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.
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 has been an eventful week in Westminster. The Queen addressed both Houses of Parliament to mark her Diamond Jubilee. The controversial Health Bill returned to the House of Commons. But the big political event of the week was, of course, the Budget. The Budget will be a big disappointment to my constituents. The Chancellor could have done so many things to help, but he didn’t. Instead he chose …
This week saw the Health and Social Care Bill pass through the final stages in the House of Lords. This sadly means that it is likely to achieve Royal Assent and become law before Easter. David Cameron said the NHS was safe under the Tories, but he and his out of touch government are taking it backwards. They are wasting billions on this damaging reorganisation – opposed by patients, nurses and …
The hot topic in Westminster this week is, once again, the NHS.
Not surprising, perhaps, given that the NHS is facing the biggest financial challenge in its history and, at the same time, the government has launched the biggest top-down reorganisation since 1948.
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.