#interrail2026 - day 2: across the Low Countries to Schleswig Holstein

It's time to catch up with the trip now that I'm back, so let's do just that... 

Early morning, Antwerp, and my first intention was to deal in a little nostalgia. But isn't Antwerpen Central just a little special? There's some outstanding architecture (and a very convenient zoo). And, as a place to start your journey in earnest, it's so much of an improvement on any of the Brussels stations.

Sadly, it was early, and I had miles to go before I slept. The obvious route to my intended destination would be via Amsterdam and a series of German high speed trains but where's the fun in that? And so, I was off on the 8.35 EuroCity Direct to Lelystad Centrum. Except, where was it? There was an 8.35 EuroCity Direct to Almere Centrum, which was in the right direction, and there was supposedly a connection that would work, so that was going to have to do.

But why Lelystad, capital of Flevoland? Many years ago, when I was still doing international youth politics, I attended a LYMEC (Liberal and Radical Youth Movement of the European Community) Congress there, which was one of the stranger events that I'd ever been to. And, whilst nostalgia isn't what it used to be, I thought that it would be nice to go back, if only to see if the place had changed much.

It hasn't. When I was there the first time, it had the architecture you would expect from an era when brushed concrete was fashionable and it still does. The town was en fete though, crowded with people selling their surplus possessions in the pedestrian shopping arcade that is the centre of the town. Apparently, this is part of the Koningsdag celebration, and that's what was going on.

I didn't stay long - I had trains to catch, first to Zwolle and then to Deventer, where I stopped for a quick walk. Deventer was unexpectedly charming, and they were clearly getting ready to have a good time, with a stage set up in the central square and plenty of orange clad people with beer. I might have to go back there sometime...

Onwards to Osnabruck, and another quick explore, before what was supposed to be the penultimate train of the day to Hamburg, which is where things started to go wrong, thanks to Deutsche Bahn. My connection lost by mere minutes, I took the opportunity to take a walk across Hamburg, skirting the Binnenalster, passing the incredibly impressive City Hall and making the train to Flensburg with enough time to spare to allow the purchase of a surprisingly good chicken sandwich.

Flensburg was dark, and quiet, but it had a hotel bed, and I'd survived the first full day of travel. It was going to be alright...

Creeting St Peter: like Frank Sinatra, I’m doing it my way…

As I noted a few months ago, 2026 is a bit of a transitional year for this bureaucrat. I’m gently stepping back from the world of Parish Councils and, on Monday, there was another key stage in that process as Creeting St Peter Parish Council held its Annual Meeting.

I had been flagging up the need for Council to replace me as Chair for some months, although the impression given by my colleagues was of rather wanting the problem to go away. But, when at the meeting, I made it absolutely clear that I would not offer myself for re-election under any circumstances, my Vice-Chair, Ayse Singh, nobly, albeit with conditions, accepted the chalice of power for the next year.

The conditions involve rather greater engagement from the Vice-Chair and, as part of the transition, and I suspect much to the relief of Council, I have taken that role on for the 2026/27 year.

Having seen Ayse chair her first meeting though, I think that she’ll do just fine.

Me? I’ll carry on with my finance and communication portfolios, and cover for Ayse as required. As part of that, I’ll be producing some medium and long-term strategic papers to take Creeting St Peter Parish Council forward and work with our Clerk, Mark Knight, to ensure that everything is ready for a new Council after next year’s elections.

After the appointment of a Chair and Vice-Chair, the business of the meeting was dealt with briskly enough. Our finances are healthy, we have our policies in place for another year and, in what I think is very good news, the Parochial Church Council, who I pointed in the direction of a grant opportunity at the end of last year, have received funds to restore the roof and replace the heating in the Church Room.

I’ve updated the Parish website to include the dates of our meetings for the next year, and to reflect the identity of our new Chair, and so I’m feeling a bit more up to date.

And so, the farewell tour gathers pace…

#interrail2026 - day 1: a detour with my family on the way to Antwerp

So, having retrieved my wallet, it was time to start my journey. Ipswich to Liverpool Street was easy enough - I even won the “Greater Anglia lottery” with the first class carriages actually on the 09.41. It’s all becoming a bit cheapskate these days, as Greater Anglia don’t offer free hot drinks and biscuits to first class passengers at weekends any more, but the new Stadler and Waldorf rolling stock is comfortable enough.

And then things started going a little haywire. My plan was to take the Elizabeth Line to Farringdon and then Thameslink to Brent Cross West, but, as it turned out, Thameslink was the victim of engineering works. So, the Metropolitan Line to Kings Cross St Pancras, where a rather grumpy barrier guard told me that my ticket wasn’t valid. “Your colleague at Farringdon told me to do this” sufficiently placated him to let me out and I then found myself heading upstream against hordes of Leeds United supporters heading for a bit of a disappointment at Wembley.

Brent Cross West is a brand new station, between Cricklewood and Hendon on the line to Luton and Bedford, and a short walk from there takes you to the bus to Kingsbury.

Lunch with my parents and my niece, Imogen, and plenty of conversation followed but, all too soon, it was time to move on. Immy accompanied me to Hendon where we parted company, and I headed for St Pancras International for what I had been led to believe would be the chaos of the new immigration procedures at the border. You might imagine my wry smile upon clearing security and French border control in ten minutes… 

Eurostar was uneventful, which seems like an odd thing to write as I think about it, although the notion of getting on a train and getting off it in another country is pretty revolutionary from a British perspective, and I made my connection at Brussels Gare du Midi with plenty of time to spare.

A short hop to Antwerpen Centraal and I was safely tucked up in my hotel room across the street from the Opera House.

Next, day 2 - why are so many people wearing orange?

#interrail2026 - starting with a near facepalm…

So, here I am, on the 09.41 from Ipswich to Liverpool Street, about to embark on another “epic” train journey. And yet, I nearly fell at the first hurdle…

You know how it is. Working out what to pack, making sure that you’ve got the right cables for your various bits of IT, checking that your passport is valid, all of these elements that, if missed, might cause inconvenience at some unwelcome point in a trip. But, I was somewhat better organised this time, and was packed the day before leaving - Ros’s organisational skills might be rubbing off at last.

I even woke up a bit earlier than usual, allowing a leisurely cup of coffee with the woman I love, before heading to the station rather earlier than necessary - another Ros trait the benefit of which I have come to appreciate.

I was halfway to the station when it dawned on me that I had everything except… my wallet… Now, as modern online banking has enabled me to do a surprising amount without ever having to find my wallet, I do have the sense that it might be better to have physical backup. And so, I bolted back to the house, collected the wallet and scurried off to the station, arriving to find my intended train on the platform.

Let’s try not to make that mistake again, shall we?…

Reflections of a dinosaur: the world of work changes…

I was on editorial duty at Liberal Democrat Voice yesterday and, as part of that, I try to promote each published article using our Bluesky account. My first comment began, “The work week starts here…”, I posted it and thought little more about it. Until, that is, I did think about it.

I’ve been employed by the same organisation for nearly forty years now, working in offices on, effectively, a 9-5, Monday to Friday basis. I am, you might say, somewhat institutionalised.

When I started, in the mid-eighties, if you wanted to talk to a professional, or purchase a service, you did it between 9 and 5, Monday to Friday. Shops were mostly shut on Sundays, on random midweek afternoons, depending on where you lived, and almost certainly weren’t open after 6. Your initial approach was in writing, using envelopes and stamps, or by telephone.

You could still hope to find a job for life, in an organisation which had a solid track record and expectation of longevity.

And that makes me a bit of a dinosaur. The emergence of the gig economy, the internet and the expectation that organisations will respond over longer hours and at weekends means that the idea of a “work week” is blurred beyond easy recognition.

With that have come benefits for some. My 9-5 has become 37 hours, where I could start at 7 a.m. or finish at 8 p.m., and flexible working hours mean that I can manage my attendance to suit my needs - within reason, obviously. But, as an “individual contributor”, as long as I keep my “customers” aware of my broad availability, nobody much minds.

On the downside, the end of “jobs for life” means that the loyalty of employees to employers, and the respect of employers for employees has frayed significantly. If employees feel like interchangeable widgets, employers shouldn’t be terribly surprised if said widgets seek a more rewarding machine to be a part of. And, in any event, as housing costs rise, the need to pursue better salaries means a more opportunistic workforce.

I tend to think that a degree of workforce stability is good for any organisation. You need a core of people who know their jobs, offer an institutional memory and are willing to share the experience and knowledge. But you also need to avoid continuous tinkering with structures and employee terms and conditions, something that I have observed increasingly both within my own organisation and others. Change, especially poorly explained change, is destabilising at best, and damaging to morale and productivity at worst.

Forty years has seen radical change in the world of work, and the pace of technological change only seems to accelerate. It may be time for this dinosaur to evolve or die…

Mark Ashton and Ipswich Town FC - a failure of leadership

The controversy over Nigel Farage’s publicity stunt at Portman Road, the home of the Tractor Boys, and my (very) local football club, has demonstrated the truism of the first Valladares Rule of political crisis, i.e. it’s not the wrongdoing itself that is fatal, it’s the botched coverup that follows.

If it had simply been that Nigel Farage and his PR team had entered Portman Road under false pretences and used the stadium as a backdrop for a publicity stunt, well, it would have asked some serious questions of the club staff but a few slapped wrists later and everyone might have moved on.

But, to issue a press release that basically disassociated the club from any knowledge or awareness of what was going to happen when, as it turns out, quite the opposite was the case, is probably the worst thing that could have happened for the club’s reputation and integrity.

Ipswich Town has always had a reputation as a family club, run for decades by the Cobbold family whose most famous quote suggested that the only time there was a crisis at the club was “when we run out of white wine in the boardroom…”. It is, and I can testify to this as a supporter of another club, at the heart of the county’s community. And, despite what many outsiders may think, Ipswich is quite a multicultural town.

As for the team, Congolese, Albanian, Angolan and Chilean players fill key positions on the pitch, and the British players are as ethnically diverse as any other team in the Football League.

That’s why what happened next became such a problem. A controversial political figure visiting such a workplace was bound to trigger a reaction amongst the staff, so it should have been pretty obvious that, if the press release wasn’t remotely truthful, then the facts would emerge.

“Nothing to do with me,” said CEO and Chairman, Mark Ashton, “we knew nothing about the visit in advance”. The emerging allegation that, far from knowing nothing, one of his staff had offered the invitation on his behalf and that, far from having nothing to do with him, he had actually arranged to have lunch with the Reform UK leader.

The pictures of Farage with an Ipswich Town shirt with the number 10 on the back? Reform staff had bought those from the club shop, we were assured. Sources happy to contradict that, both within the club and Reform UK indicated that a half-dozen shirts were prepared and handed over by the club.

So, in the post-Cadbury era, if a CEO had trashed the company’s reputation, and authorised the issue of a press release which seemingly gave an entirely false impression in order to save said CEO’s face, the Chairman would courteously invite the CEO to consider his future. Unfortunately, Mark Ashton is also the Chairman, so it seems reasonable to assume that, unless he is schizophrenic or has multiple personality disorder, that isn’t going to happen.

I do think that the owners will, if they have a sense of the feeling amongst the fanbase, act, if not to fire Ashton, who retains some support even now, then to discipline him publicly.

We know that the players are unhappy, and I suspect that the manager, Kieran McKenna, will be unhappy to have to deal with a major distraction in the midst of a serious promotion challenge. And, if there is any suggestion that said distraction denies Ipswich the promotion that the fans crave, I’m not sure that Ashton deserves to survive.

Local Government Reorganisation in Suffolk - the three Unitary solution has it...

The Conservatives at the County Council having thrown a large chunk of public money at trying to persuade us that what Suffolk really needed was a Unitary County, the Secretary of State, Steve Reed, has concluded that the three Unitary solution proposed by the Districts and Ipswich Borough Council was his preferred choice.

I have to admit that I'd rather have seen a rebirth of East and West Suffolk, as I was of the view that two councils, each serving around 400,000 residents, was probably more faithful to the criteria laid down by the Government and would offer two vaguely sensible and coherent geographical areas.

But Ipswich Labour wanted something that they might have an outside chance of winning and so, here we are. The proposals read as follows:

• Western Suffolk Council (current local government areas of West Suffolk, 21 parishes from Mid Suffolk, and Babergh (less 31 parishes)).

• Central and Eastern Suffolk Council (current local government areas of Mid Suffolk (less 29 parishes), and East Suffolk (less 25 parishes).

• Ipswich and South Suffolk Council (current local government areas of Ipswich, 31 parishes from Babergh, 8 parishes from Mid Suffolk, and 25 parishes from East Suffolk).

Admittedly, the Written Statement made to the two Houses of Parliament gets the constituent parts of Western and Central and Eastern mixed up - oh how we laughed when we read the Statement - but it does look like the decision is pretty much what the District/Ipswich bid proposed.

I would say that Western Suffolk, centred on Bury St Edmunds, and Ipswich and South Suffolk, centred on Ipswich, are broadly sensible, but Central and Eastern Suffolk, whose only significant town is Lowestoft at its north-eastern corner, stretches all the way across to Rattlesden, whose residents may well never have been to Lowestoft. And Creeting St Peter will be joining them, despite the fact that we're about ten miles from Ipswich, eighteen miles from Bury St Edmunds and forty-five from Lowestoft.

I'd argue that, if you really want to make local government feel remote from the citizens it serves, an arrangement like that will achieve exactly that, and a Unitary authority that includes the deprivation that Lowestoft suffers from, with the Notting Hill on Sea that is Aldeburgh, the "bow and arrow" county that is Eye and its surrounds and Stowmarket, with its sea of new housing estates, is going to suffer from a split personality pretty quickly.

And given that the new Unitary is highly likely to be "no overall control" from the outset, it could be a trying few years for those trying to make it all work.

The only consolation is how badly the Conservatives have taken the whole thing. Our prospective new County Councillor, Matthew Hicks, is apparently astounded, which given that the evidence is that Suffolk residents were opposed to a single Unitary by a margin of 2:1, merely reminds me how difficult Suffolk Conservatives find the whole "democracy thing".

But unless something is done to secure local government finances going forward, this may be only delaying the inevitable. Suffolk County Council was creaking under the costs of SEND and social care, and neither of those is going to improve any time soon, so this may be just a first step towards a Unitary County or even a Region. Only time will tell...