Tessa Jowell seeking nomination to stand for mayor

[Sue]

Just received the email below (obviously it's also been sent to many others!!)

In my experience she's been a good MP and has always dealt with issues I've raised with her very speedily, so I wish her the best of luck.

Dear Sue,

As I hope you know I am not standing for election as your Member of Parliament at the forthcoming general election. As the House of Commons is dissolved on Monday 30th March, that will be my final day as your MP.

I wanted to write to thank you for the support, good advice and feedback that you have given me, and also for the opportunity as your Member of Parliament to help and represent you. I have been your MP for 23 years and on each and every day have felt deeply the responsibility that comes with being your representative.

Yesterday, I made my final speech in the House of Commons, and I wanted to share it with you (below). If the last 23 years have taught me one thing it is this: this community - our community - can achieve anything when we put our minds to it and we work together. I am so proud of how far we have come, and I am honoured to have had the chance to share in your lives and your success.

As I said yesterday, our constituency, and indeed all of London is at risk of becoming divided in two, between the comfortably off and the very poor. Because I feel I have to try to use all my experience of representing you and of being in government, I will be putting my name forward for the nomination to be Labour?s candidate for Mayor of London after the general election on May 7th.

So the purpose of this email is to both thank you for your support and your contribution to the community, but also to ask if you would like to keep in touch with my future work and campaigns for London. If you do not wish to, then please simply opt out of future contact using the link at the bottom of this email.

In any event, I will miss you, the constituency, and the work we have been able to do together and I wish you all the very best for the future,

With all best wishes,

TJ_signature_blue.jpg

Tessa Jowell

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 07752 679341

Follow me on Twitter: @TessaJowell

Like me on Facebook: fb.com/TessaJowell

House of Commons Debates 26 March 2015 (Hansard): Column 1652

Dame Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab): Like so many other hon. and right hon. Members, I begin by thanking you, Mr Speaker, for the way in which you have led us and conducted our business. It is many years since you and I first met over the Dispatch Box when we debated a piece of secondary legislation on European employment law. The House and our proceedings have been extraordinarily enhanced by the way in which you have presided over us, and I thank you for that.

I also thank the other officers of the House, who conduct their duties often without being properly recognised, including those who provide a service in the Dining and Tea Rooms, the Door Keepers who direct us and, of course, the formidable staff of the House of Commons Library, a facility on which I make far too many demands. I thank all of them very much.

I was first elected in 1992. When I became the Member of Parliament for Dulwich, as my constituency was called then, there were more MPs called John or Jonathan than all the women from all the parties combined. Why does that matter? It matters because the authority of this House is in crisis, which will no doubt be discussed and debated in the forthcoming general election campaign. As you so often tell us, Mr Speaker, this House should talk to the country and not to itself. The Westminster village can be a very comfortable abode, but it is not what we are here to serve.

We need a Parliament that looks like, and that talks about the issues that matter to, the rest of the country, and that recognises the cost of child care, the shortage of decent homes and how difficult it is for an 18-year-old with very poor levels of literacy and numeracy to get a job. Dealing with these things is what inspires the confidence of people who live their lives with our politics as a low ?brrr? in the corner most of the time. Those are the things that make them feel that we are worth it and worth engaging with.

I faced many challenges in my constituency, and the same is true of other London MPs in particular. The big issue when I was first elected was the number of elderly people waiting on trolleys for admission to the A and E department at King?s College hospital?the extraordinary hospital that serves my constituents. Another issue was the number of children who could not get into the primary school of their choice. There was an educational divide at age 11 whereby white and middle-class children went either to a private school or out of the boroughs. Now, however, with redevelopment at King?s and five new secondary schools in the constituency, the situation has begun to change, but the nature of our progressive politics, which Labour Members in particular hold so dear, means that the job is never done.

The great risk facing my constituency is that it will become a constituency of two types of life: that of the comfortable and well-off and that of the poor. Similarly, our capital city of London faces the risk of becoming two cities.

I am very sad that Sure Start, which was set up as an early nurturing programme by the Government of which I was a member, has been hollowed out. I hope we will never forget the optimism and ambition of the Olympic games, which, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, showed us the better angels of our nature.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm150326/debtext/150326-0003.htm

Edited to add the speech

[Fly]

We have found her very good but also Andy Coates who worked for her. I hope he is still in the same position. Tessa and Helen Hayes have jointly been working hard in problems we have had and all 3 have been fantastic.

[uncleglen]

Yes well we all know who is responsible for the poor levels of literacy and numeracy in the UK....Just as long as people could write out their betting slips I expect she was more than happy!

[Sue]

Eh?

[James Barber]

Hi Sue,

I think uncleglen was alluding to Tessa introducing new betting laws allowing addictive gaming machines, betting shops being allowed to open unless people proved they would cause harm - previously applicants had to prove they wouldn't cause harm. Huge expansion in betting shps resulted and still rising. Labour campaigning for the coalition to stop the betting shop bonanza having allowed Tessa to cause it.

Same with drinking culture. Tessa changed the laws reversing the burden of proof from alcohol licnese applicants proving they wouldn't cause harm to objectors having to prove they would. Huge expansion in late and all night drinking estlablishments. 500% increase in alcohol ambulance calls and A&E admissions from alcohol - part of why A&E's across the country have a much higher workload than ever before.

I'm sure Tessa and her team have done much casework well. But I would hope that's table stakes for any MP.

The dramatic expansion in problems betting and drinking and addiction and all the harm this causes from laws she introduced means that England & Wales would have been a better place if she had not been an MP. Debate!

Regards james.

[Green Goose]

Well put James.

And whilst they were doing that, the same Labour lot brought about changes in to legislation that:

1. Brought about the emergence of the No-win No-Fee ambulance chasers like National Accident Help line who continue to make thousand of unsolicited phone calls every day.

2. Brought about the emergence of Pay Day lenders like Wonga who are parasites.

GG

[Earl Aelfheah]

... all of which the coalition could have addressed / reversed, had they wished to.

[Burbage]

There's an interesting data protection issue here.

If you ignore the soft soap, what she's doing is giving her list of constitutents, compiled from correspondence directed to her as an MP, the chance to opt out of having their names and email addresses snaffled for use, in a personal (or political) capacity, for her mayoral campaign.

I'm not sure that's permitted, especially given it's not clear who will be storing or processing the data. The mailing system seems to be running from a domain called endthegreathousinggiveaway.com, a domain registered to Pete Robbins, a former Labour Councillor in Lambeth, so it's difficult to tell whether it's a branch of the Labour Party, a campaign office or entirely personal.

That said, if she's using addresses culled from emails sent about parliamentary casework to her personal address, that might be OK, though it seems contrary to both the data protection principles and the guidance of the Houses of Parliament. But it's interesting to see that her email address seems to have changed - her former personal domain (tessajowell.net) has been shuttered, on grounds of her no longer being an MP, and a new domain registered at the end of last year (tessajowell.com), and it's that that's being used as the contact for these emails. So, either way, it looks like some shuffling has been going on, which might raise some interesting questions, especially as her data protection register entry only refers to her work as an MP.