Soubry has come out for the badger cull, on the 5th June she voted for the cull. This is rather unfortunate, as the constituency she represents has a badger as it’s symbol – brox /brocks, geddit?
In light of this vote, it has been decided that the council coat of arms be altered accordingly. Myself and my colleague Christian Fox (no relation to any of the other quadrapeds Tories love to kill) have therefore redesigned the crest:
My last piece has provoked a fair bit of comment, especially the final, sweary paragraph. I stand by it, but acknowledge it may have been a tad strong for some. Apologies if offended.
Beestonian Simon Cross got in touch with the offer of a guest piece on Soubz swearing, and an explanation of why she’s so fond of the choice vernacular.
Over to Simon:
It is now commonplace to claim women are taking men on at their own games though not necessarily in socially progressive ways. For instance, alcohol abuse amongst young women has been rising for some years showing that women can beat the men given the opportunities. But what about other areas of modern life where men traditionally have taken the lead requiring women to put up or shut up?
One might think of the relatively small number of women who enter politics showing that they can make their voice heard in a male-dominated world. Mrs Thatcher famously told a reporter that she wanted to be Prime Minister because men up to this point had made such a bad job of it. What though of that particular game that many men tend to play: partaking of profanities in public places?
The question is important because of late our Member for Broxtowe has gained national prominence as the swearing politician. Will Anna’s public profanities be of concern amongst the good voters of Broxtowe? I think that it will concern more than a few citizens; in particular Broxtowe Woman whose non-partisan vote in the 2015 General Election will determine who takes this marginal seat.
Could Anna’s profane antics come to influence how Broxtowe Woman votes in the next General Election? It may seem a stretch to say that it might but we can reasonably wonder as to what women of our constituency (and nationally for that matter) make of her effing-and-blinding on the national media stage. I suppose it is possible that women will reckon that our expletive-minded Anna has learnt that to be seen as ‘independent-minded’ one ought to swear in a ‘manly’ sort of way sending a strong signal that one is in touch not only with Broxtowe Man but every effing-Man-in-the-Street.
But this involves a political danger because sweary Anna is sending out a message about how women must behave in politics to one part of her constituency only: Broxtowe Man. The message is that we should effing well be proud of sweary Anna because our effing Member is a mover and shaker in the effing Westminster Village, which is an effing man’s world. Before that she was an effing Barrister-at-effing-Law helping bang up the effing Bad Boys and before even that was an effing TV journalist on Central-effing-Weekend keeping effing plebs (which no Tory should ever effing-well make reference to anymore) in line, which as Anna is the effing first to admit was effing s*** telly.
My sense is that our effing Member is uttering profanities because she thinks it ‘manly’ and by casually swearing in the public domain (which in some contexts can be a criminal offence, which I’m sure she understands is because it is offensive ) imagines that we voters think she is the kind of woman to ‘get things done’. By taking on the men at their own swearing game she proves she can do it better. Whether Anna’s aping of male profanity appeals to Broxtowe Woman time will tell.
To define oneself as having a record of ‘free speech’ as Anna puts it on her website has more than one meaning. Ironically her bout of swearing shows she is constrained to speak in a ‘manly’ way. In this sense Anna is not only a parody of free speech but the diametric opposite of a parliamentarian like Dr Sarah Wollaston, MP for Totness and regarded as truly independent Tory voice. As it happens Anna’s lax lexicon confirms her conformity underpinned by her record of voting as she is told (no MP in recent times has gained ministerial office by being truly independent of party High Command).
My guess is that when it comes to the next General Election Broxtowe Woman will note the boorish side of Anna Soubry’s personal and political character aping Saturday night louts.
Simon Cross 2013.
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And before you go, please make your way to your local newsagent and pick up a copy of The Nottingham Post today: my monthly Saturday column starts today. The by-line picture is amusing: it’s just my eye. I’m not sure if this an editorial decision to ensure I don’t put readers off their food, or an error. Either way, it suits me.
I wasn’t going to write a post today: the sun is out and the air spring-soft, so I was devoting the time I normally spend typing to grasping a spade and a fork and turning my garden into something that looks less like Amazonia. But hey, I popped in for some tea, flipped on BBC News and watched as the newsreader, half-way into a piece about a poet murdered under the Pinochet regime, suddenly stuttered, lost his composure and listened wide-eyed to the message his producer was evidently barking in his ear.
Something’s up, I realised. Some big news is a bout to break. For a terrifying moment, I thought North Korean nukes might soon be arriving in Britain and I resurrected the survival plans I drew up in the Eighties ( painting myself white to deflect the blast, running up Bramcote woods where I’d buried loads of cans, reading the SAS Handbook cover to cover and purchase some firearms to fend off the inevitable mutants).
But no. Thatcher had died. It’s like losing your virginity. When younger, you assume it will happen one day, but as time ticks on you start to think, well, it just might not happen, somehow. And then it does, out of the blue, and you first tell all your mates and get pleasantly, jubilantly drunk.
Is it right to revel in another’s death? It’s not in the best taste, I vouch, but if one has no respect for the living, then one cannot expect respect in death.
Her legacy still haunts this country: the division between rich and poor and North and South still torn asunder. The monetarist policies she put down sold our utilities to plutocrats who now claim huge salaries and bonuses while profiteering off the back of huge bills , while inviting former Tory MPs to sit on their boards; disintegrated worker’s rights with union laws that would have made the prosecutors of the Tolpuddle Martyrs blush; triggered a pointless war which claimed the lives of my father’s friends- my dad being a former Royal Navy submariner who hit civvy street just months before his mates were sacrificed for a crap chunk of rock full of sheep-farmers in the South Atlantic.
Ah yeah, Matt, she was a great feminist icon. Are you sure? She refused to promote women in her cabinets, which had less female representation than any other dating back to Macmillan. She was female. She was no feminist. The same logic would have it that Gandhi was a great skinhead icon.
Ah yeah, Matt, but she gave the poor the right to buy their council houses. Yes, she did, yet the great majority of these are now in the hands of the private letting sector. This was not a policy to somehow empower the working class, this was a cynical way to lever social housing out of the hands of providers and into the market. The Bedroom Tax currently causing a stir is a continuation of this terrible policy.
Recently released Cabinet papers show that she would have gone a lot further if allowed: the complete dismantling of the NHS, the Welfare State reformed into dust and the Social Contract torn up by the Unseen Hand of Adam Smith. She may have died. These insidious ideas live on with our current regime. Divide the lower classes into blaming each other, keep the City happy, be as economical with the actualitie as you need to be to ensure that seat on the board is kept warm for when you tire of politics.
Thatcherism is far from dead, and it’s exponents are presently thriving. Kay Cutts, who works beneath a framed portrait of The Wicked Witch of Westminster, is it’s most obvious local face. Our own MP, possibly unconciously, moderated her own East Midlands accent since her telly days. It’s now deeper, slower, and more clipped. But was she a fan?
Her offical released statement skims over the usual cliches without adding a personal slant, but rather curiously, get’s the most basic bit of history wrong:
…her legacy leaving Britain far better off in 1997 than we had been when she was first elected in 1979.
Just the six years out, Anna. Mind you, back in the early nineties, Soubz had much more important things to dwell on, such as the complex plotlines of Australian soaps:
So it’s unclear if Soubz is/was a massive Thatcherite or not. But be vigilant. Maggie might have not actually died, merely moving into her next host body….
Loads of stuff to cram into a post tomorrow, dealing with what looks like a new future for the media in Nottingham: you’ll have to wait for that though. I also have a bit of news about when I met the Shadow Minister for Small Business (and our erstwhile MP, Dr Palmer) last week, and got into a bit of an argument. However, a few quick things to run through before I hand over to a guest contributor, Rish Baruah.
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So I’ll confuse usual readers instantly by giving Soubry a round of applause. Yep. Credit where it’s due, she’s pledged to vote in favour of same-sex marriages this week: it’s rumoured that some marginal Tories will vote against, or simply abstain, but Anna has been pleasingly bullish and pledged to vote. So well done, Anna. There, I said it.
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News reaches me that, hot on the heels of the closure of Hoggs butcher, Beck’s Bargains is to shut very soon. I best state this is not as yet verified as I only heard after it had closed for the day, but it seems the staff were given no notice, but successfully protested their rights and were as such granted a stay of execution. I’m sad it’s going: where else can you pick up five – yes FIVE- Crunchies for a quid?? It’s about as far from Waitrose as it’s possible to get, but that is not a complaint. Friendly staff, super cheap food, recycled plastic bags. Boo to the owner, i say. What a loser…
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Right, over to Rish, (who is more famous for being the brains behind Forest blog http://www.eighteensixtyfive.co.uk, and the former assistant editor of The Beestonian. Usual disclaimer, the views of hosted pieces do not necessarily reflect my own views, etc.
Be careful what you wish for
If ever a constituency was a microcosm of the country as a whole, it is surely Broxtowe. A wafer-thin majority, whereby the Tory candidate won the balance of power by the Lib Dems splitting the opposition vote; a diverse constituency featuring some affluent areas, and some areas which are downright struggling; a demographic featuring young single mothers, council tenants, private renters, middle-class families, and a number of elderly residents.
Despite having roots a couple of miles down the road, I have always had an affinity for Beeston; it just always seemed to have more personality and community spirit than the part of Wollaton in which I grew up. I have lived in Beeston for eight years now, and although interested in politics would not describe myself as an activist or an advocate of direct action; more someone who occasionally expresses concern for the world in which I live.
I am probably preaching to the converted here, but Nick Palmer was always a delight on the occasions on which I have sought his counsel; prompt to respond, willing to explain his reasons if he disagreed, and also willing to admit when he made mistakes. Of course, he is a politician, so I don’t kid myself that he is entirely altruistic – I suspect that his Hustings confession that it was a mistake to support the war in Iraq was at least partly politically motivated.
Anna Soubry is a very different animal, and that in itself is not a bad thing, until you consider some constituents’ experiences:
- Slow to respond to correspondence, and in many cases, not responding at all
- Very eager to speak up for the needs of the constituency, even though many of the residents of Broxtowe won’t even recognise the concerns
- Misrepresenting* issues, such as her comment in Parliament about the postal workers (as reported by Matt at the time)
Now, in her role as Public Health Minister, she has stoked quite a fire, which has been well-reported and much-debated elsewhere (including this wry piece of satire), and her appearance on last week’s Question Time was actually quite intriguing; who would have thought the Member of Parliament for Broxtowe would get jeered by an audience in Weymouth? If you are anti-Soubry, you would not have needed to deconstruct her performance as she did herself few favours.
Of course, it would seem as though Anna Soubry is being prepared for great things by the Conservative Party; her rapid elevation to Junior Minister suggests that. However, what use is that when she is in real danger of losing her seat at the next election? The cynic would suggest that any publicity is good publicity, at least in the eyes of the party mandarins.
I asked my fellow Broxtowe-dwelling colleagues what they thought of her (admittedly a self-selecting sample, if you consider where I work). A Kimberley dweller said that she was doorstepped for over twenty minutes by Anna Soubry while canvassing for the 2010 Election, and Anna just would not take no for an answer. My colleague hasn’t seen her in Kimberley since then.
“So what?” I hear you cry, “that is just what politicians are like in this day and age. That is why turnout is falling; we don’t really have much of a choice.”
This, dear reader, is why I am going to finish where I started; Broxtowe is a microcosm of the country. A wafer-thin margin keeps the ruling elite clinging on. The difference is that Nick Palmer and Anna Soubry are very different creatures, and now we can judge each of them on their track records as the Member of Parliament for Broxtowe. As constituents, we do have a real choice to make, and your vote at the next election will make a real difference.
RB
* I use the word “misrepresenting” advisedly
For no discernible reason, Soubry is due on Question Time in Portsmouth tonight. After the government suffered it’s worse week ever, with the penta-whammy that was GreggsGate, Cameron For Hire, Francis Maude’s petrolheaded idiocy, the worst received budget in memory and the leak tonight that we’re back in recession; this is make or break. A stirling defence, and she can tart eyeing up a front bench position. A flop, and she’ll be seen as the sacrificial lamb offered to the Dimblegod.
I’ll be on twitter (@Beeestonia, note the three ‘e’s) giving live commentary and examine any claims she makes, but for now I want to publish a great letter I was recently CC’ed into, with Soubry the main recipient. It’s a long one, but a wonderful demolition of our beloved MP’s stance on the NHS. Better stick in a disclaimer: Tamar, the author, is my designer/ columnist /all -round publishing wizard on The Beestonian. Which has it’s latest Issue, number 7, out tomorrow, and it’s a visual feast: we’ve gone and done it in colour to mark the arrival of spring. Or the fact our printer pressed the wrong button. One of the two. Anyhow, over to Tamar:
Dear Ms Soubry,
I have read your open letter in response to the ‘Keep our NHS Public’ postcard petition. Unfortunately, it has done nothing to allay my fears about the Health and Social Care Bill. Many of the points you make sit uncomfortably, they read as vague dismissals of your constituents’ genuine concerns about, and disagreement with, the Health and Social Care Bill.
I would never have guessed you would simply argue that all opponents to the Bill haven’t read it / have read but don’t understand it, or are simply, deliberately misleading everyone else in order to… what? I’m not sure. However, it appears as though that’s exactly what you have done.
I would like to address the points you make that concern me most, and respond to them individually. I have quoted statements from your open letter to me and other constituents (emboldened in green) and follow with paragraphs of my response to your statement. I do so in the realistic acknowledgment that you may only have the time to read a small section at a time before interruption. Also, I don’t normally ‘do’ this sort of thing, so it’s easier for me too…
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“There are no plans to privatise the NHS or any part of it.”
The NHS will be treated like a private industry because the Bill will subject the whole NHS to the EU requirement to enforce Competition Law. It will also leave NHS hospitals vulnerable to private take-over because they will have to become Foundation Trusts. Foundation Trusts are autonomous, so will have to fund themselves through bank loans etc. and only have to generate 1p more NHS income than private income. Therefore, that’s hardly ‘not private’, is it?
Furthermore, many of the executives of the bodies assigned to oversee the NHS have experience in privatising public business, some even receive six figure salaries from current NHS outsourcedservice providers. There are already areas within the NHS that are tendered out to private companies – public relations companies for example – in areas that were formally provided by public sector staff. Not to mention the sheer amount of lobbying done by US healthcare corporations who know they stand to benefit from the Bill becoming law.
In 2011, you gave assurances to a group of Physiotherapists who came to discuss the Bill with you that the NHS would continue to be “funded by the tax payer”. I’d feel somewhat misinformed by that assurance, were I them.
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“The very first clause of the Bill sets in law a responsibility on the Secretary of State for Health that he or she must continue to promote “a comprehensive health service{…}” which must be “free of charge. Either the people who are running the campaign against the reforms haven’t read the Bill of they have and are deliberately misleading people, like you, who care so strongly about the NHS.”
This was already set in Law. Despite the many amendments to the wording, the Bill removes the duty of the Secretary of State to provide or secure the provision of health services in relation to providing free healthcare in that he/she is no longer responsible for providing said healthcare but only responsible for securing their provision through specified bodies. If any of us is unhappy with aspects of decisions made by these specified bodies, we will no longer be able to complain to our MP or Health Secretary because these bodies are autonomous. You know this. Why then, do you seek to mislead your constituents?
Quite why this clause needs to change from the 2006 version has not been explained, yet it is obviously extremely important else it would not have attracted so many wording changes since the Bill’s conception. Could it be that, if this first clause was removed the EU Competition Law implications could mean the large fines for the Government, I wonder…?
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“We have increased the amount of money going in to the NHS budget – even whilst we are having to make cuts elsewhere. […] by 2015 there will be an extra £12 billion going in to the NHS.”
I simply draw your attention to John Healey’s challenge of Mr. Lansley regarding this, “The OBR’s [Office for Budget Responsibility] inflation figures mean that the NHS will not get the 0.4% real increase that he bragged about and that was stated in the spending review; the NHS will get a 0.25% decrease – a cut – in funding, as has been confirmed today for me by the House of Commons Library.”
The House of Commons Library figures also show that, when taking into consideration the social care funding to the NHS, real term change from the previous year is DOWN 0.64% in 2011/12, and DOWN 0.02% 2012/13; 2013/14 is spot-on the same.
You fail to take into consideration, or mention, that the cost of reform brought about by the Bill could be as much as £3 billion; the demands on the NHS to make £20 billion cuts or that inflation will effectively cut the spending power of the NHS. GPs right now are costing £1 million a year in Locum costs as they spend up to 4 days a week tied-up setting up Clinical Commissioning Groups (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/12/nhs-reform-gps-too-busy) , and someone has to do their day job – part time or not.
Again, back in 2011 you claimed the amount the Coalition was ‘giving’ to the NHS was being increased by “£11.5 million over the next four years” (www.stapleford-notts.co.uk/anna_soubry_mp__broxtowe-2.htm) which is it? Considering the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics alone is going to cost £40 million – so this figure seems like crumbs.
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“I believe GP’s and nurses in Broxtowe will make better decisions about the needs of patients in our area than administrators based in the north of the County, or in Whitehall.”
If so, why do you not listen to them when they withdraw their support for the Bill, or make statements saying that it “will damage the NHS” (Royal College of Surgeons)? Why do you dismiss the representatives as being “part-time” or say that the vote is not relevant because of the numbers that took part? The results (released today) of the survey of its membership carried out by the Royal College of Physicians found that more than 6,000 (69% of those who responded) of its members called to reject the Bill, and nearly 5000 (49% of those who responded) called to withdraw from the Bill entirely (you may well argue that the response was low for this survey, but I would point out that it was the highest turnout of any survey of the Royal colleges, and a higher percentage than voted for a Conservative government). It goes on to detail quite clearly their main concerns (http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/press-releases/results-rcp-health-and-social-care-bill-survey). Other societies held a vote of their fellows in their General Meetings, some of which contained hundreds of the country’s leading experts in their professional field. Yet you chose to suggest that they too must have not read the Bill/ not understood it or are seeking to deliberately mislead their colleagues and the population as a whole. Despite having a great deal to gain by the passing of the Bill, the Royal College of Surgeons has withdrawn its support of the Bill. It seems to me that it is the Government who is actively seeking to mislead others. The greatest example being that we have had no referendum on this.
We asked you to please listen to the clinicians – to listen to the British Medical Association, Royal College of General Practitioners, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Midwives, UK Faculty of Public Health, Royal College of Radiologists, Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, British Geriatrics Society, Community Practioners and Health Visitors Association, Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Royal College of Psychiatrists, Institute of Healthcare Management, Royal College of Gynaecologists, The Allied Health Professions Federation (on behalf of The College of Paramedics, The Society and College of Radiographers, The British Association/College of Occupational Therapists, The British Dietetic Association, The Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, The British and Irish Orthoptic Society, The British Association of Prosthetics and Orthotics, The British Association of Dramatherapists ,The British Association of Art Therapists, British Association for Music Therapy) British Psychological Society and the Royal College of Surgeons – who do not/are unable to support the bill, have withdrawn support of the Bill or believe the Bill “will damage the NHS” – or nearly a million people who have petitioned the government (‘Drop the Bill’ e-Petition = more than 175,000, and 38 Degrees more than 541,902 people). But you have ignored us, and them, and went along with it anyway.
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“But unfortunately Labour skewed the financial side of things so that the private sector received more money (about 11%) for the same treatments provided by the NHS. The Health Bill stops this from happening; now the NHS, charities, not for profit organisations and other private organisations will operate on the same footing.”
But you will make it up to around 14%?! You know that this is in part to make up for their exposure to Corporation Tax, and more favourable public sector pension provisions. Why do you “skew the financial side of things”? Professor Allyson Pollock goes into detail on this, “Despite the claim of a “level playing field” for the mixed public-private competitive market, in fact it will be operated at a 14% advantage in favour of the private sector. This calculation is reported in the Combined Impact Assessments of the reform, last issued at the end of 2011, and was carried out by KPMG, which is among the private organisations expected to gain most from the passage of the Bill. It awards compensation to the private sector for their exposure to corporation tax and VAT-exempt supply status and for more generous public sector pensions. It also penalises the public sector for the “advantage” of access to “cheap” funding through PFI. None of the cost advantages to the private sector are included in this calculation.” (Statement in response to the Lib Dem “40 points” document by Professor Allyson Pollock, David Price and Peter Roderick – 9th March 2012)
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“GP’s will continue to be able to get health treatments from both the NHS and the private sector – which includes charities and not for profit organisations. But they will not be able to choose the cheapest treatment – instead, the criteria will mean they will need to choose the best treatment. And your GP will be able to offer you a choice of where to go to get the best health care you need. So when the opponents of the Bill talk about “competition” what they fail to explain is that a charitable organisation offering a treatment for, say, older patients will “compete” with the NHS offering a similar service on the basis of which one is the best for the patient, not which one is the cheapest.”
You fail to mention, however, that Under EU procurement law one of two procedures must be used whenever public sector procurement is carried out through competitive tendering. One of which is based on cost, and the other (the “Most Economically Advantageous Tender”) combines cost and quality. So your statement that procurement in the NHS will ‘not be on which is cheapest’ is misleading.
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“The other important part of the Bill places a statutory duty on everyone involved in the NHS to reduce what are called “health inequalities”, a problem that got worst under the last government.”
The BMA doesn’t agree with you. They say, “If passed the Bill will be irreversibly damaging to the NHS as a public service, converting it into a competitive marketplace that will widen health inequalities and be detrimental to patient care”. The Allied Health Professions Federation of Health doesn’t agree with you either, “The competitive approach to the delivery of health and social care as proposed by the Health &Social Care Bill could well discourage integrated care pathways leading to fragmentation of services.” And neither does the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, “We believe that the Bill will undermine choice, quality, safety, equity, and integration of care for children and their families. The NHS outperforms most other health systems internationally and is highly efficient. The 2010 Commonwealth Fund report on seven nations ranks the UK second overall and best in terms of efficiency and effective health care.” It goes on to say that competition-based systems are less efficient, and that Children with disabilities or chronic conditions will suffer most, “A family with a disabled child will find it more difficult and complicated to organise a complex package of care, because integrated working between the NHS and local authorities will become much harder to achieve.” (http://press.thelancet.com/Paediatricians.pdf)
Anyone with more than one chronic condition will be affected by this lack of efficiency; and it could multiply for each condition, as specialist conditions require specialist care and these will not necessarily be integrated in the way they currently are.
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“I think people opposed to the Bill have somewhat taken advantage of people’s genuine concerns and heartfelt support for the NHS.”
I think that people who oppose the bill share the genuine concerns and heartfelt support for the NHS. I know, because I am one.
People who have led demonstrations, petitions and active campaigns have merely scrutinised the Bill (I too have read it. So have many of my fellow opposers to it) and translated it into a summary more suited to the busy, tax-paying, NHS-using man or woman on the street. You acknowledge that it is a complex, technical document. But you also go on to patronise people, your constituents, who have taken the time to read and decipher it for themselves or by calling on greater experts within medicine via the media and the internet. The difference between the opposers to the Bill and yourself, Ms Soubry is that they have listened to the experts where matters fall beyond their own field of expertise or understanding. You and your colleagues in Government have allowed clinicians and the medical experts’ words to fall on deaf ears; you’ve blocked them out.
You have dismissed the clinicians’ claims to ‘being in the majority against the Bill’ because you consider the numbers voting or responding to surveys not representative of this. You forget, Ms Soubry, that this country did not vote for the Conservative party; we did not vote for a Liberal Democrat/Conservative Coalition government. Furthermore, we did not vote in the General Election with this Bill on the horizon. This top-down reform was not only not part of any Party manifesto; it was not part of the Coalition agreement. However, Mr. Cameron did state quite clearly, “With the Conservatives there will be no more of the tiresome, meddlesome, top-down re-structures that have dominated the last decade of the NHS” (and the Coalition Agreement reiterated this statement later). This u-turn would appear to paint Mr. Cameron as either a liar, a manipulator or, in the very least, someone who can’t be trusted not to go back on their word. His word means nothing. The BMA has said, “…over time, it has become clear that this is the most top-down reorganisation the NHS has seen since its inception… the ability for ordinary GPs to change things will diminish.”
To add insult to injury – and despite all the listening to “arguments for and against” you have been doing, or not doing, “at length” – we have not had a referendum on this. Redefining the remit of a crucial public service so categorically without consultation of the elective who fund and use it is nothing short of tyrannical.
I whole-heartily believe you should be ashamed of yourself for supporting this Bill, and for failing to represent the interests of your constituents to the Government.
I’m sure it will become very clear, in the days, months and few years after this Bill goes through that, although the present Government may have felt it had a lot to gain by getting this Bill through parliament, ultimately it will lose everything. Because at the next General Election I imagine it will be elected off the premises.
I hope you take the time to consider these points. I know they will do nothing to change matters. But I want to convey to you very clearly that, as my MP, I hope you will in future refrain from making the assumption that your constituents are merely ‘sheep’ led about by others in forming their opinions. We are not so different to you – we are capable of reading the Bill, and of hearing a person’s words and understanding them. And, especially in the absence of any clear and accurate information we can trust, we most certainly can, and do, go on to find out the information for ourselves.
Thank you. I do appreciate your time and attention.
Yours sincerely,
Tamar Feast
Beeston,
Nottingham.
Cc. The Beestonian
Wilkos
Another busy week beckons. On Wednesday, at 7pm, the Wilkos petition will be presented to a full meeting of Broxtowe Borough Council. As it has been such a success, now in excess of 3,000 signatures, it’s automatically triggered a debate in the chamber. This is good news, and if you can, come and join me on the public benches to see what your elected representative intends to do about it. I’m going to publish an article about the present situation tomorrow, and it’s going to make you very irate if you care about Wilkinsons continued presence in Beeston and the fate of the workers who face looming redundancy.
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Hindu Temple
Until then, a few updates. I appeared on BBC Radio Nottingham last Sunday morning, talking to Sarah Julian show, in an interview about the Hindu Temple campaign. Hopefully it triggered more cards, but I can’t thank you enough for what you did in response to my appeal. They’ll be more news leading up to the opening of the temple, and I for one can’t wait to see it when it’s completed. Until then, let’s hope the miserable specimens who smashed their windows get pulled in by the police, or at least realise that bigoted small-minded hate is not welcome in Beeston.
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Question Time
After a couple of appearances on radio and the local press, it was only natural I further my new career as a media tart by getting on the telly. So when Question Time came to the Djanogly Academy in Sherwood Rise, I got myself an invite, put on a nice shirt and toddled along.
We were put in a holding pen for an hour, with free tea and biscuits. Suddenly, a hushed murmer swept the room: Dimbleby had entered the room.
He was as suavely debonair and urbanely avuncular as you’d expect, and we were putty in his hands. He explained the set-up of the show, complimented Nottingham on the quality of his shoe-shops and the whole room really wished he was their uncle.
We headed to the studio, and took our seats. Unfortunately, these were at the back of the auditorium so when the recording began, only my knees made it on-screen. Still, it’s a start. I’ve been asked if my thighs want to audition for a slot on The Daily Politics.
The panelists were a split between the seasoned: Prescott, Ken Clarke and Baroness Kramer; and the novice: Julie Meyer, Founder & Chief Executive of Ariadne capital, Investment Firm, apparently,and the very youthful looking Owen Jones, author of the class-polemic ‘Chavs’.
Meyer was awful, seeming to think that every problem in Britain could be solved with more ‘digital entrepreneurs’ (cos I’ve always though we just don’t have enough Nathan Barley-esque half-wits in stupid wooly hats banging on about their plan to design an app for other idiots with iPhones to bore the rest of us with), described the NHS as a ‘Multi-billion pound industry’ (errr, isn’t it a service? That’s an ‘S’ in NHS, isn’t it, or have I misread it for years and it’s NHI?). As her contributions delved deeper into the pits of banality, bafflement turned to bemusement turned to amusement and she was laughed out of the debate. Remember, people like Meyer are exactly the people Cameron is pinning his hopes of economic recovery on. If they’re all like Meyer, we’ll be grubbing for roots by 2014.
The recording concluded after an hour of hearty, generally good-natured debate, and we filed out. The set was being swiftly dismantled, but I managed to get myself mugging at a camera before we were politely invited by the crew to getoutandletthemdotheirbleedingjob:
Walking out towards the car-park, we unwittingly took a wrong term, and to my horror strolled into the guests makeshift Green Room, where Prezza was holding court to a tired looking Ken Clarke and a wide-eyed Owen Jones, while a very pissed-off Julie Meyer skulked in the corner, probably planning to activate her army of androids she’s been amassing over the years. I backed out, apologising, to find I was standing next to a grey-haired bloke in an odd tie and white shirt, clutching a glass of red wine. It was Dimblebum. The man himself. The nation’s favourite political referee, the ice-cool moderator of national debate, the MAN himself.
I couldn’t get this close without proof. If I was to tell anyone I’d been this close to him they’d roll their eyes, mockingly scratch an imaginary itch on their chins and intone sceptically ‘Oh yeah?’
So I suddenly heard my mouth say ‘Hi David, I’m a big fan, can I grab a quick picture with you?’ By all rights he could have told me to leave him alone, how dare a mere mortal come in such proximity to the Dimblelord? But no, he smiled with that twinkly-eyed face he does and …..
For some reason, I’m pulling a face that inspired one wag to ask ‘Are you having a stroke?’ which I could only reply that despite my excitement at the situation, my non-Dimbleby gripping hand was behaving itself.
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SoubryWatch
There are so many things I have to get over about Soubry that soon, when other stuff quieten down a bit, I need to get out. For now though, I’m sure you’ll not be suprised that our redoubtable MP voted to keep the NHS Risk Register out of the public eye.
I put out a request on Twitter to see what local politicians think: I personally find it incredible that such a document can be kept secret, but thought a good reason might exist that I hadn’t thought at.
Both Cllr. David Watts and Cllr. Steve Carr, Lib Dems (well, Carr resigned the whip a while back, but that’s a different story) agreed that it should be made public, with Watts pointing out ‘I’m amazed that this isn’t published routinely. How can MPs vote without knowing the risks?’ Indeed. So why did Soubry vote to stop us finding out what dangers reforms hold?
‘Every GP in my constituency strongly support the NHS bill’ she told BBC Radio 5 Live. Really Anna?? Every one? According to Dr Ben Goldacre, editor of Bad Science
GPs rejected the NHS bill 42:1 this month. If you see a politician claim GPs support it, you know what they are, and why that’s bad.
Beestonia 