Where to find Stella Creasy MP this week

• Tuesday 30 November attending the Public Accounts Committee on the Comprehensive Spending Review, sitting as a member of the Third Delegated Legislation Committee to consider the draft Official Statistics Order 2010 and seeking to speak in the debate on tuition fees
• Wednesday 1 December Attending the Public Accounts Committee on the PFI for the Widening of the M25
• Thursday 2 December participating in the Public Bill Committee on the National Insurance Contributions Bill to fight for London businesses, then attending a meeting with the St James Street library and Blackhorse Action Group with representatives from DCLG and then attending the Waltham Forest Women’s Network AGM. Details on these two meetings below.
• Friday 3 December hoping to attend parliament to participate in the debate on the Daylight Saving Bill.
• Saturday 4 December holding a public drop in surgery 12-2pm venue to be confirmed.
• Sunday 5 December taking part in an online live question and answer session with the Sunday Times between 11.30am -12.30pm.
  
  
  To keep up to date with Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow, you can visit workingforwalthamstow.org.uk
  and you can also sign up for her weekly email newsletter.
  
  

Where 'absolutely everyone' will be this evening!

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Goodbye Laura

Donations in thanksgiving for Laura's life may be made online to the St. David's Foundation Hospice Care.

General Committee meeting (GC) - 25 November, 8pm

We'll be holding our next GC meeting on Thursday 25th November at the party offices starting at 8pm. Although this is a meeting of delegates elected by the branches, and other units affiliated to the CLP, we welcome any member* of the CLP, though of course if there is any business to be decided only delegates have a vote.

A full agenda is going to delegates today, but other members will also be interested to know about our guest speaker for this meeting:  Andrew Lewin –  a convert to Labour from the Lib Dems. At 23 Andrew was the youngest Lib Dem parliamentary candidate in England last May, and early this month, according to The Independent, the first such to walk out.

He accepted Clegg had had to deal with the Tories in May, but his "faith was shattered" by Clegg's support for trebling university tuition fees and dropping plans for a job or training guarantee for people out of work more than 90 days. The housing benefit cuts were "incredibly rushed" and it was "very dangerous" to reduce payments by 10 per cent just because someone had been on jobseeker's allowance for a year.

Andrew says he wants to play an active role in the Labour Party possibly standing for it at the next election. "I have a passion for politics. I am joining Labour because of Ed Miliband's leadership. He has set a direction of travel that can appeal across the spectrum, particularly to young people."



This will be a great chance to find out from a former insider how the Lib Dems work, how to counter their ‘ultra-local’ campaigning, how to ensure Labour is the ‘natural home’ of students, and maybe how we can encourage more of their numerous disaffected members to take his brave step.

* If you're not a member but are thinking of joining have a look at the 'Join Labour' tab at the top of the page

Consumer Credit (regulation and advice) bill

As I posted a few days ago, our MP Stella Creasy secured a parliamentary slot to present a so called ten minute rule bill: The Consumer Credit (regulation and advice) bill - which aims  to counter legal loan sharking (but without having the effect of driving people to resort to illegal loan sharks). This bill had its first reading on Tuesday and will go forward for a second reading later in the session. Stella also managed to get an adjournment debate   on the issue on Wednesday. 


As a result she was able to get the Government to acknowledge the widespread concern about the exploitative practices central to this sector and accordingly widened the scope of the department's review of credit and personal insolvency. You can read the debate here, download a form to submit evidence to the government's credit review here, and see more details of her work on this issue here.

Radio Free Press

The Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, based in an office in our CLP Premises, is an important and vital voice arguing for the crucial role in a democracy of a media that is free from monopolistic control by state or any other vested interest.  

As Ofcom carries out its public consultation into Rupert Murdoch’s bid to buy up the whole of BSkyB, the CPBF has launched its first podcast ‘What will Murdoch’s Sky bid mean?' The podcast message is simple, Murdoch’s success would have a disastrous effect on the balance of the British media. 

Presented by former BBC political correspondent Nick Jones, Radio Free Press intends to bring out future podcasts with experts and campaigners talking in depth about vital media issues.

Get the podcast here.

Laura Bruni

Following my posting earlier this week about the sad and untimely death of Laura Bruni, a committed and passionate activist in the Labour Party in Walthamstow, I have now been given details of her funeral arrangements: 

• The church service will be on the 24th November at 12.30pm, at St. John's Church, Church Lane, Leytonstone, London E11 1HH
• and the interment will be at 2pm at the City of London Cemetery, Aldersbrook Road, Manor Park, London E12.

Donations may be made in place of flowers to the St. David’s Foundation Hospice Care, Cambrian House, St. John’s Rd, Newport NP19 8GR.


There is a website giving more information about Laura here, including a page to make a donation, and there is an article in the  Waltham Forest Guardian here.

Adjournment Debate

Spotted this tweet earlier today: "@stellacreasy’s adjournment debate about her Consumer Credit (Regulation and Advice) Bill is tomorrow at 11am in Westminster Hall." For those not familiar with twitter it's someone spreading the word that our MP has secured an adjournment debate tomorrow on her bill to counter legal loan sharking. This means that the government have to respond; they can't just ignore the bill which passed its first reading last week (watch Stella's speech in this ten minute rule debate below). If you have a chance to go and support Stella in parliament it would be very much appreciated. There is a possibility of cross party support as many coalition mps have already tweeted favourably, and none opposed it in the first reading.

What's happening this week

Monday - monthly meetings for East Walthamstow and West Walthamstow branches
Thursday (not Tuesday as I originally posted!) - Education interest group meeting at the town hall
Saturday - London Regional Labour Party biennial meeting

More details on these and other events in the calendar page

Happy Birthday Mike!

Have a good one

Laura Bruni

Minutes after my first posting on this, my first blog, I got an email giving me the very sad news that Laura Bruni had died during yesterday afternoon. As the email said, the news was not unexpected as she had been ill for sometime. Laura had expressed a wish to be buried in the Walthamstow area. As I get more details I will post them here.


For those who didn't know her, Laura Bruni was a passionate, dedicated, highly intelligent campaigner for Labour's values; besides being my predecessor as Walthamstow CLP secretary she was very active in the party in a number of ways until the end of 2008 when she stood down because of ill health. She is taken from us at a cruelly young age. She was much loved and will be sorely missed.

You have to start somewhere

I've been wanting for some time to find a simple way of keeping CLP members, and supporters, informed about what's happening in the party, and I hope this can help. With luck I'll also learn a little about blogs!