General News

Every year the last few weeks before we break up for summer are so crammed full of meetings and reports, getting anything done becomes impossible. In the last few weeks I have worked on the details and drafted amendments to six Select Committee reports. Very late nights and very early mornings are standard at this time of year.

I have recently become a patron of Carbon Connect, an organisation that is trying to foster greater coordination across the ‘carbon agenda’ in all sectors of environmental technologies, enterprise and innovation. In short they are trying to bring people together, because we can do more when we work together.

Last week I attended a meeting to hear Lord Adonis talk about high speed rail. Andrew is the new Secretary of State for Transport, and genuine enthusiast for railways. I also like and trust him. In his speech Andrew described a cartoon he had been shown depicting William Gladstone talking to a train porter. The Prime Minister asks the porter if the train he’s waiting for is dependable. ‘Yes’ replied the porter, ‘it is dependably 15minutes late’. I couldn’t resist commenting ‘I think he is talking about the Cardiff to London Train!’, and there were murmurs of agreement.

For anyone who loves music, it’s difficult to imagine life before St David’s Hall – but as a fairly young City Councillor I shared responsibility for getting it built and for deciding to “go for it” by establishing the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. We weren’t sure it would work – but it has put Cardiff and Wales on the map. The idea came from a BBC staff member but the decision to go ahead was political. The then Leader of the Council, Phil Dunleavy, was a postman and voluntary youth worker – not a businessman or a bureaucrat - just an ordinary citizen with a passion for people and a hunger for his come city to be “the best”. In 1983 he saw the potential, so this month 25 of the world’s finest singers came to St David’s Hall for what is now the biennial BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. More than 600 singers from 68 countries took part in auditions held in 44 locations as far afield as Sydney and Stockholm, Bucharest and Beijing.

In the past a candidate for the role of Speaker of the House of Commons had to pretend he didn’t want the job. That is true no more – this year every one of the ten potential speakers had to appear in one Hustings after another - and on Newsnight – to fight every inch of the way to the finishing line of the vote last Monday.

When I invited Penarth Times readers to nominate subjects for this column, the first constituent to respond asked me to say what fills my day. For an MP no day is the same, I start out with a plan and schedule - but as Harold Macmillan observed, political life is driven by "events, dear boy, events".

I write a weekly article for the Penarth Times Newspaper, the following is the text of the article that appeared on 11 June 2009.

The votes have been counted and the results are in. In terms of the votes cast, Labour has suffered its worst defeat in Wales almost since the founding of the party – and I certainly don’t enjoy saying that, but it’s true! The last time the Conservatives topped a poll in Wales as a whole was in 1865 (that isn’t a typographical error, I did write 1865. And no, I wasn’t there to see it ………………….).

The public reaction to some scandalous stories about MPs expenses is entirely understandable. Where actions are inexcusable it is right that action is taken against those who have done something wrong. But that’s not the whole story. I am happy to answer questions about my own claims - though I also want to point out that I work full-time as the MP for Cardiff South & Penarth. Some MPs earn large sums outside Parliament as barristers or company directors or in other ways. I don’t.

My statement that “volunteering is the essential act of citizenship” has gained widespread acceptance since I first made it in 1997 as part of a general package of initiatives which included the idea of a ‘compact’ between Government and the voluntary sector. Within that approach the concept of a local compact, led by the Local Authority with its community partners, was absolutely central. The ‘compact’ is an agreement between government and the voluntary sector on how to work together, on how to share principles and best practices, and how both can influence the other and become more effective.