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.
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...
Poor old George Osborne. His government’s privatisation of Royal Mail seems to be hitting his own department even harder than the rest of us. Can you imagine – a letter he sent from his office in the House of Commons to another MP’s office took no less than five days to arrive? And guess what? The office which did not receive the letter for so long was mine.
Alongside the Labour MP for BirminghamEdgbaston, Gisela Stuart, I'm inviting local mums to join a discussion group at ASDA in Barnes Hill between 1pm and 2.30pm on Friday 5th September.
The discussion is part of Asda’s ‘Mumdex’ project, which allows mums talk about an issue that is having an increasingly significant impact on family life – the rising costs of living.
Today’s announcement of an £8m+ package to improve transport links in and around Longbridge is great news for the entire South Birmingham area. Longbridge rail station will be upgraded. There will be better passenger information, an improved interchange for bus passengers, and a better environment for cyclists and pedestrians too. The existing park and ride facility is also due for extension and...
On the 5th March, I held a debate in the House of Commons to ask the Government why two farmers’ markets in South Birmingham, including Kings Norton Farmers’ Market in my constituency, had suddenly lost their tax exemption – at the same time as huge multinational firms like Amazon, Google, Starbucks and Vodafone continue to get away with paying almost nothing.
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.