They Blog For You

  It’s 18 months since David Taylor died.  The grief and shock at his wholly unexpected heart attack was accompanied by the regret at the sadness of his final months. David, the retiring MP for North West Leiscestershire, was unfairly dragged into the maelstrom of the Commons Expenses scandal in spite of his [...]

Total of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 363    The calamity deepens but hope is on the way. It's nearly a month since the carefully varnished flow of half-truths were emitted from Fukushima. The Japanese nuclear company TEPCO fell into the auto-pilot of 'reassure at all times' mode. All bad news was announced [...]

  What’s the point?  One Millionaire David Cameron is married to a millionaire. He earns a good salary. What point is he making by ‘celebrating’ with a Ryanair no frills trip? The only things that make flying bearable are the frills. Why the self-flagellation? Who is he trying to impress? Most people would regard [...]

Following the tabling of our amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill, Frank Field and I have been under predictable attack via the notoriously inaccurate medium of the internet, by both the pro-life and pro-choice lobbies. http://tinyurl.com/... [...]

The government wants to do more to promote social mobility. It wants more children to enter higher paid employment from home backgrounds that brought them up on benefits or low incomes. There are many ways for young people to aspire to much higher incomes than their parents. They all entail lots [...]

Interesting article by Nick Clegg and Iain Duncan Smith on the need for greater social mobility in today's Telegraph.  They are absolutely right to point to the problem.  What bothers me are their proposed solutions, which all seem to be about government doing more. The coalition duo begin their article by accepting that Labour's big [...]

  The Newport Chartists would have said ‘Yes’ to AV. It was in my constituency in 1839 that 20 Chartists were gunned down. They were marching for democracy. All the points of their Charter were achieved – except annual parliaments.  They were impassioned because of the gross injustices of the franchise of [...]

As anyone who's had their blood pressure knows, it's very quick and absolutely 100% painless. But for some reason we seem to put off having it done. However, our aversion to having our blood pressure taken means that we're putting ourselves at risk of having a stroke. I'm an [...]

Today I have just been to speak to Ashwell School Year 6 who are here at Westminster for an educational course. The questions were excellent, all about current affairs and my life as MP. I then went to meet representatives of our local Wildlife Trust including Chair Mike Master. They [...]

When 250,000 people march in Central London to complain about cuts the government should listen, and should engage with their leaders in a sensible dialogue. There are many things I felt I wanted to say had I been invited to talk to them as Mr Miliband was able to do. I would [...]

Isn't that convenient?  Facemasks might mean arrests in future, In particular at the royal wedding - apart from bridal veils.. Any other attempt to disguises features will prove guilt and offenders will be thrown into the slammer. Soft cop on Saturday will be hard cop for the nuptials. The reactions of the [...]

David Hanson MP joins North Wales police on Saturday to back ivory surrender and protect...

David Hanson MP joins North Wales police on Saturday to back ivory surrender and protect elephants   (London, 24th March 2011) David Hanson, MP for Delyn, and Sgt Rob Taylor, Wildlife Officer of North Wales police force are to show their support for elephants by backing the International Fund for Animal Welfare [...]

But no more. Today's budget was a drama-drained drone of yesterday's press releases. In his day Gordon Brown was apocalyptic with a Heathcliff booming voice and contrived surprises. Nothing of any significance can be delivered in Osborne's squeaking falsetto. Today I had a choice. Attend my 24th budget speech or chair the [...]

Delyn MP David Hanson walked for water at Westminster today as part of a global campaign to raise...

Delyn MP David Hanson walked for water at Westminster today as part of a global campaign to raise awareness for the world water and sanitation crisis.   Marking the United Nations World Water Day, David Hanson joined hundreds of thousands of people across the globe who walked in solidarity with the almost [...]

              The government has a target to cut the administrative overhead by 30% over the life of this Parliament. This is a demanding target, but one that can be hit. It will be easiest to do so, if full use is made of people leaving public service to retire or [...]

Nobody is forecasting another Chernobyl – yet.   But there two deeply disturbing scenarios at the Fukushima Daiichi plant which could yet prove apocalyptic.   The lesser, but still very frightening, risk is that cooling via water-hosing and helicopter water-bombing will not prevent the nuclear cores at one or more of the [...]

  Mayor Boris appears to be getting his way in wiping Brian Haw's peace protest from the face of Parliament Square. He has been there for ten years.  On many winter nights I have admired his fortitude as I went home to a warm bed while he continued his protest regardless [...]

CARDIFF West MP, Kevin Brennan, has welcomed a major bank's decision to give grants to four local third sector organisations in the constituency.Pedal Power, Pen yr Enfys, Re-Create and the Cardiff and Vale Parents Federation will all receive grants of over £10,000 to help with their community work.The money will [...]

Ted Heath came to office with a sense of what he wanted to achieve. But without knowing how to make it happen, he u-turned.   What began as the Selsdon agenda to decentralise economic control ended with a prices and incomes policy.  A generation later, Tony Blair exhausted a mountain of political [...]

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 [...]