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Welcome to my website and blog.
You can read a bit more about who I am and what makes me tick here. A summary of the work I did when I was Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield between 1992 and 2019 can also be found here.
The older posts on here date from my time as an MP but 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.
Here is the link to my Bluesky account, and here is the link to my Twitter/X account. You can also view my Facebook page and LinkedIn profile.
Click on ‘Contact’ below to get in touch with me.
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Israel has killed at least 71,662 Palestinians and injured at least 171,428 since the beginning of its genocide in Gaza.
Our Chair, @RichardBurden27 , was proud to represent @RemSrebWestMids at the @HMD_UK Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration in Birmingham yesterday #RememberYesterdayActToday
Organised. United. Ready to fill the streets with hope and unity.
Share this post to help spread the word. We are growing. We are building. We are #Together.
The lights are up and anticipation is building for Christmas Day. And so I thought for my final article of the year it would be an apt time to be thankful and recognise the role of community in the area and the importance of standing up for Bournville College’s future. At the very heart of communities up and down the country are local schools and colleges. Bournville College is of course at the …
Today I asked the Chancellor at PMQs about the England Illegal Money Lending Team – based in Birmingham. The England Illegal Money Lending Team is national organisation which investigates, prosecutes and supports victims who have fallen into the clutches of loan sharks. The scheme has helped over 24,000 loan shark victims. It costs £3.6m to run but has got £63million of illegal debts written off …
With winter and colder weather on the way, I want to encourage everyone to take advantage of available help, support and techniques for keeping energy bills low and heat efficiency high.
There are a number of schemes available which you may be able to benefit from.
By now, you will probably know that the House of Commons voted 397 votes to 223 in favour of extending UK participation in air strikes against ISIL/Daesh to Syria. As I am sure you can appreciate, I have received hundreds of e-mails and other communications about this issue and I have done my best to keep constituents up to date with my thoughts through email replies, via social media and on my …
With well over a hundred MPs asking to speak, there was a four minute limit on speeches when I was called so I could not cover all the points I had intended. For your information you can read the draft of the longer speech which I had hoped to make here.
This morning I wrote to the Prime Minister to seek further clarification about his plan and strategy for air strikes in Syria. Here is a copy for you to read:
Today, MPs had the opportunity to question the Prime Minister about his proposal for the UK to directly participate in air strikes against Daesh (ISIS) in Syria. I set out my thoughts on the issue of military action in Syria in a piece I wrote two months ago. Given the threat that Daesh poses to people of all faiths and of none in both the Middle East and closer to home, it is only right that …
As part of a campaign to increase engagement with politics, I recently took part in a national campaign to connect young people with Parliament and democracy in the UK. Last week (16th- 22nd November) was Parliament Week, and to mark this year’s event in our area on, I visited a local school in my constituency, St Laurence Church Junior School, to speak at the school assembly. There I introduced …
A resident living close to North Worcestershire Golf Course wrote to me last week to tell me that he had seen a copy of a recent letter from the Management Committee of the Club saying that they intend to close the Club with effect from March 2016. The resident who wrote to me asked if this meant that the land at the Golf Course will definitely now be redeveloped for housing. This does not …
A number of constituents have been in touch recently with various concerns about the UK Government’s policy towards further and higher education. Students, teachers and parents in Birmingham are rightly angry. The Government’s is scrapping University maintenance grants for the poorest students, rewriting the terms and conditions of student loans, and now there are concerns over Government …
To describe the Government’s twists and turns over the way our Police are funded as a shambles would be putting it charitably. That was the message from an emergency statement where the Police Minister was forced to apologise to the House of Commons today. Confused? You should be. It would all be comical if it wasn’t so serious. But it is serious. Very serious. It is about nothing less than the …
On Monday I was at the Birmingham launch of Living Wage Week 2015 where the new rate for the Living Wage outside of London was unveiled - rising from £7.85 per hour to £8.25 per hour. When I say "Living Wage", I mean the real one - a figure produced from independent research into what people in the UK need to get by. It's not about luxuries. It reflects the real cost of living taking into account …
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.
