They Blog For You

Today, the Labour Party has launched an interactive map showing local police job losses resulting from the Tory-led Government's 20% police cuts.As you can see, the Metropolitan Police - which covers Edmonton - has already announced 2,337 job cuts that will take place over a timescale of three years, taking [...]

Have you noticed your pint going up in price recently? Firstly there was the VAT rise in January, which saw an extra 6p added to the price of a pint and then at the end of March, the 7.2% increase in alcohol duty added on another 4p. I know beer [...]

Yesterday is being termed as "Black Wednesday" for families - the day the Government introduced cuts to tax credits, childcare support and child benefit that will only add to the squeeze that low and middle income families are already feeling thanks to January's 2.5% VAT increase and the affects of [...]

The Lloyds TSB Foundation wrote to me recently to let me know about the £194,800 it had invested in local community groups in 2010.The grants, which ranged from £15,000 to £36,300, were given to nine charities serving Edmonton and the Enfield area, including the Enfield Women's Centre, Crossroads Care Enfield, [...]

I was recently provided with some particularly alarming statistics on low birth weight babies. After yesterday's post on child poverty I'm sure you're all thinking that it's always doom and gloom around here but I can't help but want to desperately draw people's attention to these figures so that appropriate [...]

Would it surprise you to know that 45% of children in Edmonton are living below the poverty line, making Edmonton the joint seventh worst constituency for child poverty in the whole of England? Enfield as a borough doesn't fair much better - 37% of children live in poverty making it [...]

I've written before about the importance of keeping EMA. In simple terms, it's a small but vital weekly fund available to young people from low income families to enable them to afford the associated costs of staying on in education after 16. EMA was on that long list of things [...]

Last week I attended a TUC event in Parliament encouraging everybody to stand together for public services and specifically for the NHS. You can see me in the photo on the left - big pink hands and all - supporting the cause with Frances O'Grady, TUC Deputy General Secretary. It [...]

Here's an additional photo I forgot to add to my last post on my Deephams visit. I never thought I'd talk about sewage in artistic terms but I think this fish eye panoramic photo would certainly fall into the artistic category.In the foreground you can see work underway to [...]

Can you spot me in the picture on the left - another suit muscling in at the back?!I was up at Green Lanes to "help" with the cutting of the ribbon at the opening of the new Turkish Community Football Federation offices at the weekend.Federation Chair, Turgut Esendagli - who [...]

Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I remind the House that I offer industrial business advice to a Swedish, quoted international industrial group and investment advice to a British investment company. Some Opposition Members have expressed displeasure that Government Members should have mentioned the circumstances in Greece and Portugal. The Opposition rightly [...]

I have some exciting news! Last Friday I went along to Brettenham Primary School to meet with two headteachers from Babessi in the northwest region of Cameroon, Africa. Peter Tighighan and Joseph Bahtiengwe were on a brief delegation to Enfield to see what life is like being a [...]

Tonight I could have been at Craig Park Youth Centre in Edmonton, but instead I'm tied to Westminster because of votes and Parliamentary duties. It's little compensation for not being able to get there but I wanted to support the new 'Make Space for Health' initiative 'remotely' here on [...]

On Saturday I had to go to court. Before you jump to conclusions, I was innocent. That's probably what they all say, I know! But, honestly your honour, I was! I wasn't in the dock, you'll be relieved to hear, instead I was at Enfield Magistrates Court to help judge [...]

Boris Johnson has got at least until May 2012 to continue as London Mayor, but with tube services going rapidly downhill we can't wait that long to take action. That's why I'm supporting Labour's mayoral candidate and former London Mayor Ken Livingstone's calls for Boris to get a grip [...]

The honest answer to the question that forms the title of this blog post is, "I sometimes wonder!" When I received a recent letter from the British Science Association informing me that a pupil at Edmonton's Latymer School had won a place in the finals of the National Science and [...]

I recently received a letter from Richard Benyon, Minister for the Natural Environment and Fisheries at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, informing me that Salmons Brook has been put on the indicative list of flood and coastal risk management projects due to progress in England in [...]

Maybe you were one of the 11,278 Edmonton residents who topped up at one of the 45 PayPoint outlets across the constituency over the Christmas holiday, or one of the 848 who topped up on Christmas Day? Maybe your lights went out; your gas ran out? I bet you're glad [...]

Today the latest unemployment figures were published. Once again, unemployment has risen. In Edmonton there are well over 4,000 people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance. This equates to over 17 claimants for every job vacancy.Of the total unemployed in Edmonton, over 1,000 of them are 16-24 year-olds. Young people who don't have [...]

Have you got your copy of the Edmonton Advertiser and Herald today yet? If so you might have seen my article on police numbers. As I've said before, the Coalition is cutting the funding for the police by 20% and claiming that this can be absorbed by efficiency savings alone. [...]