the Alternative Vote in such numbers. I live in Lambeth, one of only eight areas which voted yes – no surprises there given the support my own MP has given to the Yes campaign and the generally progressive nature of the politics around these parts. Others too have pointed out that Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh were all areas that voted for change – all reasonably affluent, liberal bastions of democracy where it's probably fair to say that a higher than average number of people understand and support the alternatives to our current voting system. The dilemma now will be whether to come back with another question as Chris Huhne has mooted, or whether it becomes part of Labour or Liberal Democrat manifestos in the future – maybe the closely related AV Plus, or the Single Transferable Vote. But while the public voting overwhelmingly against change, our political institutions are still tired and dysfunctional and the issues around plurality and accessibility to smaller parties in our democracy will only become more apparent.

Nick Clegg didn't help matters, of course, but it was fundamentally a matter of timing and utter naivety on the part of the Liberal Democrat leadership that we had this referendum when we did. The idea that the Tories – and more conservative Labour stalwarts - would just play nicely and allow the referendum to pass by as a harmless sideshow. Given a year or so, and the opportunity to heal significant wounds caused by the Lib Dem u-turn on tuition fees and the outcome may have been different. It may also have influenced the thinking behind the campaign itself, which seemed to rely on stoking up anti-political feeling and gushing support from liberal celebrities such as Eddie Izzard, Stephen Fry and Helena Bonham-Carter. They're fine entertainers and personalities, but they don't do hard politics. Sometimes you need seasoned politicians to come out and fight a vigorous campaign, and not have to resort to the pathetic campaign tactics that the Yes campaign used at times. The failure of the Yes campaign made ample space for the likes of Labour big beasts John Prescott and John Reid at the No campaign, whose messages resonated with ordinary voters that were ultimately confused by the multitude of essentially academically derived arguments pushed by AV's 'supporters'. (And it might have helped if the Yes campaign had stopped saying 'it's not perfect and not what we really want, but...').

With people distracted by high unemployment, and the simultaneous destruction of public services, sticking with the status quo was just the simplest choice requiring less thinking at the ballot box. Any large-scale progressive campaign in future should remember that.

The fuss over AV might have also overshadowed the campaigns in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Suddenly, the political establishment has woken up to the reality of the Scottish National Party governing with a not insubstantial majority, and the clearest mandate yet for any party in the Scottish Parliament. Without anyone noticing, the break-up of the United Kingdom within 10-15 years has suddenly become more of a possibility. The political consequences of that can only begin to be imagined. Certainly, there is no reason to believe that Labour could ever make a comeback in Scotland without a serious reappraisal of what their role could be in a changed environment, and it's positive to hear that Ed Mililband has ordered a root-and-branch review of Scottish Labour.

On the whole, Labour didn't fare too badly but Ed Miliband was no runaway winner. The journey on the road to recovering the party's electoral fortunes has begun but negotiating the obstacles placed in front of it by the Coalition has added an extra dimension. Re-drawn boundaries, a deficit reduction plan that may or may not work and new thinking around public services will challenge Labour's strategists for months to come. Now these elections and the referendum are out of the way, it's time for some serious, credible and meaningful opposition from Ed.

Tom Harris and the case against the Alternative Vote

“No more loathsome piece of flotsam has floated to the surface of Scottish New Labour than the lumpen piece of wood that is Tom Harris” said George Galloway. A little cruel you might think, but Galloway was never adored in Parliament. With some pride, the Member for Glasgow South, not known for being a meek about his politics, displays this quote on the noticeboard above his desk in a small office above the House of Commons.

You can't criticise Tom Harris for being distant or aloof either. The spur for our meeting was very much in the spirit of the age, arising from a 'robust conversation' on Twitter about the Alternative Vote. I arrive in his office on a warm April evening and he asks if I would mind being recorded. Not a question you expect a politician to ask a journalist. But Harris was once a journalist himself, and I'm from a generation of hacks who've grown up with Twitter and podcasting, so although we disagree on changing the voting system, we do have something in common.

Harris is adamant that the current voting system is something that's worth hanging on to. In his view, there's nothing unholy about campaigning alongside Conservatives. Yet although he favours the status quo, like the larger partner in the coalition, he is similarly dismissive of the 'new politics' that Nick Clegg has supposedly tried so hard to champion.

“Give me a break! If the new politics is all about a lack of transparency, back-room deals and cynicism – in other words, everything this government has represented since last May - I'm very proud to say I'm anti the new politics”.

For Harris, the campaign is very much about the political expediency of the Alternative Vote (AV) for the LibDems. There's no love lost over Clegg and he has even less time for the Yes campaign's arguments for moving to AV.

“Clegg says vote no if you want to see more duck houses. This is the man responsible for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority” - to you and me, that's the new body responsible for paying MPs' expenses.

“I mean, what a cretin. They [Lib Dem MPs] must know he was lying through his teeth - what an insult to their intelligence”.

Clegg-bashing aside, I asked Harris what his overwhelming objection to AV was:

“How much time you got? First of all you have to be very careful before you ditch an existing system. First Past the Post has its faults, but it has provided us with a very workable system that's easy to understand, as well as stable government, which people often sneeringly dismiss”.

“Yes, we had Thatcher, but we had Blair too, and if you look across the world stable government is actually quite prized in a lot of areas.

“I'm not saying that coalitions should never happen, but I do genuinely believe that AV will result in a likelihood of more hung parliaments because the Lib Dems will obviously benefit from AV.

“If we have more Lib Dems then we will increase the chance of having hung parliaments.

But if you want the perfect electoral system, go and search for the Loch Ness Monster instead. You'll find that a lot more rewarding and productive”.

I point out that the current electoral system briefly brought us 'unstable' government in the form of a hung parliament. After all coalitions are now the reality of our political system, AV or not. And in terms of outcomes, the only tangible difference would be an increased number of seats for Liberal Democrats, at least based on the 2010 result.

Harris does not buy my argument. “It is a profoundly dishonest campaign to say that AV is in any way an improvement over FPTP”. Indeed, his hostility to AV goes right to the heart of what democracy is all about – and the old tribal attitudes become a little more obvious.

Deep down, Harris tells me he has an instinctive reaction against the idea that we should be encouraging people to dilute their political views.

“Politics should be about taking a stand and being principled. I was speaking to a colleague today, who was going to vote Yes, but whose 87 year old mother is voting no. She was giving him a hard time about it, saying that she didn't want to vote for anyone apart from Labour”.

“In this country we're always being told that politicians have sold out and that the Labour party have sold out, and that we need conviction principled politicians. Are we really going to get conviction politicians under AV?

I am trying to work out whether Tom really does see Westminster politics as nothing more than a rigid two-party affair, and remind him of the well-known statistic that fifty years ago, 96% of people voted Conservative or Labour, yet at the 2010 General Election, 35% voted for other parties. How do we translate this? Don't we need to react to the reality of people voting for other parties by changing our electoral system?

“A lot of people are telling me I should vote for AV because otherwise we will entrench the two-party system. Well, we probably have a two and a half party system”. Whatever that is.

But if I felt my voice was never being heard, wouldn't AV provide some form of redress? Isn't it possible to create an electoral system in which every person's view is represented?

“At the root of this whole argument are a lot of people who say 'I'm not represented, I'm not getting my voice heard'. That's an attitude that goes wider than politics - that if you believe in something then you have the right to be represented by someone who believes exactly the same as you. Well, no you don't. You have the right to go and vote. And if there are other people who outnumber you, that's democracy. Politics is about winners and losers.

“That's maybe not fashionable. But it is democratic”.

That's maybe so. But what if it turned out that AV actually helped Labour?

“If it's for party political advantage I'm not interested” claims Harris. “After the 1992 election even I was tempted to look down the road of electoral reform. I was so discouraged by the fact that we had lost for a fourth time, and that the only way we were going to get into government was through electoral reform.

“But you go for it because it's the right thing to do. You don't go for it because it suits your party for the next five years - that's a ridiculously short term view, and a triumph of tactics over strategy.

“There's an incredibly arrogant and short sighted view that Conservatives deserved to be in government for three quarters of the last century and Labour was in opposition for most of it. And that's because we deserved it because we kept losing elections. But the Tories had better arguments. That's how you win elections, and if you keep losing them, you shouldn't be in government.

“I want Labour to win the next election because we've got the best policies”.

So what would the political consequences be if it's a yes vote come Friday 6 May?

“David Cameron will be very unpopular among his backbenchers. And in the Labour Party, I'll accept the result if that's the settled will of the people.

“If it's a no vote, Clegg will be under the same sort of pressure as Cameron would be with a Yes. With the new constituency boundaries facing approval by Parliament at some point in the next couple of years, why would the Lib Dems vote for new boundaries without AV?”.

Supporters of AV say that it is a stepping stone to a more proportional system, and without a yes vote there is scant hope of changing the way we elect MPs. And Tom Harris says he can see how Clegg settled for a referendum on AV from the coalition agreement.

“If he had come out of these negotiations without any commitment to electoral reform at all politically his position would be untenable.

“I understand and agree with that notion the AV is a stepping stone towards full proportional representation [PR] – that's why I'm voting no. I'm absolutely, unequivocally, against PR”.

But Harris thinks that Clegg has the “wrong deal”.

“We know that historically the Lib Dems have never supported AV – they've never stood on a principle in their entire existence. If Nick Clegg doesn't get this it will be bad for him personally.

“The game-plan if they win on 6 May is to start the campaign to get rid of it on 7 May”.

Labour: stop blindly following your tribe and vote Yes in the AV referendum

For a moment, I felt utterly repulsed seeing the former Home Secretary John Reid on a platform with David Cameron yesterday, explaining why he was in favour of retaining the status quo for our voting system. But I quickly got over it – remembering how right-wing he was in Government. Reid is no progressive, but the worst kind of Labour dinosaur – a tribalist who is apologetic for a discredited and discounted form of politics. He must have felt at home with Cameron. Genuinely progressive politicians should have no business on platforms with Tory politicians – not on issues as fundamental to our democracy as this, anyway. But Reid, like Cameron, can't see beyond vested interest.

As anyone who reads my blog regularly will know, I’m voting Yes in the referendum on the Alternative Vote on 5 May. And while I relish the opportunity to convince others of why a Yes vote is a good idea, I'm increasingly sick and tired of the increasingly ignorant arguments put forward by opponents of AV. And I know it's not perfect. No voting system is perfect – our current system (First Past the Post) has proved that. But I can't get my head around why other so-called progressives – and by that I mean Labour or non-aligned left-leaning people – are campaigning for a No vote in the referendum.

Some just can't stand Nick Clegg and wish to spite him. Fair enough, but he won't be around forever the way the Coalition is going. The future of our democracy is, I hope is obvious, more important than any single politician, hated or not.

There also seem to be plenty of proportional representation (PR) purists that have sprung out of nowhere, who take a rather unrealistic view of how the British 'do' politics. These people seem to think that some sort of electoral reform revolution will happen, some time in the near future, when we’ll suddenly get full PR in whatever form that might take. A lot of liberal or left-leaning people seem to think this way. But the way things stand, the prospect of 'full PR' hasn’t got a cat’s chance in hell. The Alternative Vote – the arguments for which are simple and straightforward – is the only way of achieving the aim of electoral reform at this moment in time.

The only alternative I can imagine, should the Yes campaign fail, is a manifesto pledge by Ed Miliband to introduce the Alternative Vote or another system in the next Labour manifesto. That would probably preclude any possibility of further referendums and would certainly face opposition from the likes of John Reid in his own party.

The No campaign seems to have this one in the bag if we are to believe the polls. But, as I've said before, the future of British politics will actually mean a lot more coalitions. As a socialist I hope that means more governments which stand up for public services, a fairer economic system and greener policies. And we desperately need a voting system that reflects the will of the people – not a Tory-led government elected on less than 40% of the vote, and a Parliament composed of MPs with jobs for life because the electoral system makes it comfortable for them.

If Labour really is as progressive as it would like to think, party members should vote Yes. It’s not about the outcome of the next election, or the last election, or whether you think Nick Clegg is a sell-out. It’s about a long overdue reform to our Victorian voting system which belongs with gas-lamp lighters, workhouses and rickets – in the past.

When a kiss is not 'just a kiss'

When is an innocent kiss between two young men in a pub deemed 'obscene'? That was the question on everyone's lips - if you'll excuse the pun - at a 'kiss-in' protest outside the John Snow pub in London's Soho last night. The catalyst was the reaction by a complete stranger in the pub, and the landlord's response, to a seemingly innocent snog between 23-year old James Bull and 26-year old Jonathan Williams, who had the audacity to show more than a little interest in each other after a successful first date on Wednesday evening.

As far as I know, there's no law against kissing. But, I know that landlords are entitled to throw people out of their premises if they are causing a disturbance, or discomfort to other patrons. And it's entirely true that heterosexual couples have been thrown out of pubs for over-affection. But, as Williams has said, “public decency laws tend to, from my understanding, apply to indecent exposure. We were kissing on the lips”.

If I am a complete stranger to you and I kiss my boyfriend, as a gay man, without doing anything lewd or obviously inappropriate, am I *really* offending you? Or do you just ignore it and concentrate on having a good time with your own friends or partner?

I don't like to assume that Britain is fundamentally homophobic. Public attitude surveys have recently shown a clear swing towards tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality. But I wonder if Britain is still just far too prudish in an age of sexual liberation and enlightenment and, as a friend said to me “uses prudishness to justify homophobia”. Maybe this is true. I fear that in an age of civil partnerships and employment equality we're still in danger of letting archaic views go unchallenged. Yes, gay and lesbian people have more or less got legal equality. But I still can't go down most streets in London – let alone anywhere else - holding hands with my boyfriend without attracting stares, while straight couples go completely unnoticed. I don't want to be noticed. I don't want to be tolerated, nor accepted. I want complete ambivalence. And that goal seems so far away, even in my lifetime.

The politics of Wednesday's protest were a bit of a mess and it was hardly a coherent campaign built over a long period time. It was a spontaneous event brought together by the power of Twitter, which may have been unthinkable a few years ago. Social networking and mobile phones have helped mobilise people in a way that people had maybe forgotten how to do until recently. As someone Tweeted:

“I got thrown out of a bar once years ago for kissing my boyfriend. But it was before Twitter had been invented, so we just laughed”.

But I began to wonder how the trend towards spontaneous protesting had influenced the John Snow event, in the context of a government which is finding new outposts of dissent every day, not least the enormous anti-cuts protests just a few weeks ago. Gay and lesbian people - often accused of being apolitical or indifferent – have an opportunity in the aftermath of this incident. If the LGBT community wants to take this further, the John Snow protest could build into something a lot bigger. It's hardly a comparison, but the attitude of Barclays Bank in South Africa in the 1980s soon changed when it became clear that the younger customers who might otherwise bank with them boycotted them for being complicit with apartheid – and they pulled out.

Here's a bit of free consultancy for the Sam Smith's public relations people – if you even exist. Listen and take note of what your customers are saying about you. Because the protests will be back outside the John Snow every Friday until you apologise to Jonathan and James and change your attitude.

Sketch: George Osborne's petrolhead's budget

If the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s budget red box could be personified, it would probably take the form of Jeremy Clarkson, driving a dirty great Ferrari. And as if Treasury civil servants had discretely passed Osborne’s budget statement to the producers of Top Gear for editing, Osborne delivered a gas-guzzling, petrolhead-placating budget, the opening paragraph of which appeared to have been written around a BBC conference table with Richard Hammond and James May pitching in every fourth line or so.

With a frog in his throat, possibly caused by the Chancellor being asphyxiated on the exhaust fumes created by parking his supercar budget in the Commons chamber, the occupant of the space opposite – let's say a quiet and thoughtful Toyota Prius such as the Green MP Caroline Lucas - must surely have considered it a blast of carbon monoxide in the face to anyone hoping that the Tories might be taking green issues a little more seriously. (Actually, the Member for Brighton Pavilion was more concerned with a Green Investment bank that isn't really a bank, and a windfall profit on nuclear energy via a carbon floor price, but let’s not let small details get in the way of a good sketch).

“Last year’s emergency budget was about rescuing the nation’s finances and paying for the mistakes of the past” said the Chancellor.

“Today’s budget is about reforming the nation’s economy so that we have enduring growth and jobs in the future.

“And doing what we can to help families with the growing cost of living and the high price of oil!” he shouted.

It’s on everyone’s mind of course. The crises in the Middle East have crystallised debate over many a breakfast table, by every water-cooler and in every corner shop. How on earth are we going to continue to feed our poor, starving cars?

It was a budget for making things and not for making things up, apparently. It was about the difficult decisions we’ve already taken.

“We gambled for a debt-fuelled model of growth that failed” continued the Chancellor on his motoring analogy, already laden with metaphors.

He then turned to the forecasts for the next few years, delivered with the same sort of measured aplomb as Lord Prescott's attempt at the Shipping Forecast for Comic Relief. It's just a formality really, the Chancellor's forecast.

“It has been known for Chancellors to rattle these off at such great speed that no-one will keep up or notice.

Not so for George in his first 'non-emergency' budget.

The outlook wasn't great, to be fair. Growth had been weaker than expected in the final quarter of 2010, although slightly stronger growth in later years was expected over Cromarty, Forth and Tyne. Visibility, moderate occasionally poor.

Further wrath was incurred for Gordon Brown and the Scandalous Selling Of The Gold Reserves. The Conservative benches are always up in arms at this, and the Chancellor announced that “we will purchase a range of high quality assets, to replenish our reserves”, accompanied by indignant cries of anguish.

“We will not be able to replenish the gold reserves sold at a record low” said Osborne, now morphed into a Billingsgate fish merchant, wheeling and dealing cod, haddock and plaice.

But the most amusing thing about these budgets is the obscure announcements which are thrown up. Savings in the transport department meant that we could afford more investment in regional railways.

“We can commit to Swindon-Kemble redoubling scheme!”, he announced, which will quite literally move mountains of ballast in the Cotswolds. No doubt the Chancellor had been watching Richard Wilson's expose of the country's rail network on Channel 4 on Monday night and like the veteran One Foot In The Grave actor, had decided that reading your Guardian in a carriage toilet just wasn't good enough. It was certainly a case of “I do believe it” for one or two Coalition MPs in that area.

It all ended with a bit of karaoke from the Labour benches, in not-so-angelic unison.

The Leader of the Opposition talked about the Prime Minister's priorities for “growth, growth growth!”. But it was “DOWN, DOWN, DOWN” according to the bellowing basses and screeching sopranos in the opposition.

“And when the economy retracted in the fourth quarter, what did he do? He blamed the snow! He was away on the piste!” jeered Mr Miliband.

“The right type of snow for a skiing holiday, the wrong type of snow for our economy!"

As Mr Miliband said, the Chancellor should just calm down a little bit. He might actually break something...

Constituency profile: Ipswich

A little look at the politics and the people of my home town, which had a Tory-Liberal Democrat administration before it became fashionable.

The historic Wet Dock - one of Ipswich's more sought-after areas

As the administrative capital of Suffolk, and one of the few English counties with no motorways, it's hardly surprising that the town of Ipswich has tried for city status in recent years. Despite first impressions, an 'everyone knows everyone' vibe radiates from the main shopping streets to its football ground. The earliest continuous settlement in England, dating back to the seventh century, Ipswich was, and still is a major East Anglian shipping port. The town's name comes from the medieval Gippeswyk, meaning 'town on the Gipping' (the river Gipping a tributary of the picturesque river Orwell – inspiring the pen name of the author of 1984 and Animal Farm).

Deceptively close to the capital – London is but an hour away on the Great Eastern main line – Ipswich has many parallels with towns such as Reading or Northampton, but none of the advantages of Norwich, its historic rival.

Yet for all its market-town spirit, there's still a somewhat urban feel about the town centre, which in parts retains a weathered 1960s grittiness. The local football team, Ipswich Town, much maligned since its Premier League days is a constant reminder of this contradiction – a large stadium on Portman Road surrounded by tall modern office developments.

Ipswich has actively sought new economic fortunes in the last 20 years or so, with the decline in big industry biased towards agriculture and the growth of the DINKY - 'double income, no kids' - class. Under Labour, the local authority aspired to attract young professionals to new and converted apartments on the Wet Dock, providing desirable homes for the workforce of Ipswich's insurance giants which have clustered there over the past 40 years or so, as well as those who choose to commute further.

Apart from short interludes in the seventies and late eighties, the town's industrial past has unsurprisingly lent itself to long periods of Labour rule. Surrounded by Conservative MPs (Tim Yeo to the south, and Dan Poulter to the north) as well as a Tory Suffolk county administration, it was hardly surprising that the MP for the majority of the town would slip out of Labour's hands in 2010. Benedict Gummer, son of former Suffolk Coastal MP John, keeps the family torch burning in this corner of East Anglia, beating the Labour incumbent Chris Mole by just 2,000 votes.

Yet some locals feel that the sort of growth in evidence in the town just a few years ago has already begun to reverse:

“Ipswich has had a somewhat depressed feel in the last, say, two years compared to the buoyancy of four or five years ago” says Rob Adams, a local financial adviser.

Adding weight to this view was the announcement by French insurance giant Axa, who in recent weeks have announced that up to 56 jobs are under threat. “The greatest indicator of this is the rapid development and expansion of the building around the docks. As well as the new apartments, a lot of bars, restaurants and hotels also opened, making for a very desirable residential area” adds Rob.

“But with the economic 'pulling in of horns' brought about by the banking collapse of 2008, that expansion has ceased."

This new type of development contrasts with the high-end properties around Christchurch Park in the centre of the town, the traditional retreat for those who 'made it' and chose to live within the borough's boundary.

The town has benefited from a higher proportion of students, making for a night-time 'buzz', and as Rob observes, “it's no coincidence that one of Ipswich's most thriving bars is just a stone's throw from the main University College Suffolk building!”. New facilities house clinical skills, sports and exercise laboratories which are giving local young people new opportunities.

It wasn't always like this however. The gap between the old, industrialised town and the new centre of aspiration was hard for some. Like many provincial towns, Ipswich suffered its own brain drain and despite a number of good or outstanding schools, many young people have fled the area.

“I counted down the days to leave, got as far away as possible and won't go back!” said another native, Anna Browning, now resident on the south coast. “I didn't feel it had any character or anything going for it – it was just another place at the end of the A12”.

Some locals are more optimistic about the town's fortunes. The choice of MP for the area will more likely reflect national opinion, but the make-up of the council has pointed towards the 'new politics' for some years. And, if the Westminster coalition government was an unholy alliance in 2010, this was nothing new in Ipswich. The borough council was run by Labour for a solid quarter-century until 2004 when a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition took over. Frequent borough elections have not altered this arrangement and although Labour is currently the largest party - with 23 councillors - it remains in opposition. The controlling majority is composed of 18 Conservatives and 7 Lib Dems and there are few signs that this may change any time soon.

On a county level, Labour support continues to be concentrated in the tough Priory Heath and Gainsborough, and despite the general collapse in support for the party in the Suffolk county elections in 2009, it continues to hang on to two seats in the centre of the town.

This core support, coupled with tendency of this urban concentration to turn red, means that Labour could well regain the parliamentary seat at the next general election.