Richard Burden


Former Member of Parliament for Birmingham Northfield

Welcome to my website and blog.

I created it when I was Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield between 1992 and 2019, and the older posts on here date from that period.

I have continued to blog since leaving Parliament. The opening paragraphs of my blog posts appear at the bottom of this page in reverse date order. The “Read on” buttons take you to what I have written in full. My posts below also contain links to articles I have written and which have been published elsewhere, together with posts imported from my own Facebook page.

To view posts on a specific subject, from both during and after my time in Parliament, please click one of the buttons below.

These are the main subjects on which I’ve written. Click here to view the full list of categories.

A summary of my Parliamentary career can be found here. You can also read a bit more about who I am and what makes me tick here.

Just above my blog posts, this front page of my website also contains the text (only) of my recent posts and reposts on X (formerly Twitter). They refresh from time to time although the frequency of that is variable. I am afraid that is down to the plugin that gives the website access to X, not to me!

Here is the link to my Bluesky account, on which I also post regularly these days. Also links are here to my Threads account together with my Facebook page and LinkedIn profile.

Click on ‘Contact’ below to get in touch with me.

Recent tweets

This feed refreshes intermittently. Please log in to X (Twitter) to view my newest tweets in full.

Trump’s repulsive Gaza “plan” is understandably dominating headlines but he also says he is thinking about endorsing illegal annexation of the West Bank by Israel. What should the international community do? Phyllis Starkey and I wrote this in November

“”This guy knows real estate” says Trump’s Middle East envoy about the President’s announcement on Gaza. Theft of Palestinian land by the USA and mass ethnic cleansing of its people reduced to a glorified property deal? It’s beyond repulsive.

The Knesset ban on @UNRWA comes into force today. This is in no one’s interest and will have huge consequence on the hope of a two state solution@CommonsIDC

Pressure is growing on the autocratic government of Egyptian President Sisi to stop persecuting activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah and human rights defenders Hossam Bahgat.

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Latest posts

Holocaust Memorial Day

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I was privileged to be one of those representing Remembering Srebrenica at Holocaust Memorial Day, hosted by Birmingham City Council today. 2025 is a special year for commemoration – marking both the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the 30th anniversary of the genocide near the Bosnian town of Srebrenica when over 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were …

Gaza ceasefire: an end to the nightmare or a false dawn?

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Few people will have been unmoved by the pictures of joy and anticipation which have been broadcast from Gaza in the past twenty-four hours. After fifteen months of horror at a scale that those of us in the rest of the world will mercifully never experience, there is the chance that the death and destruction may be coming to an end.

What courage looks like

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Unarmed and facing Israeli tanks amid devastation next to his hospital, one Palestinian doctor shows the world what courage looks like. It is a photo that will come to symbolise the sheer enormity of Israel’s assault on healthcare in Gaza and its attempt to empty the north of Gaza of Palestinians altogether. It is ethnic cleansing and it is deliberate policy. It’s not even secret. It is called …

Gaza: Is it a genocide?

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“I want to tell whoever is willing to listen that what is happening in Gaza now is a genocide…We don’t teach about genocides in order to realise it retrospectively. We teach about it in order to prevent it and to stop it.” Amos Goldberg, Professor of Holocaust Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

‘Senna’ on Netflix: the grumbles of an F1 fan

Having posted a personal story about my passion for motorsport a couple of weeks ago, I am again back onto that theme with this one. It is about something else currently on TV: the drama series ‘Senna’ now streaming on Netflix. I begin by discussing the first three episodes – but I’ve since added a postscript on the rest of the series.

‘Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story’. A personal reflection

It is no secret that I have been nutty about motorsport all my life. No surprise, then, that I am currently glued to the four-part docuseries ‘Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story’, which is being screened on BBC Two. For me it brings back special personal memories, as someone who was around at the time, albeit with no more than a brief cameo role in what happened.

Gaza’s Commonwealth war graves – Remembering the past and facing the present

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On Sunday, as I have done for thirty-two of the past thirty-five years, I attended the Remembrance Day service hosted by the Austin Branch of the Royal British Legion in Northfield, Birmingham. Every year my thoughts turn to visits I have made to Commonwealth war graves both in the UK and in other parts of the world. All those visits have been both poignant and personally moving. None more so …

Young people in Birmingham struggling to get support for ASD and ADHD

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Health and social care services in Birmingham are failing to provide the care that many children and young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and/or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) need and deserve, with parents and carers reporting waits of a year or more for assessment and diagnosis, problems getting referrals and a lack of support to help them care for their child. Read …

Statement on planned closures of Birmingham day centres

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This is a statement I made in my capacity as Healthwatch Birmingham Chair, which was published on the Healthwatch Birmingham website: Healthwatch Birmingham shares the widespread concerns about Birmingham City Council’s (BCC) decision to close four day centres. Our research underlines how valuable day centres are to the often vulnerable people who use them and their carers. They provide important …

‘A Secret Country’ revisited

I am writing this after news has come through that independent senator and Indigenous activist Lidia Thorpe has heckled King Charles in Parliament House during his tour of Australia. Her protest does not seem to have been motivated by hostility to Charles personally. It was about the British monarchy as a symbol of the brutal impact that colonialism has had on the Indigenous people of Australia …

Recent Posts

Richard Burden

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I was Labour Member of Parliament for Birmingham Northfield between 1992 and 2019 and a former Shadow Transport Minister. I now chair Healthwatch in Birmingham and Solihull, and the West Midlands Board of Remembering Srebrenica. I also work as a public affairs consultant. I am an effective community advocate and stakeholder alliance builder with a passion for human rights. I am a trustee of the Balfour Project charity and of Citizens Advice Birmingham, and a former Chair of Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Get in touch

You can reach me by email at richard@richardburden.com or use the form on the Contact page to send me a message.