6th April 2010

A Race Well Run

Well, we're off - at last.

This will be the most important election for a generation.

We all know the serious challenges we face: a bloody war, historically high debt, the prospect of dangerous climate change, an increasingly troubled society, a crisis of confidence in our politics.

Here in Ipswich we have seen services stripped from our hospital, a worrying increase in anti-social behaviour, and a chronic lack of investment in our town's infrastructure and transport links.

People want change, not empty promises.

That is why I have been working so hard over the past three years to show people in Ipswich that I can be the strong representative they want.  I have fought for individuals and for the wider community.  And I've got results - from traffic calming to a new heart unit at Ipswich Hospital.

At this election I am asking the voters of Ipswich to give me the support I need to work for the town both here in Ipswich and in Westminster.

And of my opponents I ask this.  We are in the midst of a terrible collapse in trust in our politics and our politicians.  People are fed up with spin and with broken promises, with the indulgence and separation from normal lives, with the back-biting and the bitter exchanges that seem to dominate our current political life.  All of us in the political class must accept responsibility for this state of affairs.

At this election we have a golden opportunity to show people that politics is worth believing in, that it is a true market of ideas.  Even if the battle elsewhere is unpleasant, we in Ipswich can show that it can be different.

If we relapse into the kind of personal and negative attacks that people hate so much, we will only confirm all that is wrong with our democracy, and contribute to the disenchantment that is so widespread. 

So let's have a clean fight, where we show people how we will change their country, their town and their own individual lives.