Gisela Stuart MPWorking hard for Bartley Green, Edgbaston, Harborne and Quinton

House Magazine Diary - March 2009 // March 25th, 2009 // Speeches, Articles and Interviews

In a flush of eagerness I applied to the Armed Forces parliamentary scheme when I first came into the House in 1997. Joining the Marines seemed a good idea then. At first they wouldn’t have me, then I wouldn’t have time for them so when both sides finally got together 12 years later I came to the conclusion that I was too old for the Marines and I opted for the Navy instead.

Friday is my first proper visit to a navy establishment. A long train journey to Plymouth and staying up just a little too long chatting with officers means that when I wake up to the sound of furious seagulls I wonder whether it was such a good idea after all. But I should not have worried.
HMS Raleigh’s set up in brining in raw recruits and putting them through a 9 week training course is impressive. Watching the passing out parade and talking to parents and friends who had come down to share the day is moving. These youngsters have achieved something good, maybe for the first time in their lives, and they are rightly proud.

Having lost what would normally be a constituency Friday means that much of Saturday is spent signing letters and catching up with paper work. I am only allowed out to look at the sad sight of school crossing traffic lights which were started in October and are still not completed. I can’t for the life of me work out what is taking Birmingham City Council so long.

Sunday’s worthy, tedious but nevertheless necessary task is to clean out the greenhouse and wash everything ready for spring. I console myself that all that bending and stretching is good exercise.

When I get back to London a fair amount of forcefully expressed opinions from my constituents about bankers, bonuses and pension arrangements awaits me. How can you think some of these massive payments are justified they want to know. They are not I tell them, but to find a legal way of stopping them is more difficult. I did send an invitation to those bankers who had been to the Treasury Select Committee to come to Birmingham and meet some “real people” and hear what they have done to their lives, but I am not holding my breath. I talk to some pension lawyers whether there is a chance of interpreting the state taking a majority holding in a bank in order to prevent bankruptcy could be interpreted as an “insolvency event” and thus make the Pension Protection Fund kick in. That would cap the excessive pensions, but I am not sure it would work.

William Horsely, who used to be a respected BBC journalist, is now with the University of Sheffield working on global media freedom. We talk about how little attention seems to be given to the abuses of power in Russia. Encouraging democracy and ensuring elections is important, but without a free and vigorous press this won’t happen.

Sneak off early on Tuesday morning to view the British Museum’s Shah ‘Abbas exhibition, the great Iranian ruler who in the seventeenth century established Isfahan as his new capital. The West began to learn more about his country – something we certainly need to do again today. I am as troubled by the current regime’s desire to become a nuclear power as anyone else, but we should do more to understand their rich and ancient culture.

Meeting the winners of the Parliamentary Gallery’s School Writing competition at lunchtime reminds me that we just don’t do enough to celebrate the achievements of our young people. This lot were bright, eager and hard working and I hope they and their parents and teachers went away feeling that Parliament is a place open to them and their ideas.

In the afternoon I head for St Antony’s College in Oxford. I am taking part in a series of seminars on “Democracy who wants it”. The focus today is on Southern Africa. It is tragic to see how quickly a once prosperous and successful country like Zimbabwe has been reduced to a place rife with disease, extreme poverty and political corruption. And yet, Botswana next door is doing well and I hope that South Africa itself will make the full transition to a multiparty democracy.

I don’t mind missing the votes in the evening on the regional select committees. I not sure Westminster has given sufficient thought to how the continuing devolution of power affects this place.

Wednesday and the return of Prime Minister’s Questions – but today it is Harriet v William. Gordon Brown is in the US addressing Congress and looking at the sparsely attended benches in the Commons makes me wonder where the rest of the MPs have gone. Westminster is strangely quiet and the tea room looks like the Marie Celeste.

Plenty of people in Committee Room 9 in the afternoon though. I chair a meeting of the APPG on Transatlantic and International Security. Paddy Ashdown takes us on a tour de force about how power has shifted, not just geographically, but also away from the nation state. Ashdown’s new law of politics “the most important part of what you can do, is what you can do with others”. Thus it is perfectly possible to be an ardent transatlanticist who at the same time argues for deeper political integration of Europe.

Agree with him only up to a point. It’s no good just wishing Europe to have a strong political will and military capability, but when they show no signs of being prepared to come up with the goods, it gets tricky. With the exception of a few countries, most of them want someone to keep the peace, but they themselves just want to be left in peace. Like it or not, we need combat troops.

It’s fun announcing one of the winners of the Women in Public Life Awards in the evening. One of the previous years’ winners tells me how getting the award helped her recover from deep depression. She was a councillor and had been caring for her husband who in his late forties suffered six strokes. Looking after him and children as well as public life, left her exhausted; winning the award made her realise it was all worth while. The human side behind public images if often more tragic and painful than people realise.

Thursday is spent mostly in the office, dealing with letters, emails and phone calls. I go in for Business Questions to raise the issue of parliamentary delegations. Many MPs do important work on the parliamentary assemblies of NATO, the OSCE and the Council of Europe, but we never get a chance to hear from them about their work.

In the evening I am off taking a rest from things political. Advertised as “A night for German lovers” in the Goethe Institute is not would you might think…it’s a book reading. Four people have been asked to chose a title originally written in German, but available in translation, which is important to them. I am reading from Kehlmann’s Measuring the World. An account of Humboldt and Gauss which in Germany outsold Harry Potter and the DaVinci Code! Now that’s a recommendation.

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