It is with great sadness that we learn of the death of Labour MP for Crewe and Nantwich, Gwyneth Dunwoody, who passed away last night.
As the longest-serving female MP in the House, she was admired for her principled stance and as a campaigner for protecting the rights of backbenchers. Perpetually courteous, she was liked and admired equally by all sides of the House and will be missed immensely.
I would like to pass on my condolences to her family and friends.
D4T will be going quiet over the next few weeks, as I wear down that shoe leather and we all focus on the Mayoral and GLA elections, so be prepared for only sporadic entries on the site - mainly Mayoral updates.
After a brief sojourn in the sun after the elections, I will be back online and on the streets, so over the summer be prepared for:
Due to my absence, full comment moderation will be switched on, so your comments won’t appear on the site straight away, but I will try and get them on as quickly as possible and I will switch full moderation off again when I am back.
A domani!
A question has occurred to me, which is somewhat off-message and will probably get me in to trouble with just about every political party, including my own, but never being one to shy away from an argument, here goes…
I can’t help but think having a former copper as Mayoral Candidate has sent the LibDems into some kind of anti-crime frenzy. They can’t get enough of it. If the LibDems win the Mayoral Contest, crime will be down 5% year-on-year, guns will be off our streets and “Every Londoner will be Safer”. I promise, that’s what Mr Paddick says on his website.
Fantastic. On paper, Brian Paddick’s pledges are earnest (as I believe he is), quantifiable and perhaps most importantly, propped up with accountability (he’ll resign if he fails), which is an excellent start.
One question though: why hasn’t he achieved this already?
My “Yellow Defector” (as they like to be called) has told me that there is a slight air of panic in the Parliamentary LibDems after two big clangers in the last 7 days, after a month of static poll results and bad headlines.
Firstly the LDs put forward an Early Day Motion attacking runway alternation on the basis that it would increase the “intensity and distribution of noise” (when in fact it does the opposite). They were then forced to change their website and essentially retract the EDM after admitting that they misworded it - it was supposed to say something else.
Now, Dr Cable is in trouble for using incorrect data of soldier’s pay when discussing the abolition of the 10p tax band - he used data that was 2 years and 14% out of date.
Were I a conspiracy theorist, I would say that the party has been infiltrated by hunt saboteurs, but apparently, Yellow Defector tells me it’s just incompetence…
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