Romsey Advertiser - 23 May 2008

Written by Sandra Gidley on Fri 23rd May 2008

My weekend, for once, did not revolve around politics. The highlight of the weekend was the "Moonwalk" in London. Thousands of women took to the streets wearing decorated bras to walk a marathon, or half marathon, to raise money for breast cancer research. It was a brilliant atmosphere and the event raised a huge amount of money for charity.

Luckily I managed to get my body clock back in sync for the Monday. After a couple of meetings in Southampton, including a health check, I headed for Westminster and two days of discussion on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. I had more or less made up my mind on some of the issues and decided that it would still be useful to listen to the debate as I was open to a certain amount of persuasion. We were discussing the parts of the Bill which are regarded as conscience issues and these occasions are usually when, I think, the House of Commons is at its best. Party politics are set aside and the strongly held views of all are usually respected.

I had an interesting morning on Tuesday as I was one of the judges in the "Youth Parliament" competition. It is a competition for schools who choose a subject for debate and set up a mock parliament. We were judging the semi finals and all the MPs enjoyed the experience.

On Wednesday there were a number of meetings. Some of them were connected with my forthcoming trip to Israel, during the parliamentary recess, but I have also met a lot of people recently as a result of my Ten Minute Rule Bill which dealt with financial education so I am now trying to think how to positively move this agenda forwards.

Prime Ministers Question Time was fairly flat this week, partly because a lot of MPs were spending time at the Crewe and Nantwich by election. It was also quite interesting to hear David Cameron asking questions in reasonably measured tones as, despite his initial avowed intent to avoid yahboo politics, his approach has been increasingly knockabout in recent weeks and months. On reflection I actually prefer the more serious approach as Prime Minister's Question Time all too regularly degenerates into farce.

Afterwards it was a quick dash to Westminster Hall to take part in a youth TV programme which aims to introduce some political content. A welcome initiative and I hope the programme lasts as we were on the first ever broadcast. Depressingly the subject matter seemed to veer towards the negative side of youth and we all tried to make the point that most young people are a credit to society rather than a problem. A nice consensual point to end on.