Sunday 8 September 2013

Sarah Teather - Labour shouldn't crow

I remember thinking that Sarah Teather's fate as a London MP was probably sealed when Nick Clegg and David Cameron sacked her as Minister for (English) Education in favour of David Laws. Sarah was one of a number of women demoted by the leaders of the coalition who seem to share the mentality of Tony Abbott. The inner cities are likely to be the exception to the rule that the official opposition will make no headway at the general election in the face of a thriving economy, but being a respected minister would probably have been enough to stave off Labour's attack in Brent.

However, before Labour sisters believe they have a ready-made convert, they should read Sarah's resignation statement, (pdf here). She says she is proudest of getting a constituent released from Guantanamo Bay and of Liberal Democrats in government delivering on their promise to end child detention in the immigration system - both redressing Labour government wrongs.

Sarah emphasises that it is absolutely inconceivable that she could ever join any other political party than the Liberal Democrats. She goes on: "I shall be out campaigning for the local elections with my local LibDem team over the forthcoming months and will campaign to get my Liberal Democrat successor elected to Parliament in the General Election. In Parliament I shall continue with my work as Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees and will carry on making the case for a fair and humane immigration system as Parliament considers a new immigration bill in the coming months."

She must have taken it personally when those obnoxious vans made their incursions into North London constituencies. They appeared at the time when she was considering her future and must have been the final straw.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Clearly, Liberal do-gooders like Teather and yourself would have an open door policy for all international hard luck stories to migrate to soft touch Britain. It's remarkable the number of people flocking to Britain who hate us, our army, our foreign policy, and everything we stand for. This nation is indeed "busily heaping up its own funeral pyre."
[COMMENT MODERATION is a device for brave souls who like to let off steam at others in their blogs but then hide behind 'comment moderation' when they take umbrage at negative comments. Shame.
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Frank Little said...

Comment moderation is a device to protect bloggers from libel, obscenity or links to malware.

Frank Little said...

I think you will find that most of the people flocking (as you put it) to Britain want to come here because they admire us, not because they want to do us down. Most of the terrorist danger has arisen from British citizens.

We already have the strictest immigration laws in Western Europe. If they were enforced fairly and efficiently there would be less trouble.