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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.
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These are the main subjects on which I’ve written. Click here to view the full list of categories.
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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..

“Two years after 7 October and the kidnap of my parents, hate is in fashion. For all our sakes, we need compassion” | Sharone Lifschitz | The Guardian
Remembering all those killed and those taken hostage in southern Israel two years ago today. Thoughts with those who lost loved ones and solidarity with the families of those still held in captivity.
This by @JeremyBenAmi, who lost friends that day, is very powerful. #October7
Two years after October 7, @JeremyBenAmi writes that to honor the victims and end the cycle of horror, we must reclaim a word too often scoffed at and shied away from: Peace.
🔗 https://jstreetdotorg.substack.com/p/two-years-after-october-7-it-is-time
First of all, thank you to everyone who has sent such kind messages to me after last night’s result in Birmingham Northfield. Even though I never took this election – or any election – for granted, it is still a big blow to lose the seat I have represented for 27 years and which is my home. So all those messages mean a lot to me. It has been an honour to serve the people of Birmingham …
The Prime Minister’s bid to call a snap General Election just before Christmas will not sort out Brexit as he claims and the way he is going about it is bad for democracy. Why do I say that? Last week Boris Johnson’s Government won a vote in Parliament to give his Withdrawal Agreement Bill a Second Reading. In other words it was a vote to agree the Bill in principle to allow it to continue its …
Today’s “decisions are not just about whether this deal gets over the line, and getting Brexit done, but about what it means for our country.” For one of clearest explanations of the real dangers that Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal poses for our key industries – including for jobs and opportunities in the West Midlands – please read today’s speech in the Commons today from Labour’s Keir …
Welcome to my latest Parliamentary newsletter with a round-up of news from September. If you would like to receive these updates by email, you can sign up here. Space prevents the newsletter covering all of what I have been doing over the past month. However, hopefully it provides a flavour of some of the local issues I have taken up as well as my actions in Parliament. You’ll find updates on the …
Nobody has ever seen anything like this. We have a Prime Minster who has been found by the highest court in the land to have acted unlawfully in asking the Queen to shut down Parliament for five weeks. The Prime Minister seems to have been so sure that he would get his way that he did not even put in a witness statement to the Court. The judgement could not have been more damning. On the basis of …
Whether you voted Leave or Remain back in 2016, there is one thing we can all agree on: the psychodrama that is Brexit has gone on long enough and it needs to be brought to a conclusion, one way or another. As an MP I feel this as acutely as anyone. It is not just that arguments over Brexit have dominated debate in Parliament and beyond. The issue has created an all-pervasive atmosphere that is …
Today, Boris Johnson asked the Queen to prorogue (suspend) Parliament for the best part of a month from the week beginning 9th September. The Prime Minister claims it is simply a pause in Parliamentary business ahead of his Government announcing its legislative programme in a Queen’s Speech he has scheduled for 14th October. The reality is very different. Describing the move as a “constitutional …
Welcome to my latest Parliamentary newsletter. If you would like to receive these updates by email, you can sign up here.
Welcome to my latest Parliamentary newsletter.
Since I published my last Brexit update, the results of local Council and European elections should give all parties pause for thought. Both sets of elections saw voters express frustration at the continuing uncertainty over where we are going as a country in relation to Brexit. Last Tuesday, the online magazine LabourList, published this article from me in which I set out some of the lessons I …
Welcome to my latest Parliamentary newsletter. If you would like to receive these updates by email, you can sign up here.
I write this blog just a few days after the Article 50 timetable governing Britain’s exit from the EU has been extended until 31st October to give more time to break the deadlock in Parliament about how to go forward. As with all things Brexit-related the reaction has been mixed, to say the least. What people on all sides of the argument share however, is a huge sense of frustration that that …
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.
