Here’s my latest column for the Ham & High:
I never imagined when I was at Highgate Primary School, playing kiss chase in Highgate Woods, going to Muswell Hill Youth Club, being dropped at my aunt’s net curtaining shop in Wood Green High Road to play in the back whilst my mother went to work – or even later – when I was getting married at Haringey Civic Centre – that I would become the MP for Hornsey & Wood Green.
It makes travelling around the area rather strange now, because it’s not just my home but also my place of work and even if ‘off duty’ I see the signs of work all around – such as the 603 bus route I spent many years campaigning for with residents, the re-opened police station front counter, the double yellow lines to make a junction safer, the council flat that needed nagging to get repaired, the green space saved from over-development and so on.
It has been a great pleasure – and a privilege – to have had the opportunity to move on from being a councillor and a London Assembly member to having the platform of Parliament from which to help and run those campaigns.
I make it 28,000 plus people that have got in touch and I’ve helped over the years. Across them have been all manners of issues and questions and problems and challenges. There have also been some repeated themes. Often when people come to me it’s because they are angry – angry at how the government or the council has let them down, ignored them or forced an unwelcome decision on them.
From the war in Iraq, being complicit in torture, closing our vital local Post Offices and giving our schools less funding than over the border in Hackney through to the threats to the Whittington’s A&E – Labour have not understood how important are our principles and how vital the fabric of our life.
Even after all the campaigning to save the Whittington’s A&E, we still have the comments from Labour Health Secretary Andy Burnham only last week which led the Daily Express to report that, “Labour believes closing maternity units and A&E departments at local hospitals is the “right thing to do” to improve NHS care.”
With all our campaigning we may have frightened the government into saying nice words about the Whittington A&E at the moment, but with that attitude from right at the top in the NHS, what chances the future for the A&E under Labour? Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has stated unequivocally that he will not let London North Central NHS close the Whittington A&E – making him the only Party Leader to do so.
On the Whittington, as on many other issues, there is still much to be done. I know some people are cynical about politicians who only pop up just before an election, suddenly declaring their commitment to an area and making promises for the future.
Well in my case – you can judge me not just on my promises for the future, but my record too. If you take a look at my website,www.LynneFeatherstone.org, you can read my blog and news releases from over the years – in and out of election time! – with more details about many of the issues the 28,000 have raised, the questions I’ve asked in Parliament and the campaigns I’ve led or helped with.
I’m not standing for re-election promising that I’ll start doing things for our community; I’m standing for re-election because I want to continue winning victories for our community.
It has been an absolute privilege and a pleasure to serve the people of Hornsey & Wood Green. I remember the night in May 2005 when I was elected to Parliament pledging in my acceptance speech to be the hardest working MP this constituency had ever seen. And I hope that people feel that I have delivered on that pledge.
Lynne Featherstone 
Lynn….you are so well represented here in Highgate….I notice all the posters and front of lawn signs out for the Lib Dems….you will not have a problem with re-election….I’m telling everyone to vote Lib Dem….good luck to you and all the rest of your colleagues.
1:- Any parent who is threatened by a care order or adoption for their child should have the right to a hearing by a jury.Any burglar facing a possible 6 months or more in prison can demand a trial by jury but mothers who risk losing their babies or young children for LIFE to forced adoption are denied this right.No jury would take a newborn baby from a mother for “risk of emotional abuse”. At present juries in civil courts decide complicated cases of libel,slander and even city fraud.They would be more than competent to decide whether or not a child should be removed from its parents and they would not be so ready as “establishment” judges to side in nearly every case with social services against parents desperate to keep their beloved children. In 2007 the “SS” applied for 8173 care orders and only 21 were refused !Rubberstamping by “establishment judges”!Time to bring on 12 men (or women)good and true!
2:- Parents and their teenage children are ruthlessly gagged to prevent them revealing their own names, or names of witnesses in the family courts.It is indeed wicked that mothers whose babies are snatched at birth by social services for “risk of emotional abuse ” are jailed if they protest publicly and the press are restricted in the same way. Surely parents who have had their children removed should, like rape victims be free to waive anonymity and go public if they so choose?It is outrageous that in our “democracy” hundreds of babies are taken from their mothers at birth and if these mothers identify themselves by public protest they are jailed by secret courts.(Harriet Harman admitted in parliament to at least 200 parents per year imprisoned by judges at secret family courts. )The UK is the only EU member to allow “forced adoption”, and the only EU country to gag parents and jail them if they protest publicly.Both “forced adoption” and “the gag” must go !
The right to hearings by jury and the removal of the gag would not need complicated legislation and would prevent at least 90% of the present injustices.
Lynne – just read your latest emailed column. I’ve been a Labour supporter for almost all my long life, but I have to say that in my various communications with you – and with following your working life as my Member of Parliament – your concerns, your actions and your integrity are truly impressive. And you are, indeed, the hardest-working, most reliable, MP I’ve ever come across!
Best wishes.
Patricia Isaacs
Patricia – thank you so much – very heartwarming.
Can you tell me what is the Lib. Dem view on the following two matters?
1) Carers Allowance, or the lack of it. Labour promised, but when the review came out there was absolutely nothing. Just saying how much carers save the country is just not good enough, an allowance one can actually exist on is required.
2) The Higher Rate of Mobility Allowance is the qualifier for Motability, Road Tax Exemption, and VAT relief on a new vehicle if a wheelchair user, but one can only get this if one applies before ones 65th birthday. The result is that if you had, for instance, a stroke at 64 years of age, you would qualify for the rest of your life, if at 65, you would not. The difference in income is about £350 per month. The need is identical. If elected what would the Lib Dems do about this injustice?