Former
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.
This feed refreshes intermittently. Please log in to X (Twitter) to view my newest tweets in full.
Anxiously awaiting news that this week’s round of prisoner/hostage exchanges will indeed go ahead.
Those held and their loved ones are going through unbearable trauma. In thinking about them, it has also brought back this personal memory from 2011 http://richardburden.com/2011/12/isra…
We condemn in the strongest terms the arrest of my friends Mahmoud Muna and Ahmad Muna, Palestinian booksellers and owners of Jerusalem’s Educational Bookshop, by Israel’s occupation authorities.
The arrests of Mahmoud and Ahmad is a stark reminder of the ongoing campaign to…
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 https://labourlist.org/2024/11/labour-israel-donald-trump-international-law/?amp
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 …
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 …
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.
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 …
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.
The appalling violence seen in several British towns and cities over the past week has taken my thoughts back to an event attended by hundreds of people in Birmingham last month. We were all there to both remember the past and to make a commitment for the future …
A video featuring highlights of the Remembering Srebrenica memorial event, held at the Council House, Birmingham, on 11th July 2024.
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 …
While my own and many other people’s eyes are focussed on the UK General Election this Thursday, please take a moment the following Thursday (11th) to remember the 29th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, which took place in July 1995. Better still, if you can be in the centre of Birmingham at lunchtime on 11th, please join us at Remembering Srebrenica’s memorial event at Birmingham City …
A new candidate will be standing for Labour in my home constituency of Birmingham Northfield on 4th July. His name is Laurence Turner and he has my support as someone who lives here and who represented the area in Parliament for 27 years. My backing for Laurence is, of course, tinged with sadness. My last blog post on here welcomed the prospect of my good friend, Alex Aitken, winning the seat for …
Two years ago, I posted the statement below on social media, announcing that I did not intend to stand again for election as MP for Birmingham Northfield. At the same time I voiced my support for Alex Aitken to become the next Labour candidate for the constituency. With the General Election having finally been called, on 4th July I will have the opportunity to vote for Alex to become my home MP …
Labour says it will listen to its supporters’ concerns over Gaza. Now it must show it understands what that means. (An extract from an article originally published by Labour List.)
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.
