They Blog For You

                    This week-end has seen numerous briefings against the Health Secretary. I have found him to be one of  the best informed, and  most accessible of Cabinet Ministers. He knows his brief well, is aware of the problems of piloting through change to the NHS, and has already secured the [...]

The political elite in SW1 are out of touch with the public on law and order, according to the Sunday Telegraph.  In a poll commissioned by Lord Ashcroft, 47 percent of voters think that no party has the right approach. [...]

A wealthy financier involved in a family dispute has made British legal history by winning anonymity in a libel case. This latest court attempt to censor internet material has led to claims that free speech is being further eroded in Britain.I am unsure how this really helps. The interests [...]

Delyn MP David Hanson attended the launch of a new book chronicling the history of Caerwys. Over...

Delyn MP David Hanson attended the launch of a new book chronicling the history of Caerwys.   Over 100 local residents crammed into the Town Hall to get their free copy of ‘Caerwys- a History Since Victorian Times’ by Dr Tim Erasmus   Around the Town Hall there was a display of the most [...]

The BMA attack on the NHS health reforms yesterday was always going to happen; it was just a question of when. In recent history, it would appear that the only time doctors were really happy was when Gordon Brown gave them a new contract – one whic... [...]

Chloe Smith, MP for Norwich North, will on Friday 11th March be visiting the Nationwide Building Society as part of her ongoing campaign to improve financial services and advice in Norwich. Chloe has been working locally with the Citizens Advice Bureau and other local organisations in the private, public and voluntary [...]

  The truth is slowly emerging. The British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has found that the objective of achieving security for the United Kingdom was attained “some time ago”, as al-Qaida had been significantly weakened in Afghanistan; and that the British military presence in that country has far exceeded the [...]

  Wales has a 'parliament' with direct powers to enact its own laws for the first time for centuries. This is the fulfilment of a long held ambition I have had since first reading Welsh history as a child. In 1953 I joined a demonstration in Cardiff calling for a Welsh Parliament [...]

      It's a seductive dream and worth a try. Pulses race at the thought that Newport best-loved icon could be listed as World Heritage Treasure. Unfortunately the local paper last night exposed the idea to mockery by claiming that the bridge compared with the Taj Mahal! Even I as the bridge's greatest [...]

I last worked in the Foreign Office twenty years ago, as political adviser to Douglas Hurd. A few weeks after he took office (bringing me into the FCO with him) the Berlin came down and I still remember vividly the amazing events of the subsequent year – the “velvet revolutions” [...]

      I am grateful to contributors for some thoughtful comments on the boom and bust question.       There is general agreement that the ERM period and the era of combining an ‘independent’ central bank with big rises in spending and borrowing did not work. I have been asked to explain  how [...]

            The Prime Minister has said he wants to explain the Big Society idea better. He has appointed a couple of Big Society advocates to spread the word.          The good news for him is that the Big Society is alive and well. I take it to mean that the public [...]

KEVIN Brennan MP has warned members of the House that the UK Government’s Education Bill will take away local democratic power from communities, teachers and parents, and put the power into the hands of Michael Gove.In a speech, during the second reading of the Education Bill, Mr Brennan urged members [...]

There is poison conflation of arguments that has created folly. On Thursday parliament will vote against votes for prisoners. It’s at best pointless and at worst damaging to persecuted people across Europe. There was a meeting  in the Commons to discuss the issue tonight. It was not a public meeting so [...]

 Total of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 352 What will David Cameron blame for his downfall when he writes his autobiography? Privatising the NHS is his main mortal sin so far. Even though almost no group that is knowledgeable about health supports hawking off the most profitable bits to the highest [...]

              Let me surprise my readers. I think one of the best things the left has done over the last couple of decades is persuade  more people in the UK that racism is unacceptable. The UK is a more tolerant and better place today.          If   The Prime Minister’s speech [...]

  It was like asking questions of history. A trinity of Cabinet Secretaries faced the Public Administration Committee this morning. I confess to being slightly awe-struck. Their very names are a thunderous roll-call of power, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster GCB, CVO, Lord Wilson of Dinton, GCB and Lord Turnbull of Enfield, KCB, [...]

                    My two grandfathers were working class. They both lived in rented accommodation, and earned their living from a skilled trade. They both spent teenage years in the trenches in France fighting for their country.   One, a farrier, had to become a labourer for the electricity company when horse shoeing went [...]

                    My two grandfathers were working class. They both lived in rented accommodation, and earned their living from a skilled trade. They both spent teenage years in the trenches in France fighting for their country.   One, a farrier, had to become a labourer for the electricity company when horse shoeing went [...]

Delyn MP David Hanson has pledged commitment to Holocaust Memorial Day by signing a Book of...

Delyn MP David Hanson has pledged commitment to Holocaust Memorial Day by signing a Book of Commitment in the House of Commons to honour those who perished in the Holocaust.     With 27th January marking the 66th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Holocaust Educational [...]