They Blog For You

Please visit www.fco.gov.uk for updated information. 17 March 2011 ·       We advise against all non essential travel to Tokyo and north eastern Japan given the damage caused by the 11 March earthquake and resulting aftershocks and tsunami. Due to the evolving situation at the Fukushima nuclear facility and potential disruptions to [...]

Westminster politicians sometimes make the mistake of thinking that they’ve tackled a subject because they’ve talked about it. But clever phrases are not the same thing as a policy. Immigration is a major issue and my constituents raise it with me more than ever. Dealing with immigration requires more [...]

Thanks to all those who came to my residents meeting in Ward End last night – especially colleagues from West Midlands Police. We’ll post a full write up later but the three key local issues raised were; 1. Speeding and dangerous parking – especially folks dropping off children at school. We [...]

Total of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 354   Sometimes it is possible to be too cautious. When throwing away £1.2 billion of swine flu vaccine is an example.. A hearing organised by the EPP group was held in the European Parliament today.  All points of view were represented from the splendid [...]

Thank you for your letter of 30 November 2010 to the Home Secretary enclosing comments from readers of your website about the Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) route.  Your letter has been passed to me to reply.  I am sorry for the delay in responding to you. We are clear that the UK [...]

As most constituents know, I run regular local advice surgeries. Any constituent can make an appointment to speak to me about a policy issue that’s cioncerning him or about a personal problem that he wants me to take up with a government department or agency or with the local council. To [...]

  The Public Administration Select Committee pioneered pre-appointment hearings. Sir David Normington is applying for two posts that are currently undertaken by two people. Will it mean a dumbing-down of past reforms    Paul Flynn: There are great changes ahead.  There’s a case for saying the work load for both jobs is actually increasing; [...]

The Irish Times writes of "the incompetence of the governments we ourselves elected that has so deeply compromised our capacity to make our own decisions." Yet compare Britain's scope for autonomous action today with what we we capable of twenty years ago.  Defence, immigration, trade, business rules and regulation ....    [...]

    Today’s report from the Public Administration Committee highlights a retreat from Parliamentary reforms. It may well signal a return to the sleaze of the past. In 1995 the Nolan Committee reported on standards in public life. Their introduction on MPs has a familiar ring: “A fall in public confidence in the [...]

 Total of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 342 BBC News were dozing this morning. They presented John (now Lord) Reid as an independent commentator on the need for more security. Former Defence Secretary John Reid was appointed as consultant to  the world's largest security firm while he was still an MP. [...]

FOR many years I’ve enjoyed a reputation for being a “right winger” in the Labour Party, whatever that term even means nowadays. Some of my detractors will even go so far as suggesting I defect to the Conservative Party, so far from the Labour Party orthodoxy have I wandered. I think [...]

I was sent Nick Boles’s “Which Way’s Up” to review. The first couple of chapters was full of loyal support for the Coalition government, and discussion of how Lib Dems and Conservatives had a lot in common. It seemed unremarkable. [...]

Since May, a fair number of constituents have asked me exactly what a Minister does. I should say immediately that the question is almost always put to me in a genuinely friendly way. Anyhow, since I’ve just got back to the constituency after a European trip, this is a summary [...]

Summer may be drawing to a close but there are certainly a few flip-flops still in evidence, namely amongst the Tory/LibDem coalition who can't seem to stick to a promise or make a concrete decision on anything.Today, alone (there have been many others over the past four months or so), [...]

Chloe Smith MP today urged Norwich and Norfolk businesses to give their views on immigration before the government consultation on controlling migration closes on 17th September 2010.   The government is seeking views on how a limit on immigration should work. The consultation includes questions about the coverage of limits as [...]

  Tony Blair has never had a secure grip on reality. While he was swanning around the world in the General Election 2010 I was on the doorstep for five weeks talking to voters. They raised many issues, immigration, NHS, ‘scroungers’, global warming, jobs, and the credit crunch. No one mentioned ‘New [...]

A former Director General has stated that the BBC did have a “massive bias to the left”, He admits that many BBC journalists struggled to understand Margaret Thatcher’s popularity with many voters, refused to see Euroscepticism as a serious political position and [...]

Quit handing out so many visas would be a good start. It's five years since Parliamentary questions first revealed the extent to which student visas were facilitating large scale immigration into Britain.But because immigration officials and the Home Office are not properly accountable to those we elect, little seems [...]

Polling shows that today’s Australian election is a neck-and-neck contest between Labor and the centre-right Liberal Party. Even if Tony Abbott, the Liberal leader, doesn’t quite make it to become Australia’s next Prime Minister, this has been a striking turnabout for him [...]

Today we hear that Mr Clegg will set out his proposals and vision for a more equal and just society. Here are some of the things he could address. The main reason too many people are poor in [...]