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 most of the posts on here date from that period. 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.

I have continued to blog from time to time since leaving Parliament. 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.

This front page of my website contains the text (only) of my recent tweets and retweets on X and introductory extracts from my blog posts in date order. 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.

Click on ‘Contact’ below for links to my Facebook page, Bluesky and Threads accounts and to my LinkedIn profile.

Recent tweets

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As a society we have a responsibility to ensure that every child has the support they need. Our @HWBrum report shows that we are failing in that responsibility as children and young people in Birmingham struggle to get support for Autism and ADHD: https://richardburden.com/2024/11/young-people-in-birmingham-struggling-to-get-support-for-asd-and-adhd/

.@Guardian report: Palestinians will not be allowed to return to homes in northern Gaza, says IDF. Anyone who still doubts that the war crime of ethnic cleansing is taking place while the word looks on should read this.

“We need each other. And so, for the next four years, solidarity is the name of the game. That’s what we learned, above all else, on election night 2024”

My piece on the election result and the return of Trump, from the early hours of this morning:

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Latest posts

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 …

One doctor’s eyewitness testimony of the agony of Gaza

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While the news from the Middle East is understandably now focussing on the horrors unfolding in Lebanon and the real threat of tit for tat strikes between Israel and Iran escalating into a full scale regional war, please do not forget the agony which people in Gaza and the West Bank continue to endure. So if you watch nothing else online today, please look this short video of an American doctor …

October 7 – one year on

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A few days ago, on the anniversary of the pogrom that took place on October 7th last year, Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, of which I am an Executive member, published this statement. It reflects my personal thoughts too.

Getting to the truth about Israel’s assault on West Bank towns

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In June 2023, I visited a hospital in Nablus a few hours after it had been surrounded by Israeli troops. The attacks that have been launched on on West Bank towns, villages and refugee camps this week are a big escalation but they are still part of a pattern that has been going on for years. In a statement about the Israeli military assaults in the West Bank, UN Secretary General, Antonio …

Wasteland

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A United Nations delegation has made it into northern Gaza. They made a video on their way in and it is now circulating on social media. It is hard for me to come to terms with the fact that this is the same part of Gaza that I visited last summer. I probably drove in on the same road.

Today is Srebrenica Memorial Day

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Today is Srebrenica Memorial Day: a day to pay tribute to the victims and survivors of the 1990s genocide in Bosnia, and a day to commit to challenging hate, both at home and overseas. The Remembering Srebrenica theme for Memorial Week 2024 is “I Am Because You Are”. In the West Midlands we have two Srebrenica memorial events taking place today with Bosnia and Herzegovina UK Network, one on …

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.