Last week's partial closure of the Orwell Bridge caused traffic chaos around Ipswich - and provided the opportunity for some of the most epic political showboating we've seen for years!

Let's get a few things straight.

The number of closures on the Orwell Bridge has fallen dramatically in recent years since the variable speed limits were introduced.

There's no suggestion that anyone sabotaged National Highways' specialist equipment. It's a sophisticated bit of mechanical kit and sometimes things go wrong. Have you never been in a car that's broken down?

If there had been a northern by-pass there would still have been traffic chaos in Ipswich - it would be just as busy as the southern route and would have been unable to cope with the extra traffic without also causing delays.

But those facts didn't stop loads of people coming up with simplistic answers to questions they knew were unreasonable.

Ipswich Labour candidate Jack Abbott started by saying that new roads were needed and that there had been "Years of Inaction" on the problem.

Ipswich Star: Jack Abbott hit out at the lack of planning for the bridge closure.Jack Abbott hit out at the lack of planning for the bridge closure. (Image: Sarah Lucy Brown)

National Highways may take issue with "Years of Inaction" comment given the millions it poured into the variable speed limit scheme.

And for Mr Abbott to start going on about building new roads around Ipswich is a bit rich during the weekend when Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were telling all and sundry that an incoming Labour government would be very careful with government spending!

Mr Abbott also knows that a new northern by-pass would cost somewhere between £560m and £1bn - or at least he should know because he was a member of Suffolk County Council when it was discussed in 2020.

I also suspect that even if a new Labour government was able to spend freely, a new road around the north of Ipswich might not be anywhere near the top of its regional, let alone its national, priorities!

Ipswich MP Tom Hunt has demanded a meeting with National Highways. As an MP he's entitled to do that - but I'm not really sure what it will achieve.

He accepts it was a freak accident and to be honest when you get freak accidents like this you often do have to work a way around the problem rather than have a text-book answer.

We then had Suffolk Chamber chipping in saying the closure had cost its members £1m - a nice round figure that caught the eye but it was split between a number of firms. 

But risk is part of furniture with running a business - and roadworks will always be an issue that logistic firms have to factor into their commercial plans.

I'm not sure that the Suffolk Chamber was as concerned as some others about a northern bypass - but to describe what was clearly an accidental breakdown as "economic vandalism" seemed totally over the top.

Unintentional vandalism is an oxymoron. Vandalism is, by definition, a deliberate action. What proof does Suffolk Chamber have that National Highways deliberately damaged Ipswich's economy?

The simple fact is that in life there are no guarantees everything will go perfectly to plan every day.

The element of risk can never be totally erased - and that is what makes life worth living for most of us!

To thrash around looking for someone to blame - or to come up with totally uneconomic or fanciful solutions really does look pretty desperate.

And to raise the possibility of spending hundreds of millions - or even billions - on a project that you know the government you are trying to bring about will not support looks as if you are taking the voters for fools.

Sometimes we have to just accept that rubbish happens, get over it and carry on!