Letter from Parliament - Jim Dobbin MP

Jim Dobbin MP

I begin this week’s article with a tribute to my good friend and Labour stalwart John Orford who died last week.

John was my constituency secretary during most of my time in Parliament. He was forced to retire from his legal job with Tameside council a number of years ago because of ill-health. He was a popular community activist, served on a number of school governing bodies and of course helped run D.I.A.L. in Middleton.

His funeral Mass at St Peter’s was well attended and Parish Priest Fr Kieran, gave a thoughtful and inspiring homily on John and his local contribution. His wife Catherine and his three children can be justly proud of such a fine man.

I am disappointed that the train contract for the West Coast Main Line has gone to First Group. I say that openly because of the poor service my constituents receive from First Bus who provide the overall service in North Manchester. The quality of the service leaves much to be desired.

I don’t blame those who drive for the company, I blame their management and of course the Conservative government that de-regulated transport.

VirginTrains are not perfect but I fear we will see a deterioration of the train service in the North West. I hope I am proved wrong.

I note that the Council intends to honour our local Olympic heroes. Stuart Bithell, Keri-Anne Payne, Nicola White, Sophie Cox and Craig Dawson deserve our acclaim and public applause for their fine efforts.

Hopwood Hall College can also share the praise for its superb support to local sporting activities and we can point to Nicola Adams who trained in her early days at the college and lifted a gold medal, a magnificent achievement.

David Cameron’s ignorance of the details of his government Ministers’ decisions became obvious when he promised to invest more in sports facilities before he found out that Michael Gove had already sold off playing fields. Do we envisage another U turn in the near future?

Meanwhile,the price of rail fares is expected to rise by over 6%. This has already triggered an outcry from his own MPs whose constituents will be adversely affected. Surely not another U turn in the offing?

Middleton Parish church celebrated its 600th anniversary last Sunday. I was pleased to attend and be part of this local piece of Middleton history. Cardinal Thomas Langley was of course Lord Chancellor to three Kings of England.

I was sad to learn of the death of Lord Alf Morris who had been Labour MP for Wythenshawe for many years.

He had a tough time in his early years after his father who had been gassed in WW1 returned home, a blind and broken man and died shortly afterwards, leaving Alf’s mother to bring up 8 children in great poverty.

Alf never forgot this trauma and fought for the rights of the disabled all life. He made history as the first ever Minister for the Disabled and his legislation for the disabled is now copied worldwide.

It’s a great pity that the coalition government are undermining some of the legislation Alf established especially the right to much needed benefits.

He was a gentle but determined man and never forgot his background.

I had a briefing this week on future developments in each of the borough’s town centres, including Middleton, Heywood, Castleton and Rochdale. Despite the public sector cuts the local council is striving to improve things and bring much needed jobs.