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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.
This feed refreshes intermittently. Please log in to X (Twitter) to view my newest tweets in full.
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…
This week Parliament rose for the Summer recess. At the end of the week, schools in Birmingham break up for the summer too. But some of them do so not knowing what the future will look like come September. Over the past few months, I have been trying to get to the bottom of what is happening in relation to the Department for Education pressuring a number of primary schools in my constituency to …
The UK has a successful automotive industry – but we must build a long-term framework for growth On Sunday, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone was won in a Red Bull, one of the eight F1 teams based here in the UK. And whilst I don’t want to take anything away from Mark Webber’s Australian pedigree, he too lives here in Britain. The UK is also home to seven volume car manufacturers, six …
Last week I joined the Royal British Legion in the House of Commons to promote the creation of Community Covenants across the UK.
The event highlighted the importance of local communities getting behind the Armed Forces community in their own area and honouring the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant in practice on the ground.
MPs welcome independent report on Palestinian children in military custody Members of the UK Parliament have welcomed the publication yesterday of a hard-hitting report by senior British lawyers on the treatment of Palestinian children under Israeli military law. The report – funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – found that Israel is in breach of a series of articles under the UN …
I was pleased to join cancer awareness nurses at Westminster today as Cancer Research UK’s Cancer Awareness Roadshow made a special stop outside the Houses of Parliament.
The Roadshow has been touring towns and cities across the UK so that people can learn more about the steps they can take to reduce their risk of cancer and the importance of spotting it early.
Thank you to everyone who submitted their views to Labour’s policy commission looking at the future of housing in Birmingham. You can read our report online here. We received evidence from a wide range of people and organisations both locally and nationally. This evidence was very helpful in framing the ideas and perspectives which the policy commission put forward as part of the Birmingham …
These are tough times for people and their families. The local election on Thursday 3rd May is your chance to have a say on what the Conservative-led government is doing and how it is affecting you, your family and your community.
And, here in Birmingham, it is also a chance to get rid the Conservative led Council which is failing our city and its people.
It is now more than seven years since the Phoenix Four made their promise to set up a trust fund for former MG Rover workers, when the company closed in 2005.
After seven years of waiting, former workers are now being told they will receive just £3 each. That is nothing more than an insult to the people who did everything that was asked of them by the Phoenix Four and ended up losing everything.
Yes, I am a Labour MP. I want to see Labour take control of Birmingham Council on Thursday. I reckon Albert Bore and his team could do a much better job than the Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition which has been in charge for the last eight years. But Birmingham does not only need a shake up of who runs the City. We also need a much more fundamental shake up in how it is run. That’s one of the …
Birmingham has a number of primary schools on Michael Gove’s ‘hit list’ for conversion into academies.
It’s sometimes difficult to find out exactly which they are. Not surprisingly the schools themselves are reticent to have such information published. You can understand their fear of being stigmatised as ‘failures’, even though they will not necessarily have done anything to warrant being on it.
It is now more than seven years since the Phoenix Four made their promise to set up a trust fund for former MG Rover workers, when the company closed in 2005.
You may have seen the report in today’s Birmingham Mail about a High Court ruling against Phoenix Venture Holdings’ application for HBOS to disclose financial information relating to the disposal of 8,000 cars.
On a delegation with the All-Party Parliamentary Jordan Group, I visited Ramtha in the north of Jordan with Andrew Harper from UNHCR to look at the situation facing refugees fleeing from Syria and the impact this is having in Jordan.
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.
