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 former Facebook page. My current Facebook account is here.
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 view my latest Facebook posts here. I also have a 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.
Great news! Heakthwatch saved…
Sarah Helm has her say – and rightly so
Britain’s East Jerusalem Consulate and Israel’s E-1 Settlement: Tests for the rule of law:
Wise and moving words from
Magen Inon whose parents were murdered in their home in Netiv Haasara
On 7th October three years ago
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 …
Here are 10 things David Cameron’s Tory cheerleaders in Birmingham hope you will forget when you cast your vote on Thursday:
A lot of people have raised the issue of the changes in the Green Waste collection with me whilst I have been out talking to residents recently. I want to be honest with you. There are problems out there and I know that people around here are concerned about it. That is why, along with my local team, I have been taking up the issues residents are raising with Birmingham City Council. We haven’t …
Responding to the Government’s announcement for investment in Ultra Low Emission Vehicles from 2015-2020, Labour’s Shadow Roads Minister Richard Burden MP, said:
“We need to cut emissions on our roads if we are going to meet our climate change targets and improve air quality. But this Government has badly mismanaged funding for low emission vehicles, missing their investment target for 2010-2015.
Polling day is now less than a month away. On 22 May, people in Northfield have the chance to ensure your views are heard and make a real difference in local City Council and European elections.
You may have seen George Osborne deliver his Budget last month. But while the Conservatives continue to trumpet about the success of their long-term economic plan, many people I speak to in Northfield just aren’t feeling a recovery at all.
My Easter Newsletter provides an update on what I have been doing locally and in Parliament to represent people in Birmingham Northfield over the past few months. This newsletter covers national issues from the Chancellor’s budget, road safety, potholes, the upcoming elections in May and an update on the ‘Trojan Horse’ allegations. There are also local updates on Northfield’s budget, North …
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.
