Richard
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Name: Colin James Avatar: Jan Egeland Age: 60 (born 1957) Sex: Male Ethnicity: White Marital Status: Married with two kids Sexual Orientation: Straight Party: Conservative Faction: Maybot Political Outlook: Loyalist Tory, Leave Voter Constituency: East Surrey Year Elected: 1992 Education: MB BChir from the University of Cambridge (1975-1981); DPhil in Theology and Religion from the University of Oxford (1984-1987) Career: Medical doctor and ethicist in London Political Career: Parliamentary Private Secretary, 1994-1996; Treasurer of the Household and Deputy Chief Whip, 1996-1997; Opposition Deputy Chief Whip, 1997-2001; Minister of State for Health, 2001-2003; Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party for Candidates, 2003-2004; Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, 2004-2007; Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, 2007-2010; Minister of State for International Development, 2010-2014; Minister of State for Immigration and Security, 2014-2015, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, 2015-2016; Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office, 2016-2017 Honours: Appointed KCMG in Theresa May's 2017 Resignation Honours
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East Surrey
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How do we move forward when all is new? This is the question I continue to find myself asking as Prime Minister. Much will continue to be made of our friends on the right that I do not want this job - I mean, yes, but if you want power at the expense of your friend having a significant health surprise? I question your humanity and your soul. They can keep using that as a talking point, but here's my rejoinder - do you want a Prime Minister who wants this job? Do you want a Prime Minister who wants the power and status that this position brings? My predecessor, David Cameron, wanted to keep power so much that he made a deal with the Devil, or just Nigel Farage, to ensure his party had a majority government. Theresa May tried to increase her majority to ensure that her vision of Brexit came to fruition. Obviously, that failed. So here we are. How do we move forward? The line that this is a government "for the many and not the few'' resonated with millions across this country. That’s not a surprise when you consider how hard it has been for most people to get by over the last seven years under the Coalition and then the Conservative majority - the many includes Mary, a single mother in Manchester who has had her social security cut while richer folk got a tax cut. The many includes John, a Liverpudlian on a long waitlist to see an NHS GP. The many includes Arthur, a homeless man in London. The many includes Dave and Jackie, a regular hardworking couple who are raising their kids but haven't had a decent pay rise in years. The many includes everyone who wants to improve the standing of their lives - the many are everyone in our communities, we are the many. By focusing on the many, we recognize the humanity of those around us. It’s easy to sit in Number 10 and reduce the NHS’s spending. But when I’m actually in NHS waiting rooms meeting with constituents, when I’m on a picket line with striking workers, that is when the power of our common humanity is revealed. That is why I am a member of the Labour movement, that is why I ran for Prime Minister, and that is why I’m here with you today. One of my political heroes, former American President Harry Truman, promoted his platform as a “Fair Deal” for the American people. With the support of the government, with investment in public services, everyone in America would get a fair deal in how they were treated and in their opportunities to succeed. What we need is a new version of the Fair Deal - a new proposition that recognizes the inequalities and inequities inherent in our systems and gives people the support that they need to reach out and grasp opportunities. I am proud to announce the revival of the Fair Deal here in this country as we establish the Fair Shot. This Government is committed to providing each and every person in this great United Kingdom a Fair Shot at living the life they were meant to live. It’s a nice little name, but what does it actually mean? Looking back to William Beveridge’s report that was released seventy-five years ago, there are five things that continue to be required for a Fair Shot and two additions that must be made: A Fair Shot at Financial Security - All people must be able to live with enough money to get by. Those employed deserve a living wage, and those unemployed deserve the support of their Government to stay afloat without needing to jump through 20 hoops. A Fair Shot at Healthy Living - All people must be able to see their GP quickly, to be quickly referred to specialists, and get the healthcare they need in a timely fashion. A Fair Shot at Education for All - All people must be able to learn and grow in educational settings that are free at the point of use and taught by qualified teachers who have the time to ensure that every student learns. A Fair Shot at Safe, Affordable Housing - All people must have a stable place of residence where they do not need to worry about how they will cover their rent. This residence must also be a safe place to live. A Fair Shot at Gainful Employment - All people must be able to work in a position they are qualified for at a company that supports them, pays them well, and allows them to collectively bargain for benefits. A Fair Shot at Brexit - All people must be able to see the United Kingdom leave the European Union without losing their rights and privileges that have been granted to them through our membership in it. A Fair Shot at Equality Under the Law - All people must be treated equally under the law with the rights and privileges that they are granted through their citizenship, and for everyone to have a voice in our electoral system. This is what we must be about, friends. We are in the business of making other peoples’ lives better. If you’re in the Labour Party or politics for yourself and your own ideas and dreams of power, get out. Go find another field where you can be the egocentric person you are. But we care about each other. We care about our communities, our neighbors, and we find new ways to solve old problems. I love that our colleagues in the Co-operative Party have a bee in their logo. There’s a lot we can learn from them - about working as one body for the benefit of the whole and about providing for each other and our young. I often joke about how working for John McDonnell meant I got exposed to a lot of Christian theology that is never going to matter for me, which is accurate. But one thing that has always stuck with me is a quote from the mystic and activist Catherine of Siena - “If you are what you ought to be, you will set the whole world on fire.” I want you, friends, to imagine that. A world where we are all what we have been created to be, a world where we are all on fire for loving each other, improving our society, and making this, as a character from one of my favorite musicals once said, “our paradise planet.” We’re a party with red rosettes for a reason. And if that reason isn’t to signify that we will set this world on fire, I don’t want to hear about it. Because that is our goal, that is our creed, and that is what we will continue to do in this Government.
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Mr. Speaker, time will be allocated for debate on this bill.
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Mr. Speaker, time will be allocated for debate on this bill.
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Employment Security (Wages and Protection) Act
Richard replied to Steve's topic in Palace of Westminster
Mr. Speaker, time will be allocated for debate on this bill. -
Mr. Speaker, I wish to begin my remarks today by thanking Her Majesty for the delivery of this most Gracious Speech. She has delivered many over the sixty-five years of her glorious reign here, and, in my humble opinion, I think it is the best one yet. I thank and congratulate my friends, the Honourable members for Workington and Bradford East, for moving and seconding the Humble Address, and can attest to this House personally how beloved they are, both in their constituencies and in the seats on this side of the House. It is a privilege, Mr. Speaker, to be here on this side of the House. The last year has reminded us that life is a fleeting dream. The loss of our dear friend and colleague, Jo Cox, last summer, the Westminster Bridge attack this March, and now the fire at Grenfell Tower. On behalf of those on the Government benches, I associate myself with the Right Honourable Gentleman’s remarks and assure all those who have suffered of our prayers, our condolences, and, most importantly, our commitment to make sure that never happens again. I also welcome the Right Honourable Gentleman across the despatch boxes to his new role and look forward to our sparring on Wednesday. The Right Honourable Gentleman has a mostly distinguished record in this House - chairing the Justice Select Committee, a ministerial position in the Home Office, and service as Lord Chancellor, where his performance was slightly under par, so much so, that a minister of state in that department quit due to the Rt Hon Gentleman’s appointment. Mr. Speaker, The Right Honourable Gentleman has joined the tradition of many of his Conservative predecessors in throwing around large sums of numbers to redbait without actually adding in context. So let me attempt to do it for him. This most recent General Election was called by the former Prime Minister, the Right Honourable member for Maidenhead, because she thought she could increase her majority and ensure that she’d have a majority of her party backing any negotiations she did with the European Union. Fast-forward a few months and here we are. The people wanted a government that would invest in public services after years of austerity spending and ensure that it is paid for in appropriate ways. They’re getting one. The people wanted a government with a clear plan for Brexit, not one that amounted to “whatever I have to do to keep my party united.” They’re getting one. The Leader of the Opposition seems to not understand this, perhaps hurt by the fact that he spent the last year in a Government which changed plans at every poll release. He says that we will want to maintain freedom of movement? We are committed to ensuring that we have more control over our laws and borders. But we can ensure here that the benefits that the Single Market brought remain - by ensuring support and status for EU nationals living here, maintaining labour and environmental standards, and by remaining close colleagues with the European Union. This is not an “everything must go” sale, and I wish the gentleman understood that. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle may protest at maintaining those standards, but let’s be real about it - maintaining those standards helps workers and the environment, not big bosses who donate to the Conservative Party. Alas, it seems unlikely that they will fully understand. We come back to this problem regarding the minimum wage. He seems to think that the plank in this speech on that topic means we will be getting rid of the Low Pay Commission, one of Labour’s great accomplishments from the last two decades. At no point, Mr. Speaker, have we ever committed to doing such a thing. The former Chancellor’s so-called “National Living Wage” is ageist, as it only affects workers over the age of twenty-five. Instead, every adult worker gets to benefit, the real National Living Wage is higher, it must be increased by inflation at minimum, and the Low Pay Commission will be asked to actually take into account living conditions, not just median earnings. This government believes that everyone deserves to be able to live off of a full-time salary, whether they’re working in a corner office in the City or they’re working in the kitchen of the local chippy. The Leader of the Opposition and his media staffers have had a lot of fun throwing around £100bn in extra spending per year. It’s a nice, fun, round number. I get it. But let’s look at the facts, Mr. Speaker. This year, under my friend, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Labour became the first party in British politics to fully cost and explain their calculations for how this government will be funded. It is not surprising that he has forgotten this - he has forgotten a lot of seemingly important things recently, so I did happen to bring a copy of Funding Britain’s Future here with me today just for him. In case the Right Honourable Gentleman wants to learn about how we will yield over five billion pounds every year from extending the stamp duty reserve tax on the wealthiest in our society, he can find it there, just as easily as he could find out how our reforms on corporation tax will bring in almost twenty billion pounds a year, or our new tax avoidance programme that will bring in over six billion pounds a year - I hope he enjoys the scintillating reading. (Slides paper across despatch boxes.) And Mr. Speaker, we could talk all day about what the Rt Hon Leader of the Opposition thinks is happening here and I tell him that it’s not accurate. Let’s turn, Mr. Speaker, to what is actually happening. We have just ended the seven years of Conservative government in this country and it can be summed up in three words - dither, delay, and deny. They dithered in coming up with policy on all sorts of issues, not just Brexit. They delayed in pursuing real solutions to issues like building regulations and fire safety. And they denied people their right to grow, live, and be who they want to be here in this United Kingdom. Income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, rose by a percentage point towards perfect inequality. For comparison, Finland is eight points below us. Since the start of the Coalition Government, the number of people receiving emergency food from Trussell Trust food banks has risen by over a million people! I mean, what kind of policies do you have to implement to the point where over a million more people are hungry and need food! And that doesn’t even include the six hundred and fifty-one food banks operated by other organisations! I mean, what the heck do you have to do to make this crisis that bad? The number of people on an NHS waiting list in England is over four million, the most it has been since Labour’s reforms during the recession - Conservative mismanagement increased the number of people on a waiting list by around two million. People can’t eat, they can’t get healthcare, there aren’t enough teachers, I mean, the Right Honourable Gentleman keeps asking why this country voted Labour into power - just look at your record! If the tale of the Tory government is not willful ignorance or active malice, it’s gotta be a third option, and I’m all out of ideas! The Labour movement stands up for the people hurt hardest by Tory cuts. One of Labour’s union affiliates, GMB, is the direct descendant of the Gas Workers and General Labourers Union, founded by Will Thorne in 1889 when he and his colleagues in Beckton achieved an eight-hour work day. Today the Labour movement is not just about the eight-hour day - it’s about an equitable work week, about fair sick pay and annual leave, good pay, and equality under the law. I am always struck by one of the slogans of the eight-hour day movement - “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will.” The eight-hour day movement was and remains about freedom to do what you wanted - to study at the Open University alongside working a full-time job, to visit your healthcare provider when you need to, to receive the appropriate benefits, to live with the freedoms, the rights, that every person in this country, every person in this world is given because of their humanity. This, Mr. Speaker, is a Government who wants to do right by those people. We must reverse the cuts that we have suffered this last seven years. I know the Right Honourable Gentleman agrees with me, as he began recruiting more prison officers to begin reversing cuts as Lord Chancellor. So let’s reverse those cuts and recruit 10,000 more police officers, equivalent to at least one new officer for every neighbourhood in the country; and recruit 3,000 new firefighters and 3,000 new prison officers. While the Opposition reenacts the Red Scare, that is what this Government will be doing - fixing the issues our predecessors have caused. Take education, Mr. Speaker. Since 2010, the percentage of GCSE entries that received a C dropped. The pupil to teacher ratio in nursery schools has skyrocketed from 17.2 in 2010 to 22.2 now. That is unacceptable and that is the direct result of the Conservative Governments cutting spending on education by almost twenty billion pounds over seven years. We’re going to invest in education and create a National Education Service that ensures that everyone in England has cradle-to-grave learning that is free at the point of use for all. That is the promise of a Labour government - not electioneering from the get-go about a supposed £100bn of extra spending, not making life harder for average people, but getting the job done for the people of this nation. We ran in this election on the slogan of “For the Many, Not the Few.” This speech was a reflection of that slogan and the values behind it. For the Many, we will reverse the Conservative education cuts. For the Many, we will get a Brexit deal done that protects our workers and economy. For the Many, we will transform our economy, invest in British workers, and ensure that everyone has what they need to live a good life here. And that, Mr. Speaker, is something we should all be able to support.
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First McCrimmon Ministry Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, and Minister for the Civil Service The Rt Hon James McCRIMMON MP Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Energy and Infrastructure The Rt Hon Simon BLEYER MP Responsible for BEIS (Energy); DEFRA; Transport Chancellor of the Exchequer, Second Lord of the Treasury, and First Secretary of State The Rt Hon Steffan LEWIS MP Responsible for HM Treasury; BEIS (Business and Industrial Strategy); Work and Pensions (Employment and Labour); DCMS (Digital and Media) Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs The Rt Hon Anthony CLARKE MP Responsible for FCO; International Development; International Trade; DCMS (Culture and Sport) Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for the Home Department The Rt Hon Elizabeth TRUST MP Responsible for Home Office; Ministry of Justice Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union The Rt Hon Harry WEST MP Responsible for DxEU Secretary of State for Public Services The Rt Hon Josephine RICCI MP Responsible for Health and Social Care; Work and Pensions Secretary of State for Government and Communities The Rt Hon Andy McDONALD MP Responsible for Communities and Local Government; Scotland Office; Wales Office; Controlled by Rick Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal The Rt Hon Dennis SKINNER MP Controlled by Dawson Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury The Rt Hon Nick BROWN MP Controlled by Rick Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council The Rt Hon Baron BOATENG of Akyem and Wembley PC Chief Whip of the House of Lords and Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms The Rt Hon Baroness DRAKE of Shene CBE PC Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster The Rt Hon John McDONNELL MP Controlled by Nathon Also attending Cabinet Chief Secretary to the Treasury The Rt Hon Rebecca LONG-BAILEY MP Controlled by Dawson Minister of State for Defence The Rt Hon Emily THORNBERRY MP Controlled by Blake Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland The Rt Hon Keir STARMER KBC QC MP Controlled by Barclay Minister of State for Education The Rt Hon Angela RAYNER MP Controlled by Rick Minister of State for Housing The Rt Hon Calvin WARD MP Minister of State for the Green New Deal The Rt Hon Ed MILIBAND MP Controlled by Maz Minister of State for Northern Ireland The Rt Hon Tony LLOYD MP Controlled by West Minister of State for Young People The Rt Hon Kayla GRAY MP Minister of State for Women and Equalities The Rt Hon Diane ABBOTT MP Controlled by Rick Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General The Rt Hon Anneliese DODDS MP Controlled by West
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This speech is held in Glasgow, around the University of Glasgow. Before McCrimmon’s speech, figures like Kayla Gray, Steffan Lewis, Diane Abbott, and John McDonnell (both approved by Nathan) speak, endorsing McCrimmon, noting that he is the candidate best suited to move forward from this election. Thank you, everyone! It is great to be here in Scotland, the nation of my birth and the place I always call home! It is a privilege for me to be here in Glasgow and Strathclyde, the region I grew up in and became politically aware in - at union meetings with my dad and in kitchen-table conversations with my mom. And not just that, but we’re here in the Glasgow North constituency, where Pam Duncan-Glancy won this seat back for the Labour Party last month, following in the footsteps of my friend Dame Anne Begg as a leader on disability issues here in Scotland. Two years ago, we were decimated here and were reduced to merely a single MP. Today, we have seventeen - the most of any of the unionist parties. That is a victory for us, for the Labour movement, and a vindication for our friend and fearless leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who we wish was entering Number 10 today. Two years ago, they wrote Jeremy off just as they did to Diane in 2010 - he was a quixotic, fringe candidate. But we proved them wrong - because people wanted honest politics focused around the issues that mattered to them. They thought for sure he was done in last year, but we showed them that people-powered politics was the future of our country. And after Theresa May thought she could increase her majority for a hard Brexit this year, she learned the hard way that people want a politics for the many and not the few. And now, we stand at the precipice of getting back into Government - at the precipice of enacting the transformational change that this country needs, and I’m just a man, standing in front of his party, asking it to commit to making that change - a change that galvanized our party and a change that resonated with the electorate, creating a once-in a generation opportunity to once and for all break with the era ushered in by Thatcher and build one centered around empowering working people and investing in our communities. I am running to make that change a reality for Britons across these islands. When Jeremy asked me to join his frontbench, first on the Treasury team and then as Shadow Secretary for this great nation, I was giddy to join the front lines of a fight for a new politics. I have worked with Jeremy and John since my election to the Commons in 2005, and it continues to be the honour of a lifetime to advance our movement, the Labour movement, into a new era. Today, I am running because I believe that I am one of the best suited to stay the course that Jeremy set out for us. The Labour Party cannot fail the British public. David Cameron and Theresa May both said that they wanted a kindler and gentler nation, but we ended up with the Tories getting fined for the 2015 campaign, a 2016 leadership election with more knives than a production of Julius Caesar, an Islamophobic campaign for Mayor against my friend Sadiq, and needing to pander to UKIP to win a majority, let alone what Christopher Chope and friends do on a daily basis with filibustering bills on basic issues like renters rights. They were not able to live up to their promises, and they have been sent packing with a prescription to reflect on what they did wrong. We cannot fall into that same trap. Our manifesto, a document that will serve as our movement's blueprint in Government, is one hundred and twenty-six pages of plans, costed and prepared to transform our economy, reshape our world, and put the average citizen at the center of the Government’s plans, not corporations or the richest in our society. That is what I have been about for my entire adult life, and that is what I’m going to be about as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister. (Holds up Manifesto) I have no need for a platform - my Government will be a Government for the Many and not the Few! After I graduated from uni and joined John’s staff, I felt my spiritual life was getting a little stale. So I did what many have done before me and began the Daf Yomi program - reading one page of the Talmud every day for seven and a half years. The thing that jumped out at me was the concept of tikkun olam - a Hebrew phrase meaning the “repair of the world.” In that case, it refers to a legal concept, but the scholar Maimonides and others expanded it to mean a wider sense of justice - it’s the improvement of the world and the ordering of reality, and, let’s face it folks, reality needs reordering. Last year, the Office for National Statistics calculated that the richest 10% of households in this country hold almost half of all the wealth. The poorest 50% of those households own just 9% of the wealth. That is not a rightly ordered reality. Corporations raise prices, landlords raise rents, and none of it has ever trickled down to the working-class as we were told it would. We make strides and then we take more steps back as our NHS faces increasing strains, and, in perhaps the most devastating symbol of austerity’s failures, seventy-two people died in a fire that could have been prevented if the Government simply invested their time and energy in fixing fire safety regulations at any point over the last seven years. I have had enough, the Labour Party has had enough, and the British public have clearly had enough. Here in Scotland and across the UK, we’re ready for that transformative reordering. But we need a transformative leader who is ready to embrace the manifesto head-on, to pull in the best talent from across the Labour Party, and make our country work truly for the many, not the few. I am ready to use my experience in the Shadow Cabinet, in campaigning these last few weeks, and in preparing our manifesto, to use for the benefit this Party and this great nation. I want to leave you with a question, and it’s one, oddly enough, inspired by Jesus. I know, not who you were expecting, right? Well, you work for Mr. Could-Have-Been-A-Priest over there (motions to McDonnell) for long enough and you pick up some stuff. He says “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I like that idea. So, friends, I ask you, where is your treasure? If you, like me, find that your treasure can be found in supporting families and communities across this nation, lifting up workers and cities who have been ignored for too long, and in ensuring, in the words of the Beveridge Report, that all are free from “want, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness,” then I need your support to make those things all part of our national treasures. With your support, friends, we can make this nation better for everyone. So join me, join in enacting Jeremy’s legacy for this Party, and join us in the continued fight for equity, justice, and wholeness for all! Thank you!
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Name: James Daniel McCrimmon Born: 1975 Avatar: Steven Fulop Parents: Colin and Avigail McCrimmon Factions: Socialist Campaign Group, with tinges of Blue Labour James McCrimmon MP is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Walthamstow since 2005. Born and raised in East Renfrewshire, James’s father Colin was a local union organizer and leader, having previously worked in shipbuilding. James’s maternal grandparents, Fritz and Sidonie, were both survivors of the Shoah who escaped the concentration camps and fled to the UK, where they were interned at Mooragh Camp on the Isle of Man. His mother worked as a cantor in the synagogue he grew up in. To please his future in-laws, Colin converted to Judaism as an adult, and James was raised in the faith. A bright student, he was encouraged to apply to independent schools around the age of 11. As such, he was accepted and attended Gordonstoun School in Moray for secondary school through sixth form on a scholarship. At Gordonstoun, he received his A levels in History, Music, and English Literature. He was contemporaries with Peter Phillips, Duncan Jones, and Isabel Oakeshott, the latter of whom he dated for two years. He then proceeded to attend the London School of Economics and received a BA in History. He remained in London and received an MA at King's College before joining the staff of John McDonnell in 1997 as his first parliamentary researcher. With McDonnell ensuring support from Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, and Neil Gerrard, he was selected as Labour's candidate to replace Gerrard in Walthamstow in 2005, the seat he has held ever since. An occasional rebel against the Labour whip and a critic of Tony Blair, he tied for 29th place in Labour's 2010 Shadow Cabinet election with Chris Bryant, and privately vented frustrations that Shawn Woodward, whom he had gotten five more votes than, was appointed as Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, while candidates that had placed above both of them, such as Angela Eagle, Tessa Jowell, and Hilary Benn, were relegated to "also attending" positions. He was instead appointed as Shadow Minister of State for Transport, where he shadowed Theresa Villiers. After the 2011 Conference where the party leader was given sole power to choose the Shadow Cabinet, Huizenga, whom many had placed as a likely candidate for ascension to the Shad Cab, was left out in the cold as Miliband promoted figures from the right of the party, including Chuka Umunna, Rachel Reeves, and Liz Kendall. He resigned from his shadow ministerial role and remained a left-wing gadfly and a frequent favorite of journalists for quotes criticizing the frontbench. He made his mark in Parliament serving on the London Regional Select Committee, where he cross-examined the Government on the matter of the 2011 Census in poorer communities. He later was Chair of the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Select Committee where he advocated for further environmental controls in the Chilterns. For his scrutiny in this position, he was nominated to be named a Knight Bachelor, but he declined, considering his opposition to the “unnecessary” honours system. A member of the Sociaist Campaign Group since he entered the Commons, he endorsed Jeremy Corbyn in 2015 and was named Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, reuniting him with his mentor and friend, McDonnell. In 2016, he was named Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, and has held that role since. A strong believer that socialism is innately tied with the Jewish belief of tikkun olam, McCrimmon is an active member of multiple groups, including the Jewish Socialist Group, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, and Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory. He is married to the former Sophia Jenes and they are the parents of David, Victor, and Alona.
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Walthamstow
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MS - 8: Limiting Government Interference in Food Prices
Richard replied to William.Croft's topic in Palace of Westminster
Mr. Speaker, I am actually shocked that this is what I have to respond to today. But here we are, and respond I shall. The Government, Mr. Speaker, is wasting this House's time by making us debate this order, something we discussed last year, again. Let's look at the facts. First - Public Health England is not made up of "some bureaucrats in a stuffy office" who know better than everyone else. Public Health England and its successor organisation, the UK Health Security Agency, are staffed with experts in their fields. UKHSA is led by Dame Jenny Harries, an accomplished physician with significant public health experience who helping to lead our nation's coronavirus response. Everything that we did in those early months - "Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives" to our further efforts to mask up to keep each other safe, happened because of leaders like her. We are here and alive because of experts like Dame Harries and her colleagues at UKHSA, so I find it mind-bogglingly stupid that we're going to ignore the scientific evidence now that it says something the Government disagrees with. Although, remembering the tragic tale of the Rt Hon member for West Suffolk and his member, I am not entirely surprised. Obesity is a public health crisis. The Impact Assessment on this policy notes the following: "Obesity is a major cause of ill health in England, increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke, type II diabetes and some cancers, imposing a substantial burden and negative externality on the NHS and the wider economy in the long run." Enough said there, Mr. Speaker. But in the world that we live in now, obesity is even more of an issue. Obesity increases the risk of severe disease, mortality, and infection with COVID-19, the virus that is still present in our country. Researchers across the world have found the same thing - a higher body mass index was associated with ICU admission and critical disease. Be it in France, the United States, Singapore, or here in the UK, people died because they were obese and thus more susceptible for the virus. It is nice that the Rt Hon Prime Minister wants to give people freedom, but let's be clear - they can’t be free if they’re dead. The Prime Minister also states that moving forward with this policy would cost British families an additional £634 a year in food-related costs. That, Mr. Speaker, is clearly untrue, and I question where he is getting his data. Again, looking at the Impact Assessment, paragraph 39 states the following: "Although price promotions appear to be mechanisms to help consumers save money, data shows that they increase consumer spending by encouraging people to buy more than they intended to buy in the first place. Price promotions appeal to people from all demographic groups and increase the amount of food and drink people buy by around 20%." Multibuy promotions cause people to spend more money. They cause these large multinational chains, including his favorite, McDonald's, to earn more money because people will spend more money and buy more food. And the people who buy the more food will find that their wallets empty quicker than usual, and they're running on a tighter budget than ever before. Foodbanks, Mr. Speaker, are seeing a record number of patrons. In fact, they're so in need of volunteers, that the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, volunteers at his local food co-op, the Chippy Larder, despite the fact that usage of foodbanks went up by over two thousand percent during his tenure as Prime Minister. If the current Prime Minister really wants to reduce the cost of living in this country, a crisis that only exists because his party has failed to adequately respond to the economic changes of Brexit and the pandemic, he can start by actually funding foodbanks and other charities, as the Labour Party has continued to call for over the last decade. The Prime Minister wants to give this country a sucker's deal with the illusion of lower prices, but more money ending up in the pockets of corporate executives in the fast food and energy industries. The real support that people across the United Kingdom need can only come through investing in communities - something I might call "levelling-up." -
Name: Lincoln Daniel Huizenga Born: 1975 Avatar: Steven Fulop Parents: Rabbi Daniel Huizenga and Avigail Huizenga, Baroness Huizenga of Cardiff Factions: Primarily Socialist Campaign Group, occasionally Open Labour and Momentum The Hon. Lincoln Huizenga MP is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Caerphilly since 2001. Born in London and raised in Cardiff, Huizenga's father, Daniel, was named Rabbi of Cardiff Reform Synagogue in 1980 and served in that role through 1990, before moving on to teach at Leo Baeck College in London. A Rabbi in the Movement for Reform Judaism, Daniel had previously served as an Assistant at the West London Synagogue where he served under Werner van der Zyl. Lincoln's paternal grandparents, Fritz and Sidonie, were both survivors of the Shoah who escaped the concentration camps and fled to the UK, where they were interned at Mooragh Camp on the Isle of Man. His mother, Baroness Huizenga, is a former member of Labour's National Executive Committee, and was named to the Upper House by Gordon Brown in 2010. She has served as Labour’s Lords Spokesperson for International Development since 2015. A bright student, he was encouraged to apply to independent schools around the age of 11. As such, he was accepted and attended Gordonstoun School in Moray for secondary school through sixth form. At Gordonstoun, he received his A levels in History, Music, and English Literature. He was contemporaries with Peter Phillips, Duncan Jones, and Isabel Oakeshott, the latter of whom he dated for two years. He then proceeded to attend the London School of Economics and received a BA in History. He remained in London and received an MA at King's College before joining the staff of John McDonnell in 1997 as his first parliamentary researcher before returning to Wales as an assistant, and later special advisor, to Rhodri Morgan. With Morgan's tacit support, he was selected as Labour's candidate for Caerphilly in 2001, which he has continued to hold ever since. An occasional rebel against the Labour whip and a critic of Tony Blair, he tied for 29th place in Labour's 2010 Shadow Cabinet election with Chris Bryant, and privately vented frustrations that Shawn Woodward, whom he had gotten five more votes than, was appointed as Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, while candidates that had placed above both of them, such as Angela Eagle, Tessa Jowell, and Hilary Benn, were relegated to "also attending" positions. He was instead appointed as Shadow Minister of State for Transport, where he shadowed Theresa Villiers. After the 2011 Conference where the party leader was given sole power to choose the Shadow Cabinet, Huizenga, whom many had placed as a likely candidate for ascension to the Shad Cab, was left out in the cold as Miliband promoted figures from the right of the party, including Chuka Umunna, Rachael Reeves, and Liz Kendall. He resigned from his shadow ministerial role and remained a left-wing gadfly. A member of the Socialist Campaign Group since he entered the Commons, he endorsed Jeremy Corbyn in 2015 and was named Shadow Minister for Care and Older People. He became Shadow Minister for Europe in 2016 when Pat Glass was moved to Education, and later in the year, he was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Wales in succession to Paul Flynn, a position he continued to hold under Keir Starmer. A strong believer that socialism is innately tied with the Jewish belief of tikkun olam, Huizenga is an active member of multiple groups, including the Jewish Socialist Group, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, and Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory. Huizenga is married to the former Sofia Jenes and they are the parents of David, Victor, and Alona. (Frontbench service and son of a peer both approved by Blakesley.)
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Caerphilly
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Thank you Conference. Thank you Doreen. Thank you for your words, thank you for everything you have done for criminal justice, and thank you for everything you have done for the Labour Party. I am proud to call you my friend. So, here we are at last and I can’t tell you how good it feels. It’s been a long time coming! Too long. I’ve waited 17 months, 23 days and two hours for this moment. It’s fantastic! And let me take this first opportunity to thank my brilliant shadow cabinet and fantastic team in the Lords for all their hard work over all those long months. And Louise Ellman, welcome home. This hasn’t always been an easy conference. Sunday was particularly nerve racking, but then the results came through. Arsenal 3 – 1 Tottenham. Conference, before I start let me tackle the issue of the day head on. If you go outside and walk along the seafront, it won’t be long before you come to a petrol station which has no fuel. Level up? You can’t even fill up. Doesn’t that just tell you everything about this government? Ignoring the problem, blaming someone else, then coming up with a half-baked solution. Why do we suddenly have a shortage of HGV drivers? Why is there no plan in place? A tank of fuel already costs £10 more than it did at the start of the year. Gas and electricity bills up. Gaps on the supermarket shelves. Rent up, especially for those on the lowest incomes. Yet at this very moment, the government is putting up tax on working people. Putting up tax on small businesses and slashing Universal Credit. We have a fuel crisis, a pay crisis, a goods crisis and a cost of living crisis – all at the same time. Let me quote what the Prime Minister said to the United Nations last week: “We believe that someone else will clear up the mess we make because that is what someone else has always done”. Well Prime Minister, either get a grip or get out of the way and let us clear up this mess. This is our first full conference since the 2019 General Election in which we suffered our worst defeat since 1935, and the first full conference since we failed to stop the Tories from winning Hartlepool for the first time since 1959. To our devoted activists and loyal voters I want to say loud and clear. You saved and continue to save this party from obliteration and we will never forget it. Thank you. But my job as leader is not just to say thank you to the voters who stayed with us. It is to understand and persuade the voters who rejected us and refocus ourselves on our goals. To those Labour voters who said their grandparents would turn in their graves, that they couldn’t trust us with high office, to those who reluctantly chose the Tories because they didn’t believe our promises were credible. To the voters who thought we were unpatriotic or irresponsible or that we looked down on them, I say these simple but powerful words. We will never under my leadership go into an election with a manifesto that is not a serious plan for government. It will not take another election defeat for the Labour party to become an alternative government in which you can trust. That’s why it has been so important to get our own house in order this week and we have done that. This is a big moment in our country’s history. We will look back at this moment and ask: How did the nation rebuild after the pandemic? Did we learn? Did we use the crisis to make the future? I see a government lost in the woods with two paths beckoning. One path leads back where we came from. None of the lessons of Covid are heeded. The flaws that were brutally exposed by the pandemic all worsen. Childhood poverty increases. The crisis in social care gets worse. The housing market is still broken. Slow and steady decline. But there is another path down which we address the chronic problems revealed by Covid, with the kindness and the togetherness that got us through. That path leads to a future in which a smart government enlists the brilliance of scientific invention to create a prosperous economy and a contributing society in which everyone has their role to play. It will be a future in which we make an opportunity out of tackling the climate crisis and in which Britain is once again a confident actor in the world. I believe in this country and I believe we will go forward. Today I want to tell you how. Today I want to tell you where my passions were born and why I am in politics. The two rocks of my life – the two sources of what I believe to be right and good – are family and work. I am not from a privileged background. My dad was a tool maker in a factory. He gave me a deep respect for the dignity of work. There are some lines from Auden that capture the beauty of skilled work. “You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-object look”. I saw that eye-on-the-object look in my dad. The pride that good work brings. It puts food on the table and it provides a sense of dignity. So, when I hear that this country is creating so many low-paid jobs and when I tell you that good work and fair growth will be the priority for a Labour government, I haven’t learnt this in some political seminar. I learnt it round the kitchen table.I learnt it at home, from my dad. How pride derives from work. How work is the bedrock of a good economy. And how a good economy is an essential partner of a good society. That’s why I am so proud to lead a party whose name is Labour. Don’t forget it. Labour. The party of working people. My mum worked incredibly hard too. She was a nurse in the NHS and a very proud nurse too. I got from my mum an ethic of service. But my mum was also, unfortunately, a long-term patient of the NHS. When she was young, she was diagnosed with Still’s disease. It’s a rare form of inflammatory arthritis which severely restricts mobility. This disease, along with the drugs she had to take to control it, took a heavy toll. The NHS that had been her livelihood became her lifeline. There were times, many times, when mum was so ill that she had to go into hospital. I remember going into the intensive care unit one day, as I often did. Mum’s bed was a riot of tubes and temperature devices. I could sense the urgency in the conversation of the four nurses on my mum’s bed. I knew without being told that they were keeping her alive. I can hardly convey to you the emotion of seeing your mum in that condition. And there was a sort of horrible irony in the moment. I had just picked up an award for work on the death penalty I’d been doing which in my own small way was about trying to save people’s lives. I’d gone to the hospital hoping to tell my mum about it. And there in front of me, those four nurses were working to save her life. When that long day was over, I thanked them for what they had done. And they said to me “we are just doing our job”. And they were. They were doing their job for my mum that night, someone else’s mum the night before, someone else’s mum the night after. But that’s not just a job. It’s a calling. So, when I think of the extraordinary dedication of doctors and nurses, working to keep people alive as the Covid virus took hold, I know what that looks like. I understand what that means and so just as we stood on our doorsteps and applauded. Let this conference ring out its approval to the NHS staff, truly the very best of us. So, you see, family life taught me about the dignity of work and the nobility of care. But, even with a name like Keir, I was never one of those people reared for politics. I became the first person in my family to go to university, the first to go into the law. Every day as a lawyer, if you are a young radical as I was, you think of yourself as working for justice. You see people getting a raw deal and you want to help. Justice, for me, wasn’t a complicated idea. Justice, to me, was a practical achievement. It was about seeing a wrong and putting it right. That is my approach in politics too. Down to earth. Working out what’s wrong. Fixing it. I had the great honour of becoming this country’s chief prosecutor, leading a large organisation; the Crown Prosecution Service. Three very important words. Crown brings home the responsibility of leading part of the nation’s legal system. Prosecution tells you that crime hurts and victims need justice to be done. Service is a reminder that the job is bigger than your own career advancement. I will always remember the day that John and Penny Clough contacted my office. Their daughter Jane was a nurse who had been the victim of terrible domestic abuse. After repeated assaults, Jane had summoned the great courage to report her partner. He was arrested and remanded in custody. But then, very much against the wishes of the Clough family, he was let out on bail. Jane lived in constant fear that he would return to harm her. She tried to ensure she never travelled to work alone. The one morning that Jane arrived at work unaccompanied, he was waiting for her in the hospital car park where he stabbed her 71 times. When Jane’s parents got in touch, my office advised me not to see them. “You can’t get emotionally involved in cases” they said. I replied: “If I haven’t got time to see the parents of a young woman who has just been murdered, then what am I doing in this job?” On the day that John and Penny were supposed to come and see me, to tell me about the cruel murder of their daughter and how the criminal justice system had let them down, my own daughter was born. We had to push the meeting back. It was an incredibly emotional day for all of us. As I listened to John and Penny tell me Jane’s story, I knew that a great injustice had been done. I made a promise to John and Penny at the end of that first meeting. That I would work with them to make sure that no other family went through what they had been forced to endure. And we rolled up our sleeves and we changed the law. I am delighted to say that John and Penny have become good friends of mine. And I am honoured that they have joined us here today. Conference, John and Penny Clough. John and Penny taught me how to keep your dignity under severe pressure. Doreen Lawrence taught me the same lesson. Hers was a long battle for justice for Stephen. Against the odds. Confronting racism. But never giving up. Her courage and resilience over 28 years is impossible to describe in words. I honestly don’t know how I would cope if anything happened to one of my children. But I do know I am humbled by John, by Penny and by Doreen. And that’s why, under my leadership, the fight against crime will always be a Labour issue. Labour will strengthen legal protections for victims of crime. We won’t walk around the problem. We’ll fix it. When I learned that 98% of reported rape cases don’t end in a criminal charge. I couldn’t believe it. I asked my team to check the figures. “That can’t be right”, I said. But it was. Shocking. So, we will fast-track rape and serious sexual assault cases and we will toughen sentences for rapists, stalkers and domestic abusers. This is part of who we are because this is part of who I am. Today I’m here to tell you what I stand for. But I also want to tell you what I won’t stand for. I won’t stand for the 2 million incidents of anti-social behaviour this year. I won’t stand for the record levels of knife crime that we have in this country today. And I won’t stand 9 out of 10 crimes going unsolved. Under the Tories the criminal justice system is close to collapse. There has never been a bigger backlog in the Crown Courts. Over 11 years of Tory government, we have lost more than 8,000 police officers. They pretend that it hasn’t made any difference. But it has. Ask the workers on the day shift at Tata Steel in Wolverhampton who told me about repeated incidents in their neighbourhood. Or the young women I met recently in Stoke who told me they dare not go to their high street alone. They see more violence and fewer police. It’s just common sense to put the two together. The Tories are letting you down. And I can promise you that will never happen under my leadership. There’s something else I took from a career in the law. That there’s one law and it applies to everyone. I try to remain calm in the bear pit of Parliamentary politics. I am not a career politician. I came to politics late in life and I don’t much like point-scoring. But the one thing about Boris Johnson that offends everything I stand for is his assumption that the rules don’t apply to him. When Dominic Cummings took a trip to Barnard Castle to test his eyesight, Boris Johnson turned a blind eye. When Matt Hancock breached his own lockdown rules, Boris Johnson declared the matter closed. When I got pinged, I isolated. When Boris Johnson got pinged, he tried to ignore it. That’s not how I do business. When I was the Chief Prosecutor and MPs fell short of the highest standards on their expenses, I prosecuted those who had broken the law. Politics has to be clean; wrongdoing has to be punished. There are times in this Parliament when I feel as if I have my old job back. Contracts handed out to friends and donors. The former Prime Minister lobbying the Chancellor by text. Refurbishing No 10 with a loan from an anonymous donor. On behalf of a public that cares about cleaning up politics, I put this government on notice. I’ve spent my entire working life trying to get justice done. In 2003, when I was working with the Policing Board of Northern Ireland, while I was learning up close how hard it is to make split-second life-and-death decisions in a riot. As I worked with the police to create a lasting institution in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement. Boris Johnson was a guest on Top Gear where, in reference to himself, he said to Jeremy Clarkson: “you can’t rule out the possibility that beneath the elaborately constructed veneer of a blithering idiot, lurks a blithering idiot”. When, in the autumn of 2010, I was the Chief Prosecutor working with Doreen Lawrence to finally get a prosecution of two of the men who murdered Stephen, Boris Johnson was writing an article in The Telegraph declaring a war on traffic cones. And when this country was threatened by terrorists who were trying to bring down planes with liquid bombs, I spent the summer of 2010 helping to put those terrorists behind bars where they could no longer pose a danger to British citizens. While I was doing that, what were you doing Mr Johnson? You were writing a piece defending your right not to wear a cycle helmet. Conference, it’s easy to comfort yourself that your opponents are bad people. But I don’t think Boris Johnson is a bad man. I think he is a trivial man. I think he’s a showman with nothing left to show. I think he’s a trickster who has performed his one trick. Once he had said the words “Get Brexit Done” his plan ran out. He has no plan. The questions we face in Britain today are big ones. How we emerge from the biggest pandemic in a century. How we make our living in a competitive world. The climate crisis. Our relationship with Europe. The future of our union. These are big issues. But our politics is so small. These times demand a responsible leader with clear values. From my dad, I understand the dignity of work. From my mum, I appreciate the nobility of care. From my work, the principle that we are all equal before the law. And from the victims of crime, that the law is there to make us secure. Work. Care. Equality. Security. That’s what I mean by justice. That’s what I have been aiming at all my working life. That’s why I’m in politics. And those are the values this country needs now as we first seek to recover from the pandemic and then to look, with excitement and anticipation down the path that beckons us. To retool Britain for the future. To make this nation anew. I want to start with the importance of care. Covid-19 exposed the state of Britain 2020. After a decade of cuts and neglect, the health service wasn’t ready. Just when the nation needed four nurses on its bed, sadly, they couldn’t always be there. 1.6 million older people were going without the care they needed. GP numbers had tumbled. Waiting lists for treatment had spiralled. Then – on top of that – the government was fatally slow to respond. The Prime Minister’s inability to make up his mind really mattered. Britain has the worst death toll in Europe. We have now lost 133,000 people to Covid. Every one of them was somebody’s mum, dad, brother, sister, friend. I know it was difficult, but the situation is worse than it needed to be. And this wasn’t just a government failure over 18 months. It was a failure of the government’s duty of care over 11 years. There are cracks in British society and Covid seeped into them. Lower earners were at greater risk. So were black and ethnic minority communities. Covid forensically found those who already had health problems and it has left in its wake a significant backlog. NHS waiting lists are at the highest level on record. Five and a half million people are waiting for treatment. The great scandal of the pandemic was what happened in care homes. And let me tell you this conference, an unfair tax hike that doesn’t fix social care and doesn’t clear the NHS backlog, is not a plan. We know that people will still be forced to sell their homes to pay for care. Working people will have to pay more. But there is still no plan. A plan would prevent problems before they bite. A plan would provide care at home, where people are. A plan would ensure the work force was properly valued. And a serious plan wouldn’t be funded by hammering working people. There is no doubt that the NHS needs more money. And a Labour government will always fund the NHS properly. But the future of the NHS can’t just be about chasing extra demand with more money. And neither can it be about re-shuffling the furniture in yet another pointless re-organisation. We have to understand the big moment the NHS faces. In 1900 the average British person expected to live to the age of 48. Today, average life expectancy is 80. The number of people aged 65 and over in this country is growing three times faster than the number aged under 65. This is both a wonderful achievement and the biggest test in the history of the NHS. No society in human history has been as old as our modern nations. Small politics will no longer do. I want Britain to be the healthiest nation on earth. So let me tell you what Labour would do. We would shift the priority in the NHS away from emergency care, towards prevention. We can catch problems early. And, at the same time, we can use the resources of the NHS better. And I don’t just mean physical illness, either. With every pound spent on your behalf we would expect the Treasury to weigh not just its effect on national income but also, its effect on well-being. Let me give you an example. One of the urgent needs of our time is mental health. Labour will guarantee that support will be available in less than a month. We’ll recruit the mental health staff that we need. Over 8,500 more mental health professionals supporting a million more people every year. Under Labour, spending on mental health will never be allowed to fall. And we’ll make sure children and young people get early help by ensuring every school has specialist support and every community has an open access mental health hub under our plan for a National Care Service. This is prevention in action. Helping young people, looking after their well-being. It’s the principle my mum taught me. The principle of care. Let me give you a flavour of what care will look like in the future. When I was at University College Hospital in London recently an orthopaedic surgeon told me about a robot. This robot sits in the operating theatre making sure every incision is just right. The surgeon can’t go wrong because the robot works an override system. A bit like a driving instructor in a car. The doctor and the robot working together are so efficient that patients can be discharged a whole day early. Over time, that means thousands of hospital beds are freed up. The range of possibilities is bewildering. Precision editing of the genome will help us wipe out pathogens. The science of robotics and exoskeletons helps patients who are struggling to move. Virtual reality is being used to alleviate the suffering of post-surgical pain. I could talk about this all day long, although I promise I won’t. I don’t pretend to understand all the medical science. But as politicians we have to recognise the scale of what is happening and put the power of smart government behind it. This is what care will mean in the future. This is how health will be remade. Then we need to give our young people the tools of the future. Education is so important I am tempted to say it three times. When you don’t invest in young people the whole nation suffers and the less fortunate are left behind. By the time they finish their GCSEs, pupils from poorer families are 18 months behind their wealthier peers. That’s right. 18 months. The pandemic showed you can’t trust the Tories with the education of our children. Children on free school meals went hungry. There was U-turn after U-turn on school closures. The attainment gap between rich and poor grew. The government asked Kevan Collins, a recognised expert in the field to be their “recovery Tsar”. He told them what to do but they said no. When he saw the government’s plans, which he described as “feeble” Mr Collins had no option but to resign. If you can’t level up our children, you’re not serious about levelling up at all. And even before the pandemic 200,000 children grew up in areas with not a single primary school rated as good or outstanding. Just think about that. Not a single primary school rated as good or outstanding. I want every parent in the country to be able to send their child to a great state school. On top of that forty per cent of young people leave compulsory education without essential qualifications. What does that say about their future? We will not put up with that. That is why Labour will launch the most ambitious school improvement plan in a generation. Not walking round the problem but fixing it. Under Labour education will recover. But education needs to do more than just recover. It needs to be pointed in the direction I took from my dad. Towards skills. Towards work. Employers in all sectors tell me that they need well-rounded young people. Young people skilled in life. Ready for work. Young people who can communicate and work in a team. That’s why it’s stupid to allow theatre, drama and music to collapse in state schools. We want every child to get the chance to play competitive sport and play an instrument. When I was at school, I had music lessons with Fat Boy Slim. I can't promise that for everyone. Not even in Brighton. But I can promise that Labour, as the name tells you, will make a priority of getting this country ready for work. That’s why we will focus on practical life skills. We will reinstate two weeks of compulsory work experience and we will guarantee that every young person gets to see a careers advisor. But young people won’t be ready for work or ready for life unless they are literate in the technology of the day. Fewer than half of British employers believe young people have the right digital skills. We do much worse in computer skills than most of our economic rivals. That is why Labour will write a curriculum for tomorrow. Reading, writing and arithmetic are the three pillars of any education. We would add a fourth which, sadly, does not begin with r. Digital skills. We need to ensure that every child emerges from school ready for work. And ready for life. And as in health, so too in education we can work by the light of new technology. Machine learning can cater for individual work styles. Artificial intelligence can help tuition, especially for students with special needs. Cloud computing has brought the archive of the best that has been said and done to the handset of every student. There is so much possibility and all we have to do is to learn to adapt. I think my dad might appreciate the technical term that is used for this change. It is known in the trade as re-tooling. And what is the small Tory idea to respond to this change? They want to reintroduce Latin in state schools. So let me put this crisis in the only language that Boris Johnson will understand. Carpe Diem. Seize the day. Finally, it is time to act, to educate our young citizens in the skills they need for work and the skills they need for life. A society that cares. An education system that fosters skills. That’s the foundation of an economy that works. In his great study The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, David Landis explained why Britain was home to the first Industrial Revolution. The perfect home for growth, said Landis, had a responsive, honest government. I make no further comment about that. It tended to favour the new over the old, enterprise over conservatism and it spread rewards evenly, to make the most of the talents of all the people. But the most important factor of all the lessons we need to re-learn was that Britain led the world in the technology of the day. The flying shuttle, the spinning jenny, the power loom. These inventions were once the wave of the future. In textiles, iron, energy and power, Britain was a pioneer. I know that with Labour we can do it again. But every day we waste, with a government with no industrial strategy we are falling further behind. A scientific revolution is happening around us but if we don’t have a government ready to remake the nation the opportunity will pass us by. Already too many people are shut out of economic reward. We once took it for granted that our children would enjoy more than their parents. This idea drove my mum and dad. It comforted them, that whatever the ups and downs of life they were living in and contributing to a better society. But after ten years of the Tories we have lost this. We have 5.7 million people in low-paid and insecure work. Workers in transport, care, education and the utilities. These were the people who kept the show on the road during the pandemic and their reward is continued low pay and job insecurity. The millennial generation, clustered in low-paying sectors will be the first generation to have lower lifetime earnings than the one which went before. After a decade of the Conservatives, we have an economy with historically low rates of investment. Since 2010, in the investment league table out of 170 nations, Britain comes in a miserable 150th. Labour will work with sectors in which we are strong. Pharmaceuticals, materials, defence, chemical engineering, consumer goods, environmental technology, transport and biotechnology. Under Labour’s Buy, Make, Sell in Britain programme there will be more local procurement. The towns that were the crucibles of the original industrial revolution need to be revived in the next. The coal and cotton towns of Lancashire, the wool towns of Yorkshire, the great maritime and fishing economies of our seaports. These places made Britain the envy of the world. We cannot make the nation we want without them. The lesson is that a secure well-paid work force of skilled people in high-class work protected by good trade unions is not separate from good business. It’s the definition of good business. And good business and good government are partners. I have no doubt that the small businesses of this country are the next generation wealth creators. I want to see enterprising creative companies. I want to see them make a profit and employ more people.I want to create the conditions in which inventive small businesses can grow into inventive big businesses. But we don’t give ourselves the best chance.I have lost count of how many business leaders have told me that they wish their time horizon could be longer. So, when I say that Labour pledges to change the priority duty of directors to make the long-term success of the company the main priority we will do so with the blessing of British business. A focus on the long-term will allow for better investments. Labour will make Britain a world leader in science and research and development. We will set a target to invest a minimum of 3% of GDP. This nation will not grow with the low-wages, low-standards and low-productivity of the Tories. I’m determined to change this by investing in our businesses, by unleashing our creativity, by bringing forward the new deal for working people launched by Angela. This is how we remake our nation. The good society and the strong economy as partners without a good society we waste the talents of too many people. And without a strong economy we cannot pay for the good society. Talk is cheap but progress isn’t. And if we want the permission to create the good society we have to win trust that we will create a strong economy. The economic inheritance from the Tories will be appalling. A botched Brexit followed by Covid has left a big hole.The government is learning that it is not enough to Get Brexit Done. You need a plan to Make Brexit Work. I do see a way forward after Brexit if we invest in our people and our places, if we deploy our technology cleverly and if we build the affordable homes we so desperately need. But the public finances we will inherit will need serious repair work. I take the responsibility of spending your money very seriously. That’s why our approach to taxation will be governed by three principles. The greater part of the burden should not fall on working people. The balance between smaller and larger businesses should be fair. And we will chase down every penny to ensure that people working people, paying their taxes always get value for money. As Rachel said on Monday all spending will be scrutinised by an Office for Value for Money. There will be no promises we can’t keep or commitments we can’t pay for. Too often in the history of this party our dream of the good society falls foul of the belief that we will not run a strong economy. But you don’t get one without the other and under my leadership we are committed to both. I can promise you now Labour will be back in business. Let me give you an example of how this template can work. Let’s take the hardest question and the biggest issue of our time. Climate change. This is a question of security. It is a test of justice at a global scale. Climate change poses an existential threat. It will turn fertile terrain into desert land. Conflicts will break out over scarce resources like water. Millions will be displaced by flooding, forest fires and violent storms. Time is short and we have a duty to act.But the obligation shouldn’t daunt us. It should embolden us. Shifting the economy onto a sustainable path is full of promise for Britain. Every time I enter a high-tech factory, I wonder what my dad would make of it. Not so long ago we shaped metal by drilling it, milling it and turning it. I remember my dad working with a spark eroder submerging metal in liquid and using an electrical charge to shape it. We thought it was revolutionary at the time. But at Airbus recently, where they are developing the world’s first hydrogen wing I saw them working with 3D engineering, literally shaping components by bringing together particles and matter in a way unimaginable in the factory my dad used to work in.I saw young apprentices, in a fully unionised factory proud of the skilled work they were doing. Their pride came from knowing they were at the heart of a revolution, building the next generation of hydrogen and battery planes. They felt like the pioneers of flight, perched on the edge of the cliff taking the risk, knowing that success for one of them would change the world. In Scotland, I saw the great potential of wind power at Whitelee Windfarm. Yet, of the 250 wind turbines at Whitelee, not one was made in Britain. From their manufacturing base in Fife the workforce can see the turbines literally being towed in from places such as Indonesia. The next generation of deep-sea wind turbines could be our opportunity. Skilled engineering, off-shore work, sectors where we could lead the world, if only we had a government willing to lead. Public funding was an important component of so many inventions – the personal computer, the internet, the iPhone. If only we funded science seriously we could make a historic contribution to the battle against climate change. Action is needed. Not in the future, but now. If we delay action by a decade the costs of climate transition will double. This urgency is why Labour will bring forward a Green New Deal, our Green New Deal will include a Climate Investment Pledge to put us back on track to cut the substantial majority of emissions this decade. If we are serious about climate change we will need to upgrade our homes. The Tories inherited plans from Labour to make every new home zero carbon. They scrapped them and now we have a crisis in energy prices - emissions from homes have increased and we have the least energy-efficient housing in Europe. So it will be Labour’s national mission over the next decade, to fit out every home that needs it, to make sure it is warm, well-insulated and costs less to heat and we will create thousands of jobs in the process. I can also pledge that we will also introduce a Clean Air Act and everything we do in government will have to meet a “net zero” test to ensure that the prosperity we enjoy does not come at the cost of the climate. And that’s why on Monday Rachel set out her ambition to become Britain’s first green chancellor, committing the next Labour Government to an additional £28 billion of capital investment in our country’s green transition for each and every year of this decade. Like those pioneers in flight and like those young engineers working on the next generation plane, we have it within our grasp to make a historic difference, we have it within our grasp to be the change we need in the world. After a decade of Tory government, how we need that change. Under the Tories, wages have fallen in every English region. Local government has been cut to the bone, more than half a million more children live in poverty and so do half a million more pensioners. For the first time in decades, life expectancy has stalled. They do reviews on matters where the answer is right in front of them - your cuts, your austerity programme, you did this. And, after all that, the Tories expect us to believe that levelling up is more than a slogan. Well, let me offer the Conservative party a lesson in levelling up. If they want to know how to do it, I suggest they take a look at our record the last time we were in government – hospital waits down, GCSE results up, 44,000 more doctors, 89,000 new nurses, child poverty down 1 million, pensioner poverty down 1 million, rough sleepers down 75%, a National Minimum Wage and the OECD said that no nation had a bigger rise in social mobility than Britain. You want levelling up? That’s levelling up. You can see the benefit of Labour in power today too. Look at what our fantastic metro mayors, mayors and local authority leaders are doing and let’s hear it for the difference Mark Drakeford and his team are making in Wales. I believe in the union of the nations on these islands but we have a cavalier government that is placing it in peril. Scotland is in the unfortunate position of having two bad governments – the Tories at Westminster and the SNP at Holyrood. When Nicola Sturgeon took office she said she wanted to be judged on her record. These days, with the poorest in society less well-educated and less healthy and the tragedy of so many drug-related deaths we hear rather less about the SNP’s record. The SNP and the Tories walk in lock step. They both exploit the constitutional divide for their own ends. Labour is the party that wants to bring our nations together. Under the fantastic leadership of Anas Sarwar, Labour is the party of the union. Because it’s not just that divorce would be a costly disruption, though that is true. And it’s not just that our union is in all our economic interests though that is also true. It’s that we are more progressive together. We are more secure together. We are a bigger presence in the world together. We are greater as Britain than we would be apart. We are, as our 2017 manifesto claimed, “for the many,” indeed, for all, “not the few.” As Gordon Brown said recently “when a Welsh or a Scottish woman gives blood…she doesn’t demand an assurance it must not go to an English patient”. I am delighted that Gordon will lead our commission to settle the future of the union. And I know Gordon believes that if you look past the Tories’ pathetic attempts to divide us in a culture war you can glimpse a tolerant, progressive nation of which we can be proud. I believe that our diversity is one of the things that makes this country great. As this country continues to change, as we slowly liberate the talents of more people, as we name and tackle discrimination, as we make a better place for people with disabilities I believe we grow as a country. When the government ignored Marcus Rashford’s campaign on school meals I was shocked. But I couldn’t believe it when Rashford and the England team took the knee to highlight and condemn the racism they have had to endure, the Home Secretary encouraged people to boo. Well, here in this conference hall we are patriots. When we discuss the fine young men and women who represent all our nations we don’t boo. We get to our feet and cheer. Let me say a word too about another band of great British men and women. Our military put themselves in harm’s way to protect our security. I am proud of them and proud of the work they did for us in Afghanistan. It grieves me to see Britain isolated and irrelevant. Labour is the party of NATO, the party of international alliances. Under Labour we will rebuild our alliances, we will mend broken relationships and we will do right by the great Britons who serve in our armed forces. I can see the ways in which we can remake this nation and that’s what we get to do when we win. Yet, in a way the more we expose the inadequacy of this government the more it presses the question back on us. If they are so bad, what does it say about us? Because after all in 2019 we lost to them and again in May, in Hartlepool, and we lost badly both times. I know that hurts each and every one of you. So, let’s get totally serious about this – we can win the next election. This government can’t keep the fuel flowing, it can’t keep the shelves stocked and you’ve seen what happens when Boris Johnson wants more money – he goes straight for the wallets of working people. Labour is the party that is on the side of working people. So imagine waking up the morning after the next election in the knowledge that you could start to write the next chapter in our nation’s history, bending it towards the values that bring us, year after year to this conference hall to seek a better way. Proud in the knowledge that you were part of it. I have loved my first full conference as leader but I don’t want to go through the same routine every year. In a few short years from now I want to be here with you talking about the difference we are making, the problems we are fixing as a Labour government. That is what this party is for. That’s the object of the exercise and as the leader of this party I will always have that eye-on-the-object look. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-object look. This is a big moment, a time of rapid change. The first pandemic in a century, the aftermath of Brexit to sort out, the urgent claim of the climate. Then our own domestic questions: providing a secure job that pays a decent wage, a good school nearby, health and social care you can rely on, a home you can afford. This is a big moment that demands leadership. Leadership founded on the principles that have informed my life and with which I honour where I have come from. Work. Care. Equality. Security. I think of these values as British values. I think of them as the values that take you right to the heart of the British public. That is where this party must always be. And I think of these values as my heirloom. The word loom, from which that idea comes, is another word for tool. Work. Care. Equality. Security. These are the tools of my trade. And with them I will go to work.
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Starmer Reshuffle Makes Absolutely No One Happy One day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson carried out his most recent reshuffle, Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer followed in his footsteps, attempting to continue his balancing act between the two sides of the party. The first piece of news in the reshuffle was the resignation of Cat Smith as Shadow Secretary of State for Young People and Democracy, with Smith posting her resignation letter on Twitter, claiming that the continued independence of Jeremy Corbyn in the House of Commons was "utterly unsustainable," and saying that she was "disappointed" that the party had not yet adopted Proportional Representation as a policy. Smith's role will be split into two as part of a larger reorganization. Tulip Siddiq, MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, is Shadow Minister for Democracy and Engagement, and David Lammy moves to be Shadow Secretary of State for Civil Liberties and Equalities. Much of the team at the top remained the same, with Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves, Alan Campbell, and Shabana Mahmood maintaining their current positions. Although many were expecting Starmer to call up former Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to either fill Shadow Home or Shadow Foreign, she remained on the backbenches throughout the reshuffle, and maintains her post as Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee. Louise Haigh, previously Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, will be Shadow Home Secretary instead. A source close to Starmer's office said that "it was a very difficult decision. [Priti] Patel is a tough person to shadow, and knowing that we've got Yvette providing scrutiny on the committee level and Lou at the dispatch box made us feel better about the scrutiny we can do, rather than Yvette at Shadow Home and someone else on the committee." Nick Thomas-Symonds, previous Shadow Home Secretary, moved to cover the International Trade brief. For a man who is portrayed as "obsessed" with image and polls, Starmer sacked Shadow Education Secretary Kate Green, Shadow Communities Secretary Steve Reed, Shadow DEFRA Secretary Luke Pollard, and Shadow Culture Secretary Jo Stevens, all weak parliamentary performers. Shadow Attorney General Lord Falconer chose to step back from the Shadow Cabinet. To replace their seats, Starmer called up Andrew Gwynne, Stephen Kinnock, Catherine McKinnell, and Karl Turner. Despite all of this, the two main moves centered around the Foreign Office. Starmer promoted Lisa Nandy out of Shadow Foreign to shadow Michael Gove as Shadow Secretary for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities. While this would typically be a demotion, Nandy is a noted advocate for towns and local policy, and will be the primary scrutinizer of Johnson's levelling up policies. To replace her at the Foreign Office, Starmer appointed former Labour Leader Ed Miliband. Miliband, who has been seen as a stellar performer in his Business and Climate Change Role, keeps the Climate Change portfolio, while former Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds gains the business portfolio. The other major promotion was Wes Streeting, previously Shadow Child Poverty Secretary, replacing Green at Education. A darling of the Labour right, Streeting is seen by some (but mostly by himself) as a potential party leader post-Starmer.
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Shadow Cabinet as of September 2021 Leader of the Opposition: Keir Starmer Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Shadow First Secretary of State, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Shadow Secretary of State for the Future of Work: Angela Rayner Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer: Rachel Reeves Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Shadow Climate Change Secretary: Ed Miliband Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Department: Louise Haigh Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice: Emily Thornberry Shadow Secretary of State for Defence: John Healey Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Industrial Strategy: Anneliese Dodds Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade: Nick Thomas-Symonds Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care: Jonathan Ashworth Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: Jonny Reynolds Shadow Secretary of State for Child Poverty: Bridget Phillipson Shadow Secretary of State for International Development: Preet Gill Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs: Jim McMahon Shadow Secretary of State for Education: Wes Streeting Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport: Lucy Powell Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities: Lisa Nandy Shadow Secretary of State for Transport: Andrew Gwynne Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland: Stephen Kinnock Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland: Ian Murray Shadow Secretary of State for Wales: Nia Griffith Shadow Secretary of State for Civil Liberties and Equalities: David Lammy Shadow Secretary of State for Mental Health: Rosena Allin-Khan Shadow Secretary of State for Employment Rights and Protections: Andy McDonald Shadow Leader of the House of Commons: Thangam Debbonaire Shadow Chief Whip: Alan Campbell Shadow Leader of the House of Lords: Baroness Smith of Basildon Also Attending Shadow Cabinet Shadow Chief Secretary of the Treasury and Shadow Minister for Women: Catherine McKinnell Shadow Minister for Democracy and Engagement: Tulip Siddiq Shadow Minister without Portfolio: Shabana Mahmood Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales: Karl Turner Shadow Chief Whip in the House of Lords: Baron Kennedy of Southwark
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Keir Starmer, Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition
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Keir Starmer, Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition
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The bitch is back.
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Campbell quits as Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell has resigned as leader of the Liberal Democrats with immediate effect. In a letter to party president Simon Hughes he said questions about his leadership were "getting in the way of further progress by the party". Mr Hughes said the party owed Sir Menzies "a huge debt of gratitude". Deputy leader Vincent Cable will take over as acting leader until a new leader is elected - a decision is expected by 17 December. The official announcement was made by Mr Cable and Mr Hughes, who said Sir Menzies had taken the decision in the "interests of the party and of Liberal Democracy". In his letter, Sir Menzies said he had sought to restore stability and purpose, professionalism to the party's internal operations and to prepare it for a general election, when he took over as leader in March 2006. Party president Mr Hughes said Sir Menzies had brought "purpose and stability" to the party since he took over, after Charles Kennedy's resignation.. Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown said he was a "man of honesty [and] decency" who had proved to have "remarkable political judgement". "That he has felt the need to resign after these results tells us more about the nature of modern politics than it does about Ming Campbell himself," he said. Earlier on Monday Lib Dem peer Lord Taverne said Sir Menzies should step down within weeks, adding: "My general impression is quite clear, if there's not a change of leadership, the party goes down the drain." But a spokeswoman for Sir Menzies said he had made the decision to stand down himself and had handed his resignation letter to the party's president on Monday afternoon. The announcement appears to have taken the party by surprise - his Parliamentary aide Tim Farron said he was not aware Sir Menzies was about to resign. Mr Cable, who earlier on Monday had said he thought the leadership was "under discussion" but not under threat, added: "I'm very sad he felt he needed to step aside. I don't think he was pushed. There was a very open debate about this immediately that Gordon Brown made his decision to postpone the election which could now be two years hence. I think he took a fresh look at where he stood. He discussed this with his family and colleagues and decided the best thing he could do in the interests of the party was step aside." The Prime Minister paid tribute to a "fine public servant" who had had a distinguished parliamentary career, and wished him well for the future, and Gordon Brown called him "man of great stature and integrity who has served his party and country with distinction". Since he became leader Sir Menzies, 66, has repeatedly had to defend himself against accusations that he was too old to lead the party. Former Liberal leader Lord Steel told the BBC: "I'm afraid the media had it in for him from the start and he was never able to overcome that. Its been very cruel, very unkind and very unfair." Mr Hughes, who has twice stood for the leadership, has told the BBC he would not stand again - saying he had made that decision last year. "That's a categorical 'no'," he added.
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Cameron's 'beautiful boy' dies David Cameron and his wife Samantha have passed on their thanks for the messages of support after the death of son Ivan, their "beautiful boy". William Hague, serving as Acting Prime Minister, said Ivan had brought "joy and love to those around him". Harriet Harman said everyone's thoughts and prayers were with the family. Five-year-old Ivan, who had cerebral palsy and epilepsy, died at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London. Mrs Harman, who suggested suspending the weekly Commons clash as a mark of respect, said every child was "precious and irreplaceable" and that the death of a child "was something that no parent should have to bear". Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose daughter Jennifer Jane died aged just 10 days in 2002, paid tribute to Ivan saying: "I know that in an all too brief life, he brought joy to all those around him and I know also that for all the days of his life, he was surrounded by his family's love." Mr Hague told MPs he had spoken to Mr Cameron, who wanted to pass on the family's thanks for their messages of condolence and say how "hugely grateful" they were to the NHS staff who had helped Ivan throughout his life. Mr Hague said: "Ivan's six years of life were not easy ones. His parents lived with the knowledge for a long time that he could die young, but this has made their loss no less heart-breaking ... Ivan suffered much in his short life, but he brought joy and love to those around him and, as David himself has said in the past, for him and Samantha he will always be their beautiful boy." Deputy Lib Dem leader Vince Cable, who is serving as his party's Acting Leader after the resignation of Menzies Campbell, also expressed his party's condolences in a short statement, appealing for the family to be given space to "grieve and cope with this tragedy that they've experienced". Commons Speaker Michael Martin then suspended the sitting until 1230 GMT "as a mark of respect to Ivan". MPs from across the political spectrum have expressed their condolences to Mr Cameron, who has been leader of the Conservatives since 2005, and Buckingham Palace said the Queen had sent a private message of sympathy. Chancellor George Osborne, a close family friend, said that although Ivan had often been hospitalised in the past, his death had been sudden, just 45 minutes after being admitted to hospital and had "caused a profound shock and, of course, huge grief". He told BBC Two's Daily Politics: "Even with his very severe problems, he was part of family life and they are obviously absolutely devastated by what's happened." But he added that the Camerons were a "strong" family and that "together they will come through this and treasure the memories they have of Ivan". Mr Cameron, who has two other children Nancy, four, and Arthur, two, had been an MP for Witney, in Oxfordshire, for less than a year when Ivan was born in April 2002. He suffered from Ohtahara syndrome, a very rare form of epilepsy characterised by spasms which start in the first days of life. Some children can suffer as many as 100 seizures every day. Describing the moment when he learned of Ivan's disabilities, Mr Cameron told the Sunday Times in 2005: "The news hits you like a freight train. You are depressed for a while because you are grieving for the difference between your hopes and the reality. But then you get over that, because he's wonderful." Friends have said the experience of caring for Ivan broadened Mr Cameron's political outlook and made him a passionate supporter of the NHS, which helped provide the round-the-clock care Ivan needed. "The problems that Ivan had in some way shaped that family and shaped David as a person," said George Osborne. In a 2007 speech, Mr Cameron described how he cared for the "severely disabled" Ivan. "It's what I do at the start of each day. It's sharpened my focus on the world of care assessments, eligibility criteria, disability living allowance, respite breaks, OTs, SENCOs, and other sets of initials. But I would not dare to call myself a carer. The work that full-time carers or those with little extra help do is unbelievable." But he also spoke of how proud he was of Ivan, saying in another interview: "He is a magical child with a magical smile that can make me feel like the happiest father in the world. We adore him in ways that you will never love anybody else, because you feel so protective." The Camerons have asked that, rather than sending flowers, people send donations to Mencap or the Friends of St Mary's Hospital. Foreign Secretary William Hague will stand in for Mr Cameron as Acting Prime Minister while he takes time off, it is understood. A Number 10 dinner later to mark the unveiling of a portrait of Baroness Thatcher which Mr Cameron had been scheduled to attend has also been cancelled.
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David Cameron beats David Davis to Conservative Leadership in tight result Conservative MP David Cameron will be the next leader of the Conservative Party after narrowly defeating David Davis in the final ballot. Kenneth Clarke finished third in the contest, with Liam Fox finishing fourth, both were eliminated prior to the final ballot result. David Cameron succeeds Michael Howard, who had ultimately decided to stand down following the General Election. Despite polls that showed Cameron leading Davis by 30%, the final results were a more respectable 55% to 45% win for the young modernizer, after Davis's campaign got a boost from the tacit support of Liam Fox. Cameron has also named his first Shadow Cabinet the day after his election victory, with two of his three former opponents as members - Davis as Shadow Home Secretary and Fox at Shadow Defence Secretary. William Hague, a former party leader in his own right, is Shadow Foreign Secretary and "Senior Member of the Shadow Cabinet," Cameron's de facto deputy. Other MPs promoted include Peter Ainsworth, Hugo Swire, Cheryl Gillan, Theresa Villiers, David Mundell, and Graham Brady. Villiers and Mundell are the first Conservatives in the 2005 intake to join the frontbench.
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