Over the last 14 years I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have three different perspectives of the greatest challenges we’ve been through.
Locally being Gloucester’s MP puts me at the heart of city and county issues: and I’ve had a national perspective especially from the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy.
For an international view I’ve been both the PM’s Trade Envoy for almost all this period and Chair of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (with offices in around 30 countries including Ukraine & Myanmar) for the last six years.
Anyone who holds these sorts of positions needs to be able to answer two questions:
So what - what have you actually done?
What have you learnt, what wisdom can you share?
The first one I have to answer on different channels, because - as we approach an election - it could become a party political / personal promotion explanation, not what this e news can do. (See the PS for more detail).
But to the second and more interesting question, let me offer an initial answer.
In a way (Dame) Diana Johnson (Labour Chair of the Home Affairs Committee) put her finger on it during the debate ten days ago on the Criminal Justice Bill.
In that Bill was something I’ve campaigned on for almost three years - getting Spiking into the law, in all its forms and humiliations, requiring Police to collect and keep data on it and its consequences. Spiking matters.
Diana, who personally and through her committee has been very helpful to my cause, congratulated me on my persistence. She said that is, above all, what parliamentarians need most.
There was a brief moment, as the draft Bill went to the Lords, when I thought we were almost there. Where the hard work started 2 and a half years ago when a constituent and her mother first contacted me about this problem would finally pay off and see the law protect all people from the horrors of spiking. But the election means Parliament will have to start again after the election: hopefully building on where we got to so far on this.
So more persistence will be needed.
But, as I said to Diana Johnson, ‘persist’ is the English translation of the Latin motto ‘Prorsum’ of the last HMS Gloucester.
And there would be no HMS Gloucester at all had Colonel Massey, young Commander of Gloucester in the Civil War, not persisted in his defiance of the King - and our city come through almost intact, against all the odds. He persisted: we survived, Cromwell won (in the short term) and the ship was launched in Gloucester’s honour.
The last HMS Gloucester, whose motto was ‘Prorsum’ - Persist or Forward!
In fact when we read about the Falklands War 40 years ago, or the epic defence of Kyiv only two years and a bit ago, they (and all stories of extraordinary human endeavour) boil down to resilience and persistence.
Ukrainians here and in Ukraine have reminded us what resilience means
These triumphs are not just national or wartime, they’re individual too. My father looked after my mother for ten years when she had dementia, well into his eighties. After she died I told him I did not think I could have done what he had. He replied immediately ‘you don’t know what you can do until you have to do it’.
So many of my constituents’ lives are full of these remarkable stories of individual persistence - just never giving up whatever the situation.
And that same persistence is the secret of getting things done through local and national government, international business or diplomacy.
You need patience, persuasion, perseverance and luck.
Last week there were four bits of good news for Gloucester with echoes of this:
1) The County Council confirmed that work on Sudmeadow Rd (opposite Llanthony Secunda Priory) would start - which will improve access for businesses and save transport time
2) The Folk of Gloucester won a £250,000 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund - which will transform what they can do at the heart of heritage and cultural activity in Gloucester
3) A new policeman focused on antisocial behaviour started work - which will help perceptions of our City Centre
4) The board of Enovert agreed to start their solar farm on contaminated land at the Recycling Centre in Hempsted - which will increase sharply ‘Made in Gloucester’ Green Energy
All of these have one thing in common. They’ve been work in progress for a long time and wouldn’t have happened ‘anyway’.
Here’s the detail of each briefly to bring them alive.
Sudmeadow Road
I first raised the issue of access for businesses via Sudmeadow Rd after listening to the case Glevum Glass and others made to me over two years ago. I urged our County Council to amend their plan.
They did - and now they’re going to actually put the plan in place. Thank you GCC.
Explaining changes to benefit Sudmeadow Rd businesses
Folk of Gloucester
Then there’s the Folk of Gloucester. It was, as the Folk Museum, closed by the City Council over 20 years ago and after a long journey, patiently navigated by current Chair Martyn White, with my support throughout, it’s owned by the Civic Trust - cared for by those most passionate about our history and heritage.
As a charity it’s now able to access funding from the Lottery - and Martyn and the Trust have successfully won over £500,000 from different sources to secure and improve an historic building - and most importantly to bring it alive by informing, entertaining and inspiring many.
This is a 20 year persistence story, keeping going when others might have given up. I’ve been delighted to write strong letters of support for all the Folk of Gloucester’s major bids, including this one. Well done Martyn and the Folk of Gloucester.
Lots of history celebrations at the Folk of Gloucester
The Folk of Gloucester is a community asset used by all
Street drinking, rough sleeping and ASB
Next street drinking and rough sleeping, leading to anti-social behaviour (ASB) and criminality in our City Centre. It’s recently increased and got worse. I managed to get almost all the rough sleepers on the Gates Streets moved on and we now need to crack down on street drinkers.
Bluntly there seems to be a reluctance to implement the Public Spaces orders put in place by Jennie Watkins as Council Deputy Leader.
So I’m delighted that the PCC has responded to the issues we’ve raised and was successful in his bid for a new Inspector to lead on ASB, with Gloucester City Centre as the top priority.
I met the new ASB lead, Dan Wakeman, last week and he recognised we need a persistent police presence to get this problem under control. We cannot allow a small number of tiresome people to damage a lot of people’s experience of our city centre: so we will persist and succeed!
Time to crackdown on City Centre anti-social behaviour / street drinking: with new asb PC Dan Wakeman
Green Energy
Lastly then the solar farm. I’ve been discussing this with owner Enovert for almost 6 years.
Planning took a while, inflated costs of solar panels a while back didn’t help: but we’re there now, the planning is in place the owners have committed the capital and I’m looking forward to planting an early panel.
All credit to Enovert CEO Mark Sylvester for persisting with this. We can now focus on increasing fast the planting of the new 100,000 tree Hempsted Wood. Gloucester school children have planted almost 11,000 so far, the result of my encouraging many schools over the last 2 years and the GWT organising the planting.
Planting trees with GWT
With Ennovert and the Environment Minister looking at our Hempsted Green Energy plans
So that’s what I’ve learnt from 14 years as Gloucester’s MP - keep at it: persist: prorsum - whether a pandemic, defence, cyber or flooding contingency planning or local issues from green energy to road changes, ASB and heritage building. Yes to good ideas, sensible and resilient leadership and above all persistence.
Let me know where you think more persistence is needed in our city or county to get something done.
Best regards,
PS Thank you all for reading these newsletters. This is my last e news before the General Election in which I’m re-standing: all MPs become candidates effective a minute past midnight on Thursday: there can be no communications from this MP e mail address / on taxpayer funded mail chimp
If you’d like to get campaigning pieces during the election do mail me on my private e mail address [email protected] with a one line subject: “Please add me to your mailing list”
It was a great honour to give the last Good Conduct medals to member of HMS Gloucester’s crew in 2011.
I will always continue to honour her and their memory, and hope that one day we will have another HMS Gloucester. Prorsum indeed.