It will not be revealing too many trade secrets for me to say that I am not a big fan of the Government’s “free schools” programme. I put that in quotes because I think that a lot of what Michael Gove is doing to education in this country has very little to do with freedom. In many cases, the reverse is the reality. However, one less well known approach to free schools comes from “Alternative …
The House of Commons Education Select Committee have published an important report on educational underachievement by children in white working class communities. This is a key issue for the Northfield area, and one that I’ve been looking into for years. In 2009 I held an adjournment debate on the problem after a report funded by Birmingham City Council revealed that a high number of white …
The World Cup has started and, to celebrate, it was good to visit St Brigid’s School in Northfield on Thursday. They were holding their own World Cup match. It was St Brigid’s England team against St Brigid’s Rest of the World team. It was a close match and England won 3-2. A good omen? I hope so.
Alongside Steve McCabe MP (Labour MP for Selly Oak), I’m warning that it is only a matter of time before there is a serious collision near Birmingham Council’s Lifford Lane Depot in Kings Norton. We are calling for urgent action by the City Council to resolve multiple hazards associated with traffic trying to gain access to and from the site.
If a week is a long time in politics, there can be no doubt we have seen a great deal of change in the last four! As the 2014-2015 Parliament begins, I’m very pleased to send local people May’s newsletter, which has updates on work in Westminster and Birmingham Northfield. This update covers local and national news – from the recent local and European elections, to voting for …
As has been the case across the city and country, UKIP was the beneficiary of a big protest vote here yesterday. The split in the vote for mainstream parties resulting from that worked to more to Labour's advantage in Longbridge, and it worked more to the Tories advantage in Kings Norton. Everything I picked up on the doorstep suggests to me that only a fraction of the people who voted UKIP …
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.