What's happening in Beeston, Belle Isle, Cottingley, Holbeck, Hunslet, Middleton and Stourton
I much enjoyed my visit to the Middleton Railway on the occasion of their recent open day. As ever, the volunteers had put on a wonderful demonstration of the living history that embodies the Trust. One of the display items that caught my eye was a Potts station clock, complete
I’ve written in my column before about the housing crisis in Leeds – and elsewhere – which is affecting a growing number of people. The size of the housing waiting list is going up while the supply of houses has been going down. So having read in a recent edition
Sometimes, things happen out of context. I was recently in Northern Ireland and visited the Harryville Men’s Shed just outside Ballymena. It’s a drop in centre for men of all ages who feel lonely or isolated, and it provides a range of activities from a cup of tea and a
The Horizon Post Office scandal is one of the most terrible injustices our country has ever seen. I don’t know about you, but I watched all the episodes of the excellent ITV drama ’Mr. Bates v the Post Office’ with increasing incredulity and anger. How could this have possibly happened?
Happy New Year. I was listening to the radio the other morning when Esther Rantzen came on. She revealed that she is receiving treatment for stage four lung cancer which is terminal and she said that she has joined Dignitas, the organisation that runs the assisted dying clinic in Switzerland.
The appalling suffering in Israel and Gaza continues, although at the time of writing a truce to allow for the release of some of the hostages is about to happen. Many of my constituents feel very strongly indeed about the attack on Israel on 7th October and about what has
The crisis in Gaza and Israel is awful and deeply distressing and a lot of constituents have contacted me about it. On 7 October, Hamas deliberately murdered 1,400 Israelis, including young people enjoying a music festival, and men, women, children and babies in their homes. They took hostages and fired
First things first. 100 not out. What an achievement by South Leeds Life. It was a great pleasure to attend the celebration of the 100th edition of the South Leeds Life newspaper at the Rowland Road Working Men’s Club recently. There was a great turnout of supporters and citizen journalists
I really didn’t want to start my first column of the autumn writing about machetes and zombie knives, but I feel I must. I’ve been campaigning for some time along with others, including the police, for the Government to take much more effective action to ban their sale and possession.
If you’d told me at the start of the week that I would be speaking in a debate on concrete mixers, I might have thought it unlikely. But that’s exactly what I did recently to stand up for a local company called Mixamate that operates in South Leeds and beyond,