What a fab morning at St Leonard’s chatting to staff, students & of course to see the new build. You may remember a small thing called the RAAC crisis? Leonard’s was one of the worst impacted schools in the country & I was pleased to work with the school community to assist in anyway that I could.

Anti-social behaviour complaints are a big part of my inbox and have been on the increase for a while. I was pleased to raise the issue and some of the key areas in which constituents have raised it with me during Home Office questions today. More 👇🏻

There's never a quiet week in my office so here's a taster of some recent wins we've had on behalf of constituents. Sometimes the small things can make a huge difference to someone, their family or a group of residents. If you ever need support please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

I just signed a @mainstreamlabour.bsky.social petition - Guarantee a Fair and Open Selection for the Gorton and Denton By-election. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/gu...

I just signed a @mainstreamlabour.bsky.social petition - Guarantee a Fair and Open Selection for the Gorton and Denton By-election. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/gu...

CITY OF DURHAM SEND ROUNDTABLE. More info👇🏻 Calling teachers, services and families of SEND children and young people in the City of Durham constituency. Next Thurs 22 January at 18:15, I’m holding a roundtable meeting to hear direct from families and teachers who have to navigate the SEND system.

🥁 SMALL BUSINESS OF THE YEAR 2025 - WINNER 🏆 I’m thrilled to announce the winner of this year’s Small Business of the Year award is -The Weigh to Shop in Framwellgate Moor! 👏🏻 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 More 👇🏻

📣 🌹 GOOD NEWS! Your weekly round up of the difference a Labour government is making - this week is a BUDGET SPECIAL

Agree 100%Peter. All so wrong Goodness knows what people like Alf Dobbs think about it all

Keir Starmer + Shabana Mahmood propose that reintroducing Priti Patel's 2022 asylum reforms (with small tweaks) can significantly deter Channel Crossings 2022-24 shows temporary status won't deliver control re "pull factors" Having controlled routes at scale + closing unauthorised routes could

“We welcome migrants, we don’t scapegoat them". How Keir Starmer promised Labour MPs and members he would lead his party on immigration

The Home Secretary says "we have become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world" That is a factually untrue claim: the Home Office shows that the UK is fifth, getting 1/10 claims, while Germany gets 1/5 claims

I see that Mahmood, McSweeney and Glasman (who admires Steve Bannon) are continuing to merry go round of cruelty depicted on our current front page

As keep the faith Peter, we do #safc

I wrote about Robert Jenrick's embrace of blood and soil nationalism for @bylinetimes.bsky.social "The British right is adopting an increasingly extreme form of ethnic identity politics, while failing to explain what the rest of us are supposed to be worried about" bylinetimes.com/2025/08/19/r...

Cutting more public services no doubt, it’s like the Reform Council in Durham who find services already cut to the bone, These populist?politicians have no idea about how democracy works

This is devastating but hard to think of more important journalism. 18,457 children have been killed in Gaza (many more not accounted for). Here, The Guardian prints their names and beautiful faces and tells us what they were like before Israel stole their lives. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

We need a national conversation about a better Britain. I began in Somerset, but it needs to spread. See brexitrage.com/a-better-bri... Brexit is Farage's achilles' heel. We must move the Overton Window back into place. See our YouTube film on the matter. #Brexit #FarageRiots #RejoinEU

currently at record-high search interest for canceling disney plus. pulling kimmel is a bigger deal to the company's bottom line than any of the "woke" scandals of the past 5 years. i think news & entertainment corp execs need put more work into understanding their audience, & get off twitter

I’m with Kinnock. Does anyone remember small boats bring a crisis before Brexit?

Me and Helen Mirren: Life after 80 open.substack.com/pub/eyesande... from @bobhudson.bsky.social A great weekend read

Couldn’t agree more Let’s hope the UK government follows her lead

I think Musk's comments to a rally of 100k people are the highest profile advocacy of political violence in the UK since the end of the Northern Ireland conflict. Does anybody have a counter-example? "Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die."

Eyes & Ears North East eyesandearsnortheast.substack.com?utm_campaign... An interesting and informative read

This man RFK Jr is the biggest threat to public health in my lifetime Please you good Americans who know this , continue to show how dangerous he is RFK Jr and Democrats spar in tense hearing about chaos at federal health agencies and vaccines – live updates

Ocado handed out 221 million plastic bags last year! 😱 Sign the petition and tell them to ditch single-use bags for good. you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/oc...

The perpetrator of this horrendous act should be behind bars

Day in, day out, I speak to ordinary people who are organising to welcome the asylum seekers accommodated in their towns. They befriend, support them, reach out to them as fellow human beings. That's the Britain I know, the one I see around me & we never get told about on TV.

Stand with #Ukraine🇺🇦

This Trump me me me rhetoric is beyond disgusting Zelenskyy is wise to keep his cool but he must be so p****d off

Morecambe FC fans' relief as club sale finalised. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Well said

Today they have crossed a deep red line. We, the people, must hold the president and his appointees accountable for this outrageous abuse against American liberty.

The thing that drives me mad about the health spending debate is it totally *why* budgets are rising everywhere. It's a *good thing* that health spending takes up an ever larger proportion of GDP. It's what we should *want* to spend money on!

"We are the party of fiscal responsibility" says Mel Stride, whose party famously triggered a bond market meltdown which crashed the UK economy and plunged the pound to its lowest ever level against the dollar

Nigel Farage's maths skills were questioned after newly release figures on diversity, equality and inclusion programmes suggest the Reform UK leader's costings don't add up www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

Well tonight I am part of one very happy family .Well done .#SAFC

@profbambra.bsky.social excellent #r4today interview between you and Nick Robinson Hope our County Durham Reform council will listen and take heed

Within one hour of finishing a bizzare annual meeting Durham’s Reform Council had removed the Ukraine flag and replaced with St George’s

Exactly Leaders must be teachers and lead the country in the best evidence based direction.

How pathetic

My colleague @mgerver.bsky.social has created this open letter to Keir Starmer opposing the measures announced in last week's Immigration White Paper, on economic, political and moral grounds. Open to all academics/researchers to sign. molliegerver.weebly.com/petition.html

For all the blanket coverage it's getting today you wouldn't know that fishing contributes a grand total of 0.03% to the UK's economy, or that it is absolutely dwarfed by many other sectors, like the live music industry, which have been badly hit by Brexit but are rarely even mentioned

Michelle and I are thinking of the entire Biden family. Nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe, and I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace. We pray for a fast and full recovery.

I don’t think he’s on here but I would like to thank Nick Thomas-Symons for helping us to get a better deal for everyone in our deal with the #EU today

The word reform has a double meaning here in County Durham as I’m sure in other places infested with that brand