What a fab morning at St Leonard’s chatting to staff, students & of course to see the new build. You may remember a small thing called the RAAC crisis? Leonard’s was one of the worst impacted schools in the country & I was pleased to work with the school community to assist in anyway that I could.

Anti-social behaviour complaints are a big part of my inbox and have been on the increase for a while. I was pleased to raise the issue and some of the key areas in which constituents have raised it with me during Home Office questions today. More 👇🏻

There's never a quiet week in my office so here's a taster of some recent wins we've had on behalf of constituents. Sometimes the small things can make a huge difference to someone, their family or a group of residents. If you ever need support please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

I just signed a @mainstreamlabour.bsky.social petition - Guarantee a Fair and Open Selection for the Gorton and Denton By-election. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/gu...

Guarantee a Fair and Open Selection for the Gorton and Denton By-election

Labour can win in the Gorton and Denton by-election if we lead with our values and allow a fair, democratic and open selection for our candidate. Sign the petition below calling on the Chair of Lab...

actionnetwork.org

I just signed a @mainstreamlabour.bsky.social petition - Guarantee a Fair and Open Selection for the Gorton and Denton By-election. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/gu...

Guarantee a Fair and Open Selection for the Gorton and Denton By-election

Labour can win in the Gorton and Denton by-election if we lead with our values and allow a fair, democratic and open selection for our candidate. Sign the petition below calling on the Chair of Lab...

actionnetwork.org

CITY OF DURHAM SEND ROUNDTABLE. More info👇🏻 Calling teachers, services and families of SEND children and young people in the City of Durham constituency. Next Thurs 22 January at 18:15, I’m holding a roundtable meeting to hear direct from families and teachers who have to navigate the SEND system.

🥁 SMALL BUSINESS OF THE YEAR 2025 - WINNER 🏆 I’m thrilled to announce the winner of this year’s Small Business of the Year award is -The Weigh to Shop in Framwellgate Moor! 👏🏻 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 More 👇🏻

📣 🌹 GOOD NEWS! Your weekly round up of the difference a Labour government is making - this week is a BUDGET SPECIAL

Delivering in Government: your weekly round up of good news Labour stories: BUDGET SPECIAL – LabourList

What a week. The Budget brought no shortage of announcements to talk about, including some truly Labour decisions from the Chancellor. Here are the seven…

labourlist.org

Agree 100%Peter. All so wrong Goodness knows what people like Alf Dobbs think about it all

Peter Smith@redpeter99.bsky.social · 9mo ago

I genuinely despair at the state of the Labour government. The proposed asylum seeker policy is totally alien to the party's internationalist values and the wishes of the membership.

Keir Starmer + Shabana Mahmood propose that reintroducing Priti Patel's 2022 asylum reforms (with small tweaks) can significantly deter Channel Crossings 2022-24 shows temporary status won't deliver control re "pull factors" Having controlled routes at scale + closing unauthorised routes could

“We welcome migrants, we don’t scapegoat them". How Keir Starmer promised Labour MPs and members he would lead his party on immigration

The Home Secretary says "we have become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world" That is a factually untrue claim: the Home Office shows that the UK is fifth, getting 1/10 claims, while Germany gets 1/5 claims

I see that Mahmood, McSweeney and Glasman (who admires Steve Bannon) are continuing to merry go round of cruelty depicted on our current front page

As keep the faith Peter, we do #safc

Peter Smith@redpeter99.bsky.social · 9mo ago

The simple fact is that of the 22 players on the pitch at 3pm, the best 11 were Brighton players. #lufc

www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

Brexit impact will be negative for foreseeable future, Bank chief warns

Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, said that Brexit’s impact on growth would hurt but that the economy would somewhat adapt to the shock in time

thetimes.com

I wrote about Robert Jenrick's embrace of blood and soil nationalism for @bylinetimes.bsky.social "The British right is adopting an increasingly extreme form of ethnic identity politics, while failing to explain what the rest of us are supposed to be worried about" bylinetimes.com/2025/08/19/r...

Cutting more public services no doubt, it’s like the Reform Council in Durham who find services already cut to the bone, These populist?politicians have no idea about how democracy works

Adam Bienkov@adambienkov.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Shortly after accusing all other political party leaders of believing in "the magic money tree", Kemi Badenoch announces her plan to completely scrap stamp duty, without any word on how she plans to pay for it

This is devastating but hard to think of more important journalism. 18,457 children have been killed in Gaza (many more not accounted for). Here, The Guardian prints their names and beautiful faces and tells us what they were like before Israel stole their lives. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead

Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensive

theguardian.com

We need a national conversation about a better Britain. I began in Somerset, but it needs to spread. See brexitrage.com/a-better-bri... Brexit is Farage's achilles' heel. We must move the Overton Window back into place. See our YouTube film on the matter. #Brexit #FarageRiots #RejoinEU

A Better Britain - Reboot Britain : Rejoin EU

I propose a nationwide series of town hall type events and a campaign combining some speakers and experts with the crucial element of actually listening to the lived experience of those who would norm...

brexitrage.com

currently at record-high search interest for canceling disney plus. pulling kimmel is a bigger deal to the company's bottom line than any of the "woke" scandals of the past 5 years. i think news & entertainment corp execs need put more work into understanding their audience, & get off twitter

I’m with Kinnock. Does anyone remember small boats bring a crisis before Brexit?

Photocat24@photocat24.bsky.social · 11mo ago

That would make things a lot easier. Britain is not doing better since Brexit. It was a Farage created disaster.

Me and Helen Mirren: Life after 80 open.substack.com/pub/eyesande... from @bobhudson.bsky.social A great weekend read

Me and Helen Mirren: Life after 80

Professor Bob Hudson reflects on becoming an octogenarian - an article that is of relevance to anyone who is older today than they were yesterday!

open.substack.com

Couldn’t agree more Let’s hope the UK government follows her lead

Zoe Gardner@zoejardiniere.bsky.social · 11mo ago

An actually vaguely sensible intervention from French government minister on #r4today Rejects idea that UK’s a “soft touch” for migrants - finally a bit of honesty Calls 1-in-1-out deal symbolic, which is very much what it is & reminds us this issue is not a priority in FR politics right now

I think Musk's comments to a rally of 100k people are the highest profile advocacy of political violence in the UK since the end of the Northern Ireland conflict. Does anybody have a counter-example? "Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die."

Eyes & Ears North East eyesandearsnortheast.substack.com?utm_campaign... An interesting and informative read

Eyes & Ears North East | Brian Aitken | Substack

Eyes & Ears is a curated round-up of what's been happening in the North East in the past seven days and was a popular part of The QT, an online news magazine for the North East of England. Click to re...

eyesandearsnortheast.substack.com

This man RFK Jr is the biggest threat to public health in my lifetime Please you good Americans who know this , continue to show how dangerous he is RFK Jr and Democrats spar in tense hearing about chaos at federal health agencies and vaccines – live updates

Ocado handed out 221 million plastic bags last year! 😱 Sign the petition and tell them to ditch single-use bags for good. you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/oc...

Ocado: Ditch the plastic bag

In 2024, single-use plastic bag sales in England rose for the first time since the carrier bag levy was introduced in 2015 - a 7% increase, reaching 437 million bags. Shockingly, Ocado alone was respo...

you.38degrees.org.uk

The perpetrator of this horrendous act should be behind bars

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 12mo ago

Family in fear after Tommy Robinson shares video of black man with white granddaughters

Day in, day out, I speak to ordinary people who are organising to welcome the asylum seekers accommodated in their towns. They befriend, support them, reach out to them as fellow human beings. That's the Britain I know, the one I see around me & we never get told about on TV.