Barrett’s Blog

This blog aims to give an insight into the day to day life of an MP, rather than being a political soapbox.

4 February 2010

Expenses

Today is the day that the list of MPs who have to pay back some of their expenses is published. Fortunately I am not one of them. About half of the 646 MPs have to pay back something. Some, over £40,000 and many much smaller sums. The problem is that the honest mistake and the fraudulent claim are all seen as the same and once again everyone is tarred with the same brush. This will not be the end of the affair and it will not doubt rumble on to the election and beyond.

3 February 2010

Is this my good side?

Outside Westminster this morning getting some photographs taken today. Later on I discovered that the photographer had been stopped by the police and asked who he was and what he was doing. Am not sure how the police expect to detect the difference between the potential terrorist and the genuine tourist or photographer, but just asking them is unlikely to get the truth out of a terrorist. Unfortunately the photographer had dozens of photographs of me in his camera and not much else. At least the security services should have a good shot of me on their files now.

30 January 2010

Mike Crockart

After an early morning meeting it was out and about meeting people and delivering literature. Still getting really good feedback and many people wishing me well for the future and wanting to meet Mike, our new candidate. Am glad that more and more people know who he is and are aware that he is the best man to represent the seat. Later in the day the word was that Nigel Griffiths was standing down in Edinburgh South. No great surprise, but it does leave it really late to find someone to fight the seat for Labour. Nigel’s comment that he was standing down now to give plenty of time for a new candidate to fight the seat was met with incredulity by those who heard it. Am confident Fred McIntosh will win this one for the Liberal Democrats.

29 January 2010

Nicotine Free Cigarettes

Met up with an interesting lobby group campaigning to remove nicotine from cigarettes. They had some good points, but had no idea how the system worked, how Private Members’ Bills progressed or many other aspects of campaigning for change. Moving towards a society where personal responsibility increases in areas of health, education and law and order is something I have raised many times before. Looks like those campaigning on this could do with some advice about how Westminster works.

24 January 2010

Parliamentary Reform

This evening it was interesting to be at my first Federal Executive, not as a substitute and in my own right. One side issue I mentioned, that we should look at after the election, was our approach to not standing in the seat which elects the Speaker. There is clearly a head of steam building within the Conservative MPs to replace the current Speaker after the election. If this happens, the replacement will have fought for his or her seat and it might be that this will be the norm in the future. My own view is that after the election of the Speaker, he should continue to sit in the Commons for one term, but his own seat should be contested again, so that the constituents get an effective MP to represent them. Along with PR, fixed term Parliaments and House of Lords reform there will still be much to work on after I step down.

23 January 2010

More Paperwork

As a member of the Scottish Liberal Democrats Party Executive, today we had our first meeting since our colleague Roy Thomson had passed away. There was a vote at the meeting to select a replacement for Roy to serve on the Federal Executive and I was sad about the circumstances but also glad to be unanimously elected to serve at the UK level on this committee. The first meeting was the following week and part of Sunday would be spent going through the papers – what have I done?

20 January 2010

PMQs

Questioned the Prime Minister today about airport security at Edinburgh Airport. He had made a statement about counter terrorism measures and the need to increase security at airports. At the same time there had been press coverage about Edinburgh Airport scrapping the dedicated post in charge of security. He clearly had no idea what I was talking about and said he would look into it and get back to me – will see how long it takes to get one. Went to support the Every Vote Counts campaign to encourage people to vote, especially those who have a range of disabilities. The sad fact id that well under 20% of those people do not vote, even though most are registered to vote. Government decisions play a large part in much of the life of those with disabilities but for a variety of reasons few actually cast a vote in elections. With some minor changes it should be easy to change this. The target is to double the numbers of those voting to 40% as a start.

19 January 2010

The RNIB

Total Politics interviewed me this morning about standing down. This is becoming a habit as I have now given a number of similar interviews, but I have kept one copy of each interview for the years to come, when the grand-children are old enough to be able to look back and ask me what it was all about. In the afternoon I attended an event run by the RNIB and Mencap about the problems of people with mental health problems getting their eyesight properly looked after. I met one woman who had lost her sight at 18 because of her mental health problems; nobody would listen to her about her eye problems which could have been cured. She had been blind ever since.

18 January 2010

The Pyramids

In the morning there was some time before the flight back to the UK left Cairo, so I went to see the Pyramids. They are right on the edge of the city and depending on the direction you look, it can either be an unspoilt desert scene with Pyramids and a Sphinx or if you turn round, you see a filthy run down Cairo suburb. For one of the worlds most iconic sights, the surrounding setting and lack of information on the site are a disgrace. Voted in Westminster at the end of the day as the time difference meant that I was back in time, almost as quick as getting down from Edinburgh.

17 January 2010

The Gaza Strip

Having visited Israel and the West Bank, but not the Gaza Strip, I was delighted to join a delegation from a number of Parliaments to see at first hand what is going on. One year ago I helped lead the march through Edinburgh to stop the bombing of Gaza. Now I am pushing to end the siege of this god-forsaken part of the world where the children are growing up hating their Israeli neighbours. To meet young children who have lost their sight and their legs left me lost for words and wondering how this could still happen in this day and age and nearly on our doorstep. It reminded me of when I was in Auschwitz, when people asked, “How could anyone let this happen?”