A public service announcement for lovers of pear drops in Wednesbury

Was brilliant to meet two of Asda’s community champions and celebrate the £17,500 put back into our community from the stores in Great Bridge, Tipton and Coseley

A lot of total nonsense being talked on graduates today. Here’s the facts: 1) there was a rise in graduate inactivity UNDER the Tories 2) graduate inactivity has FALLEN under this government 3) The result is the graduate inactivity rate is currently the LOWEST on record

The Tories' guidance did not deliver the consistency schools need. Labour has strengthened the guidance to make our position explicit – all schools should be phone-free environments for the entire school day. I have written to heads to make that clear. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I was glad to meet the British Beauty Council this morning who were talking to MPs about the economic contribution of the industry and the role of direct employment. They were also demonstrating AI nail technology… I had to give it a try!

Bluesky idea: if people who didn't agree with you change their opinions so that they do agree with you, why not be happy that you are making progress - rather than complaining that they are "only just catching up"?

Shouldn’t have bothered turning on the football

Mahmood increasingly seems like one of the governments best communicators, direct in a way that avoids perception of typical political evasiveness and with a nice way of bringing interviews back to the public’s concerns

Reform MP Andrew Rosindell tells the BBC that he "would not object" to scrapping the NHS and replacing it with private insurance

Man of the people latest. All of Farage’s history shows that far from “taking on the globalists” he’s a grifter who milks unsavoury parts of the global elite for all he can get

More leaking and briefing on the Send reforms means more scared parents. I am so over the constant ramping up of tension by journalists who treat it as part of a horse race and Facebook groups and commentators downright terrifying parents through speculation

A favourite moment of mine in an MP’s office was when someone who had sent a mass-mail email as part of a campaign wrote back to complain that our reply ‘was obviously a stock response’. Er, yeah, were we somehow supposed to write different replies to each of the 100 or so identical emails?

Yes. My team tag obviously individually written policy emails as “individual response”, allocate to me in our CRM and I reply to them myself. It’s 5-10 a week. (Obvs I see all the other responses to mass campaigns and may tweak, but I don’t originate them)

So proud to call Keir Starmer our PM right now. Speaking to the media this afternoon he called out Trumps disgusting rewriting of history over how the UK & European countries came (& died) to support the US after 9-11. "I consider President Trump's remarks to be insulting, and frankly appauling."

Having actual veterans of Afghanistan like @louisesandherjones.bsky.social and @alcarns.bsky.social as ministers in our British government, telling it like it is, will hopefully remind our allies exactly how much NATO countries have need to have each others’ backs, in the past and the future

Today I am thinking in particular of the family of Guardsman Daniel Probyn, from Tipton, serving in the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, killed in Afghanistan on 26 May 2007. How dare the US President insult his family and his memory, and those of all our British service personnel who were killed

NATO Article V has been triggered only once: by the US after 9/11. When our ally called, we in the UK didn't hesitate to stand with them. 636 British men & women paid the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan, with many more living with their injuries today.

I have rarely felt as proud of our PM as I did this week listening to him answer on Greenland at PMQs. Resolute and determined. Video here www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cp...

Getting the national campaign weekend started in Princes End with our fab candidate Joanna Quaye - lost to conversations about speeding on Farmer Way, glad to tell people that Sandwell council has plans to deal with it!

You can see this in evidence every Friday too, as the Lords carefully and painstakingly talk through the huge issues of assisted dying Yet somehow on that issue informed debate is painted as illegitimate filibustering

I spoke to @bethrigby.bsky.social in Manchester recently about how the cost of living is the most important issue for my residents. Tackling it is what we need to all focus on. Full interview here 👇🏻 youtu.be/tmKE6HX4C-w?...

Very pleased to welcome Jeremy Nugent of Truflo, a cooling fan manufacturer for construction and automotive based in Tipton, to Parliament to meet Chris Bryant, the trade minister. Quite a week to be talking exports…

A privilege to attend the Speaker’s Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in Parliament. We heard the testimony of Mala Tribich, who survived Ravensbruck and Bergen-Belsen, and committed ourselves anew to the memory of those who perished

In a very on-brand morning, delighted to meet with the other officers of the APPG on metal crime to talk about campaigning to update the 2013 scrap metal act. Massive local issue for us in the Black Country - and key to our future metals recycling industry

The government is going to move fast and fix things. Today I announced that we are: ✂️ cutting bureaucracy 💉 using the Vaccine Taskforce model to deliver on your priorities ✅ promoting the doers not the talkers within the civil service.

Go well, Marc. One day you’ll captain England.

The School Support Staff Negotiating Body established in Labour's Employment Rights Act will give our support staff more ability to negotiate for better pay and conditions. @larry-turner.bsky.social asks the Secretary of State a vital question about when we can expect to see progress on this 👇

Decent people know you don’t count white faces and pretend it tells you something about integration

I am shocked, shocked, a Labour MP may be a loud, old school, common trade unionist. Never happened before

My face on Politics Live when Tim Montgomerie was talking

Today is quite the day to be making my debut on Politics Live on BBC2 at 1215pm

Come on Senegal! 🇸🇳

Worth reading to understand the role of the Pride in Place neighbourhoods. I have one: c. 1800 households in an area smaller than a ward with £20m to spend over a decade. It’s a massive massive intervention for some of the places the state walked away from

Just fyi. On Friday, Lord Falconer, who's shepherding the assisted dying bill through the Lords, admitted that he thought it was fine if someone chose to die because they didn't have enough money for care If you're left wing and support the principle, I really need you to look at the bill's details

Every single word of this. We know we have to be a selling club. I am proud every time Olise scores for Bayern, and when Marc and Ebs go to the World Cup I will tell everyone they were made in south London. But why can we not ever aspire to more?!

🚨 REMINDER: Only Labour will improve SEND support. The Tories left behind a ‘lose, lose, lose’ system in their own words. Reform UK will cut SEND support. They blame ‘naughty children’ & ‘bad parenting’. Only Labour will build a system where every child can achieve & thrive.

Rare combative tone from Keir Starmer on the Trump tariffs tonight, as he stands up for Greenland/Denmark. "Applying tariffs on allies for pursuing the collective security of NATO allies is completely wrong. We will of course be pursuing this directly with the US administration."

Not pictured (cos I forgot to take a pic): massive doorknocking session in my bit of West Brom - Hateley Heath Ward. We had six of us out and covered tonnes of ground!

Brilliant time out and about with local councillors on Friar Park talking about our Pride in Place funding - £20m over 10 years for our estate. That’s Labour in government

Brilliant to drop in for coffee and toast and see Cathy at the Park Hill Cafe on the Woods estate. They do a mean fry up and are brilliant for the community too

Some mornings you need a desi breakfast - none better than House of Chaii in Dudley Port!

Horrific in the Lords debates on assisted dying today. Lord Falconer: “Choice is the key thing. Your financial position might be an element in what makes you reach a decision.” No. It is not a free choice if financial considerations push you towards ending your own life.

Glad to see that the West Midlands chief constable has stood down, as he should The findings of the independent inspection were damning. His actions undermined community trust in local policing None of this reflects on our brilliant local coppers who keep us safe every day

Wonderful to see our LWN committee member and JCWIL graduate elevated to the House of Lords today as Baroness Hyde of Bemerton. Congratulations Sara!

I was asked if I had any advice for Robert Jenrick. He was a Health Minister when NHS waiting lists rocketed. He was an Immigration Minister as illegal migration soared. Hang up your political boots and try something new, Rob. @gbnewsonline.bsky.social

Loving this from my old colleagues at the TUC

She should have sacked him for his comments about integration and “not seeing a white face” in parts of Birmingham last year. Just shows how far the Tory party have fallen.

BREAKING: NHS WAITING LISTs ARE DOWN BY A HUGE 86,000! It’s the second biggest drop in NHS waiting lists in 15 years Thanks to all the NHs staff who made this happen - and Labour’s record investment 🗳️ You voted to fix our NHS ✅ We are doing it

Waiting lists for elective surgery fell THREE TIMES FASTER in the twenty areas with the highest joblessness - like our patch, where Dudley, Wolverhampton and Sandwell hospitals got extra help to speed up surgery and streamline processes