Former
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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Roy Hattersley was a fellow Birmingham MP and a key figure in Labour for decades. We came from different wings of the Party but I always knew he was someone who never lost sight of the bottom-line principles that made him Labour. RIP
Let’s call out what happened in Belfast last night for what it was – a pogrom. What a contrast with the hugely dignified response of Stephen Ogilvie’s family. Total respect for them as they face such an ordeal after the horrific attack on him.
Abolishing patient watchdog leaves NHS ‘marking own homework’, councils warn
In otherwise wide ranging interview with Health Secretary, James Murray, regrettable that @BBCr4today didn’t ask why the new Health Bill, to be debated today will scrap independent patient and public voice in health &social care. Here’s why govt is wrong
It’s two weeks into the New Year and we’re at the point where many of us forget about our resolution of shedding a couple of pounds. With that in mind, this week is National Obesity Awareness Week. Almost a quarter of children in Birmingham (23.4%) are classified as obese, compared with 10.1% nationally. Meanwhile the number of recorded cases of diabetes is double the UK average, affecting almost …
We are now just four months away from the most significant general election in a generation.
On May 7 people in Northfield and elsewhere will have the opportunity to make one of the most important choices they have made in many years.
My final newsletter in 2014 covers everything from residents’ problems with green waste, parking charges and London Midland’s ‘Leaf Fall Timetable’, to historic votes on international aid and Palestine, and the Remembrance events that people in the Northfield area took part in to commemorate 100 years since the outbreak of WW1. You can read it here. And don’t forget, you can read a …
Libraries, leisure centres, crematoriums and now street lights. It seems that nothing is safe from Tory porkies. They seem to be making a bit of a habit of it don’t they? Residents in the Longbridge ward of the Northfield District recently received a letter from the Tory prospective candidate for Northfield, Rachel MacLean, about the street lights in their area. It claimed that earlier in the …
Public Discussion with Richard Burden MP 6.30pm, 29 January 2015 Northfield Baptist Church, 789 Bristol Road South, Northfield, B31 2NQ I know that many people in this area want politicians to talk about immigration. And so we should. It is a really important issue for local people and that is why I am writing to you today. People are concerned about the management of immigration, and they are …
The Overview and Scrutiny report into Birmingham City Council’s Green Waste policies and charges published today is a serious piece of work that demands serious attention by Council leaders. Today’s findings underline that there are real issues with the Council’s green waste charge and that its introduction earlier this year was badly mismanaged. As a result public confidence in the system …
I have been raising concerns about the changes to the green waste collection service with the City Council since early this year. In September I submitted evidence to Birmingham City Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s Inquiry into the Green Waste Collection Service – calling for a suspension of the charge. You can read the inquiry’s report here. In the meantime …
There is a revealing article in today’s press about how the Conservatives are hoping that wealthy backers pumping shed loads of money into constituencies will swing May’s election their way.
Responding to the Publication of the Kerslake Review on the 9 December 2014, Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield, Richard Burden MP said: “As Sir Bob Kerslake says, we Brummies have pride and passion in our City. He is also right to identify serious problems – in relation to the strategic management of the City, its approach to partnership working and in the extent to which local people have a …
I wanted to update residents on upcoming changes to the Post Office on Kings Norton Green.I have received this letter from the Post Office Ltd, which sets out details of how the branch is to be modernise in 2015 – including with longer opening hours and new products and services. The refurbishment will mean that the branch is closed from Tuesday 6 January at 5.30pm, and will open again on …
This Saturday 6th December marks the second Small Business Saturday. After the campaign’s success last year, I’m pleased to be supporting the vital contribution small businesses make to our community in 2014. Small Business Saturday is a grass-roots campaign that started in the USA. It encourages people to shop locally and support small and independent businesses in the local community, helping …
If the consequences for people here in Birmingham were not so serious, it might even have been funny. On Wednesday, Conservative Chancellor George Osborne came to the House of Commons to make all sorts of boastful claims about the way he has managed the economy. From the arrogance of his tone you might have thought he expected spontaneous applause from a grateful public to break out across the …
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.
