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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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Real elation that every living Israeli hostage is now free. Even one still held would have continued the nightmare. It carries on for many Palestinians Israel has abducted. I wrote about Dr Husam Abu Safiya in February . Why is he still in captivity?
Last week, our chair @richardburden27 published on his own website some personal reflections about what Remembering Srebrenica has meant for him this year.

Israeli forces are said to have dropped more explosives on Gaza than fell on London, Dresden and Hamburg combined in the Second World War. The level of destruction is hard to fathom as is the humanitarian suffering.
Our Foreign Affairs Correspondent @SecKermani looks at the…
Some personal reflections on what Remembering Srebrenica means in 2025 – for Bosnia and Herzegovina, for the wider world and here in the UK..

Kings Norton based Mechatronic Solutions this week celebrated 25 years in business.
I was delighted to attend their open day yesterday to join their celebrations and have a guided tour of their shop floor.
The latest employment figures for January 2013 were published on Wednesday.
The fall in the headline rate of UK unemployment is clearly welcome news. But here in Northfield the number of people unemployed in January was actually up on the previous month.
The child poverty figures published today paint a stark picture.
One in five British children live below the poverty line. Across Birmingham it is up to three in ten – and in parts of the constituency it is as high as four in ten. This poverty cripples a child’s chance to lead a happy and healthy life and makes it so much harder for them to reach their potential.
My letter to Birmingham City Council Leader, Sir Albert Bore and Cabinet Member for Jobs & Skills, Councillor Tahir Ali regarding the Birmingham Jobs Fund:
18 February 2013
Dear Albert and Tahir,
I wonder if you or relevant officers could answer some queries I have about the Birmingham Jobs Fund?
Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, was in Birmingham today.
I am delighted he was able to pay a visit to local West Heath manufacturer, Graves Aircraft Components, during the day.
The front page of today’s Bromsgrove Standard features the important story of one of my younger constituents, Sam from Rednal, now aged four. Sam was born with an undiagnosed heart condition. Fortunately he received a pulse oximetry test when he was born, which was being trialled at Birmingham Women’s Hospital at the time. The test picked up his heart condition and three days later he underwent …
I have been contacted by many constituents about the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill – both by those for and those against the proposal to introduce same-sex marriage. Marriage is an important statement of love and long term commitment, and has long been the main way that the state recognises and shows support for loving relationships. I believe that couples who love each other and want to …
As you may have seen in the local news, yesterday the trustees of the MG Rover trust fund visited the Acorns hospice in Selly Oak to officially present Acorns with a donation of £23,000.
This comes at the end of the long and sad saga of the trust fund set up for former MG Rover workers when the company collapsed in 2005.
Last week the government voted for an unfair attack on the tax credits and working benefits which millions of people rely on to get by. Many working families are finding things really tough at the moment. They do the right thing, get up early, work a long day, but still they struggle to make ends meet. Many of them use tax credits and benefits to top up their income as without them work wouldn’t …
This Sunday – 27th January – is Holocaust Memorial Day. It marks the 68th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi concentration and extermination camp which is the site of the largest mass murder in history. Holocaust Memorial Day is an important opportunity to remember the victims of the Holocaust and subsequent genocides. I encourage others to mark the day and to join …
It’s been six months coming but this morning the Prime Minister finally made his ‘Big Speech’ on Europe.
I am clear that the EU needs to change and work better for people in here in Britain. But the real tragedy of David Cameron’s speech today is that internal tensions in the Conservative Party won’t let him address the need for change in the EU in a sensible and pragmatic way.
New global development goals to end extreme poverty, improve health and education, and promote sustainability must be simple and measurable.
Today the House of Commons International Development Select Committee, which I am a member of, published a new report on post-2015 development goals.
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.
