Tuesday 21 June 2011

Won over?

Had a fantastic day in London yesterday with Kelly celebrating her birthday.  The main purpose of the trip was to see Dirty Dancing on stage, her choice not mine!  Kelly had also arranged a tour of parliament with our MP Anna Soubry.  After a picnic in St James Park we headed for our appointment with Anna.

I admit I had pre judged her as a bit of a 'battleaxe' not a very approachable person.  What we got was a very light mannered, polite, humorous woman who has strong opinions and is not afraid to air them in a way that doesn't try to impose them upon you.  We have a whistle stop tour of the houses of parliament, some area's where the 'official tour' wouldn't take you.  When she found out the purpose of the visit to London, she quickly whisked us to the Strangers Bar and got the drinks in, what else but a Pimms for Kelly!  On the terrace boozing with our MP indeed!

She asked how we felt about the area we live in, the schooling, shopping, pubs and general recreational activities.  She listened and sympathised with our answers.  Gave us an insight into what's happening (and what's not) in the area and a brief insight into her vision.

Now I'm not gullible enough to not realise that much of this is an act to 'win us over' and take a certain element of it with a pinch of salt, but what I did realise is this woman has balls, she will stand up and fight and argue her corner, she does not want all our villages/towns merging into one, she wants to see each area retain it's own identity, residents to take pride in the village or town they live in.  She is against building for the sake of building, if housing needs to be built do it the right place in the right way, create communities, not just throw a load of houses up with no heart in the center of them.

I have never met Nick Palmer who preceded Anna as my MP but I have had dealings with him, and although it was always a pleasure to deal with him you always felt he was a bit of a push over, do anything to keep you sweet sort of bloke, not my ideal for an MP.  Anna seems to have the steel and grit needed to fight for her constituency.  If I were a voting man she'd get my vote.

To round the day off we took the tube to Covent Garden, had a wonder round the market and shops, popped into Lilly Cooper's (nee Allen) shop Lucy In Disguise and had a lovely meal in Palm Spring Brasserie before heading for the show, which incidently was pretty good too.

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