Is Soubz ok? I’m only asking out of genuine concern for her. She has a lot on her plate at the moment, with her popularity in Broxtowe at worm-eye view; the reforms to the NHS she supports being universally tore apart by health professionals and her stance on her defining local issue, the Greenbelt, in ruins after her alignment with Rushcliffe’s strategy was rubbished, as I previously reported on here.
Not going well then. The strains are showing. Her ill-judged angry attack on 38 Degrees in her last newsletter has raised the hackles of the campaign group’s legal team, with their legal advisor David Lock QC putting together a riposte. Soubzlogic is backfiring.
Most tellingly, her behavious in the House of Commons is increasingly rabid. She’s had her run-ins from the Speaker before. Back in November, Bercow had to shout her down three times within 90 minutes, as she repeatedly heckled and interrupted against usual Commons etiquette. Highlights incuded Bercow telling Soubry:
‘I don’t want to hear the sedentary chuntering and the finger wagging and all the rest of it.’
‘she can say pooh if she wants….. (but has to) accept the ruling of the chair and either behave or get out of the chamber’.
Bad Soubz. Where do these awful manners come from? A finger of blame can go to her former boss and Health Minister Simon Burns MP, now over at transport. Quite an odious fellow, he too accused 38 Degree supporters of being ‘zombies’, and he too fell foul of the speaker when he called Bercow ‘a sanctimonious dwarf’
Nice guy. But obviously taught Soubz all she knew in proper conduct. It’s a glarring exhibition of Soubzlogic, this absolute refusal to see another argument and if one is presented, to turn into Violet Bott and threaten to “thcream and thcream ’till I’m thick”
It all blew up again last week when Soubz once again spent a debate chuntering until the Speaker rebuked her with a new level of severity:
Ah, sorry, wrong video. Take two:
I imagine Cameron is watching this with the same level of concern I am, and will agree that it’s perhaps time to shuffle Anna off to a less demanding job. Maybe head-up an inquiry into that Tory obsession, the erosion of good manners? Just a thought.
Beestonia 
Your obsession with this woman is a little disturbing. She can’t open her mouth without you jumping in and using snippets taken out of context to make her look daft.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think she has done a good job and I won’t be voting for her. But your anti-Soubz rhetoric seems a tad desperate and is tiresome.
Rather telling that you find taking an interest in your elected representative ‘disturbing’.
I’m sorry, Fluffles. You could always, y’know, find another blog to read. I’m sorry if you felt you had to read it. Is it on a compulsary reading list for a course you’re sitting or something?
That’s quite amusing. You constantly spout off about how your blog is a forum on which people may offer their views from either side of the political spectrum. Then someone disagrees with something you have written, albeit in a constructive fashion and you adopt a sarcastic tone and tell them to go away. I happen to agree with Fluffles. Should I go and read something else aswell??
Well yes, I suppose so. If you want to argue the points, then do so rather than try and dictate to me what I should write. You’ve commented three times on this blog each time with a different name and each time with absolutely no argument to put forward, just ‘i don’t like this. Stop it.’
If you want to submit a piece for me to host, please do. I’ve offered it before and I’ll offer it again. I’ll run it unedited and in full, as I do everyone on here. Game?
Likewise, don’t write a blog on the public Internet and put a comments box at the bottom if you only want to hear from people who agree with you.
Fluffles, I’ll ask AGAIN. if you want to put your point of view across write me a piece and I will print without edit. I hold myself up for public scrutiny, I give myself up for public judgement, perhaps you could follow suit rather than snipe?
I was expecting Miss Soubry to have some comment on Pickles scrapping the Spatial Strategy in favour of the new planning rules as announced last week. Pickles has made much of this as another step enpowering local people through localism etc. As is often the case reality is 180 degress the opposite to spin.
In anticipation of Miss Soubry’s blog comment I wrote a piece about how our neighbours in Ashfield were treated when their democratically elected council rejected plans for 230 houses. Pickles overuled them from Westminster. For more details see http://www.broxtowelabour.com/
Over to you Miss Soubry…..
I went to see Anna with a friend in January to talk about our concerns about the NHS. We told her we had connections with 38Degrees, and with another campaign group. She advised us to have nothing to do with 38Degrees, saying ‘they are funded by the left’. Leaving aside the fact that this would not prevent me supporting them, I asked what she meant. She said she would provide me with proof of what she said. I made it clear I would like to receive this proof. Since then, nothing, despite the fact that I have contacted her or her office three times asking. She had also promised to let us have the written record of our meeting (which went on for over an hour) taken by her assistant. I have never received this either. The second time i contacted her office the assistant said she had only just typed out the record of the meeting, and I would have it soon. About a week after this i had an email from Anna saying sorry she hadn’t let me have stuff yet, but there hadn’t yet been time to type it out. I’ve now given up.
Interestingly in our meeting, to the best of my recollection and supported by my friend’s recollection, Anna told us that she too preferred NHS services to be used for NHS contracts, and that she too felt uneasy about taxpayers money going into shareholders pockets.
Overall, I was very impressed by her willingness to give us time, but astonished by her failure to produce the ‘proof’ and the record of the meeting which she promised.
Rosemary, I’m sorry that you had such a disappointing response. I also contacted her about the NHS, after her comments about 38 Degrees on one of her newslettters (the “”more” political one”). All I received was the following:
Dear Tamar,
Thank you for your email.
I believe I have previously suggested that we meet and discuss the various matters you have raised about the future of the NHS. I repeat that request – please contact me by email or phone the office or send us your phone number so we can arrange a meeting.
I am more than wiling to hear and discuss your views and look forward to meeting you.
With best wishes,
Anna
Your experience, and others’ experiences I have heard recently about such meetings – coupled with the fact that I work full time – mean I am unlikely to meet her, despite my own annoyance of the fact that she’s probably banking on this being the case… because, fundamentally, she doesn’t take up points and concerns she doesn’t share; or acknowledge views that counter her own.
As we can see (video above) Parliament has a problem with *her own* voice – which is a serious problem for us: the constituents whose ‘voice’ she is preporting to be in Westminster. Though *which* of us exactly, I’m really not sure…
preporting = purporting
Bless her!! She cannot help having an inflated opinion of the value of her views.
I was appalled by Anna Soubry’s rude dismissal of health campaigners within her constituency and beyond. 38Degrees brings together over a million people throughout the UK. That is double the number of members the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties combined can muster between them. Many have donated to fight to defend the privatisation by stealth of health provision in this country. The organisation gathers support right across the political spectrum.
Last summer the non-emergency ambulance service for our area was privatised in favour of Arriva, a multinational company (who parent is headquartered in Berlin). Her Health Department has changed the limit on private income for NHS hospitals from 2% to 49%. Hence hospitals can use their beds and theatre time for the health care of paying individuals and insurance firms, notwithstanding the principal tenet of the NHS that care must be based on clinical need, not the ability to pay.
Pro rata the participation of people in Broxtowe in 38 Degrees runs to around 3 times Anna Soubry;s majority of 3 hundred something. Last spring she was presented with postcards from over 600 of her constituents, gathered in 3 hours on a cold February afternoon on Beeston High Road, objecting to the Health and Social Care Bill which she subsequently helped force through Parliament last April. I would suggest that these and other collective representations, which have been made to her, accurately reflect the legitimate concerns of her constituents on the direction that the National Health Service is being channelled in England.
Rather than maligning the many who share these legitimate concerns, it would behove Anna Soubry to show a little respect. But the way to test the feelings of her constituents is very simple. Call a Public Meeting to explain her case. As one of the ministerial architects of the changes in health care in England she is in a unique position to debate the issues publicly. Her attempts to dismiss wide-spread public concern as politically motivated are at best disingenuous, at worst a calumny.
David Cameron
Simple logic, Anna only wants your views on the NHS if they match hers. I have given up communicating with her as it’s pointless. When she is proved wrong on her approach to the NHS it will be too late and she will we elsewhere enjoying her MPs pension (something else that went unchallenged).
She already is somewhere else other than Broxtowe. Remember her promise to move to the constituency? I can’t remember if she said which constituency; Please remind me which one you have your eyes on Anna. Perhaps Ken/David will enable it if you keep up the good work for them in Westminster.
She really has incredibly poor social skills. I’m amazed she gets away with as much as she does.