Category Archives: Blog

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!

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News reaches me of having been nominated the British Computer Society’s MP Website Award.

As part of its 50th anniversary celebration, the BCS is presenting these special awards for the MP with the website in one of the following three categories: the best design, engagement or accessibility. The winners will be announced 7 November.

Well – it’s lovely – but I have now been nominated for several web-site / blogger awards, including Channel 4 Rising Star, Political Woman of the Year and so on – and that’s as far as I’ve got!

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!

Iraqi interpreters

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In the evening I sponsor a meeting in Parliament for the campaign to treat properly Iraqis who work for the Brits during our war there.

Dan Hardie, whose blog pushed this campaign to the fore, had brought together Mark Brockway (who was in Iraq with the army and employed interpreters), Andrew (who worked on the economic infrastructure), Richard Beeston of The Times (which has given the issue much impressive coverage – except for one blip in one piece which ignored the massive contribution people like Dan have made to the campaign) and three MPs: me, Ed Vaizey and Chris Bryant.

Mark and Andrew both gave eye witness accounts of what is going on in Iraq and how those who helped us by translating or other service now are being hunted down and killed. It was graphic, appalling and compelling.

These horrors made the mealy-mouthed, half-arsed announcement by G Brown yesterday to allow those who worked for us for more than 12 months some financial (very low) package to resettle and under agreed circumstances admittance to the UK look completely inadequate.

To me, I longed for Gordon just to say what needed to be said – we have a moral responsibility towards you and you are welcome in our country. That’s what Denmark did. In fact Denmark recognising the danger in which their employees now were – flew them and their families out.

Anyway – the key issues that came up for pursuit are: the need for our military to provide proper contracts with those who work for us, proper record keeping, inclusion of family members, removal of barriers for Iraqis needing to come here (currently they cannot get visas in Iraq but have to leave and go to Jordan before they can even apply), an immediate statement from the Government to our Iraqi employees which gives them the information and instruction as to what to do to access what was in the package, a website for them to get in touch (many are in hiding), and of course – the extension of the package to all those who worked for us – not just those who did twelve months. As Mark pointed out – many of the work periods co-incided with troop turn of duty – which was often six months! I have tabled an EDM to this effect. (An EDM – Early Day Motion – is a sort of Parliamentary petition – so please lobby your MP to sign it if you’re not one of my constituents).

Tomorrow, have discovered I am No 8 on the Order Paper for Prime Minister’s Questions – so hope we get that far down the list.

Tax and spending news

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Hideous rain, rain, rain! Matched Gordon’s mood I expect. I don’t know how he sat there whilst Alistair Darling regurgitated Lib Dem policies – taxing airplane flights not passengers; going after non-doms, etc etc. Sooooo embarrassing. But the Tories, who needless to say were jeering their heads off, accusing Darling of stealing their polices – have short memories. Tories stole them from us! And then had the cheek to complain when they were in turn nicked by Labour!

It’s a hideous reality these days. I know Lib Dems have always provided a think tank for the other two – but rarely is it so immediate and so blatant. Vince Cable (Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor) – gave a heavyweight and bravura response, whereas George Osborne (Tory equivalent) was incredibly content-free and frothy.

Vince passed along the front bench the copy of the Chancellor’s Statement – which is customarily given to the opposition spokespeople about an hour before the statement is made in the house. Some of the pages were blanked out! So much for open government. Tackled on this – Darling feigned surprise. ‘Really? They shouldn’t have been’. Bastards!

Once more into the fray!

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It felt just like going back to school – but only for a moment. Then it was back into the familiar routines when Parliament is sitting and as if the summer recess had never happened.

The big one yesterday was Gordon (I used to be taken seriously) Brown – coming to the House to give a statement on Iraq. I was trying to think: if he hadn’t made such a pig’s ear of the last few weeks – would this have been well received? Partially – is the answer.

His news on reductions in troop numbers – albeit not enough – and half-hearted help for the Iraqis whose work for us in the war now means the Basra death squads are hunting them down and killing them – was typical Brown, picking up on the big issues but only making partial and unsatisfying moves on them.

As I am sponsoring tonight’s meeting on the fate of the Iraqi interpreters who worked for the British armed forces, I was glad the the pressure that has mounted on this issue (mostly thanks to the blogosphere who pushed it to the fore) had obviously got to Gordon.

As usual, Gordon threw his big arms around the Iraqi employees tent – not wishing to look bad publicly (which he does) for using them then throwing them to the dogs. But he didn’t say what he should have said. Instead we got the mealy-mouthed Gordon version which was a financial package to help resettle somewhere – and ‘under agreed circumstances’ some would be allowed to come here.

A more detailed statement will follow this week. It had better!

One sure way to tell if Cameron means what he says

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So – David Cameron’s been all over the media criticising Gordon Brown over general election dates. But whilst he’s happy to criticise Gordon Brown for what he did (and didn’t!) do, he’s dodged one question: would he behave the same way himself if he were the Prime Minister? In other words – is Cameron really sincere in what he is saying, or just going for the cheap points?

Well – his bluff, if that it is, is about to be called! As Ming Campbell announced in a TV interview today, the Liberal Democrats will be tabling a bill calling for fixed-term Parliaments tomorrow (the first day Parliament returns). We will see whether or not a certain Mr D Cameron is at the front of the queue to support the bill, or if he really secretly thinks, “actually, I’d quite like to abuse our electoral process myself too”. Over to you David!

Appearing on Radio 4's The Westminster Hour with Carolyn QuinnI might also have a bit of fun teasing Ed Vaizey, my new Facebook friend (!), when we appear together on The Westminster Hour this evening on this!

The show is starting up its regular MP panel again, so expect to hear me on a fair few Sunday evenings between now and the end of the year. It’s on Radio 4, 10pm – or if you miss the show you can listen again on their website.

No to a general election this year

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So – lovely, lovely Nick Robinson, a journalist who I only hold in the highest esteem you know (!) – is saying the general election is off. Looks like Gordon Brown wimped out in the end!

Tony Blair must be in seventh heaven – to see Gordon brought so low! And to be frank – I wouldn’t blame him. Gordon has made a right pig’s ear of the whole business – toying with us the electorate, flattered by polls, cynically using Maggie, Iraq and his big tent appointees to big himself up.

Tony Blair – with whom I disagreed fundamentally on major issues – at least had the balls to take the flak. Gordon Brown, keeping head below, parapet just let Blair take all the flak and brooded in the background resentful of their relative positions.

It’s good for Gordon to get a dose of leadership reality. It’s hard. It can be extraordinarily humiliating. It’s quite different to how all these boys it will turn out – and that goes for Brown, Cameron and Campbell. But I have always felt that Brown sneered silently at Blair’s leadership. Well – what goes around comes around.

Blair’s moment of revenge – I think!

theyworkforyou.com

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Out campaigning yesterday, I bumped into one of the guys who started faxyourmp.com, theyworkforyou.com etc – he’s one of my constituents.

If you don’t know the sites – they make it easy for the public to contact us MPs, find out what we’ve been doing, how hard we’ve been working, how we voted on different issues etc. All good stuff – and I think that even after having become an MP myself!

Having these sites is a bit like being performance managed – and basically it’s good and keeps us on our toes. As with any system of counting, there is a risk that the numbers don’t really tell the full story – or that people adjust their behaviour to come top of the stats. But they do a pretty good job of trying to deal with that – e.g. when mentioning how good MPs are at responding (or not!) to correspondence they also mention the volume they receive – because of course, the less you get, the easier it is to respond quickly to everything. (As for me? I come in the top 1% for volume of work and despite that am in the top 5% of response standard).

However, as I said to him, the only thing I found aggravating was when someone (and there are a few) faxed me every day or twice a day some query or other – because you then either end up giving them huge amounts of time at the expense of other people – or your “performance figures” ended up looking worse. He thought the solution, which they were looking at, was to have some sort of filter that only counted one contact per week per constituent in the performance figures.

He also said that lots of MPs (not me) were really grumpy with the site for measuring them at all! Well – I think that is the wrong attitude in principle. But also – the best way of getting measured sensibly is to engage constructively – as with this example of multiple contacts from one person problem. The team behind the sites do seem to make reasonable efforts to understand how things look from the MPs‘ side of the fence too – for example, I’m pleased that they recognise the vast difference in caseloads between seats like Hornsey & Wood Green (and other similar seats) and say the shires. He said there was no comparison – and yet there is no differential in the funding of all seats regardless of amount of casework. It was just nice to have that recognised by someone who measures such things.

So – if you are a member of the public – do use their excellent sites, and if there are any fellow MPs reading this – embrace the sites, don’t hate them!

Visiting the Whittington

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Having done my usual advice surgery this morning, this afternoon I met with David Sloman (Chief Exec of the Whittington Hospital). We had our usual discussion on the progress of their application for foundation status – which is seemingly progressing.

We then went on to discuss the issues around the Hornsey Hospital development as I suddenly saw a real possibility of how the new facility could be made to work well. David was saying that if the IT system that is installed was linked to all local practises and the Whittington – then we (the people) would get a proper health network whether we went to our local GP, or were referred on to the polyclinic (click here to read about polyclinics) or the Whittington. Also, he was saying, that it would be more natural if the local health trust were to commission the Whittington say, to facilitate the phlebotomy department (taking blood) at Hornsey Hospital or other natural extensions or outposts of the services.

Anyway – the point I made was that David needs to make sure he (and the Whittington) are at the table with the GP practises et al when the specifics of the new health facility are being hashed out. That’s why I keep saying – it could be great or it could be a disaster – it will depend on real, real partnerships and not the Trust simply saying this is what you will have.