Richard Spring MP
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

On Friday two prominent individuals, lifelong Labour supporters in my constituency, joined the Conservative Party. 

One is a Labour county councillor —Phillip French—who is chairman of the local Royal British Legion, and is very well known in the community. He cited the way the Government treats the armed forces, the terrible state of the NHS in Suffolk (almost continuously on black alert) and the refusal to offer a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty, amongst a series of broken electoral promises. I now have no Labour district or county councillors in my constituency, a dramatic change in the past few years. 

Ann Sisson is the practice manager for a group of GPs in Haverhill, and has led the charge against budgetary cuts. She has seen the terrible bureaucratisation of the NHS at first hand. She is so fed up that she now wants to stand as a local Tory councillor. 

Changing party is a serious step - it is well beyond simply changing one’s choice of supermarket. Both separately made this decision after much reflection and unhappiness. They believe Labour has failed in Government, and with David Cameron as leader, the Conservative Party has changed. 

They will be a most welcome addition to the Conservative team in West Suffolk. Already my Liberal Democrat opponent twice over in the General Election campaign has joined us. I suspect that there will be many more to follow.     

Yesterday, I presented a 10,000 signed petition in the Chamber of the House of Commons. This was in a bid to force Suffolk PCT to reconsider the reduction in funding to Haverhill GP practices. Earlier in the day, I joined two of my constituents Ann Sisson and Marion McLaine, both GP practice managers, to hand in another copy of the petition to 10 Downing Street. 

Haverhill is the most rapidly expanding town in Suffolk and is served admirably by the three GP surgeries located there. Funding should be increased to reflect this additional need, yet to everyone in Haverhill’s amazement it is to be cut. This is due to the operation of an unfair funding formula which has a disproportionate effect on our local GP services. The proposal, which will inevitably lead to job losses and have a devastating effect on front line patient care, is wholly unacceptable. The cut is £280,000. 

I have been overwhelmed by the amount of support this campaign has received from the local community as a whole. These proposals are totally rejected by GPs, nurses and patients. 

I have not been prepared to just stand by and watch this injustice take place. Neither have the people of Haverhill. The community has come together because my constituents deserve decent healthcare, and the 10,000 people who signed the petition stand united in their determination to do something about it. 24 hours to save the NHS was one of the most misleading political promises ever made. 

Last week I went to one of the most enjoyable annual events, which is the lunch at Claridges given by the Spectator magazine. A whole series of parliamentary awards are dispensed each year. The great and good of politics, journalism, the City sponsors et al were present. I am flattered to be invited. 

On Saturday evening by contrast, I attended a ‘sizzling sausage supper’ in the Hopton branch in my constituency, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. It was very enjoyable. Over the years I have come to realise that as a Member of Parliament you pick up trends in thinking in the constituency about two or three weeks before they are reflected in the polls. Also what may seem hugely important in the Westminster village, does not resonate at all outside. Let me therefore forecast the devastating impact on the Government’s reputation that the lost HMRC discs will cause. People will be appalled that such valuable, sensitive and personal information can be accumulated in this way, and lost. The NHS will soon have all our medical records held centrally! Government departments will be cross checking other personal data, including any criminal records. 

The genie is now out of the bottle. There are huge dangers in the state holding such detailed information. It is open to theft and abuse. In the name of efficiency it has all happened. This is a wake up call to all of us who are now invited to give out detailed personal information to a whole series of private and public organisations. 

We have to think seriously how we can avoid becoming potential victims of the IT age we live in. Especially when we have a government that is functionally so serially incompetent.   

The Queen must be quite relieved to be going to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Kampala. She clearly loves the Commonwealth, and it is reciprocated. Mozambique, which had no historic link to Britain became a member of the Commonwealth, and now Rwanda will be doing the same. It is an undervalued organisation.

She leaves behind a Government for which the words whelks and stalls could apply. It is beyond description. The Government front bench is manned by people who have never run anything in the real world, and it shows.

It is wonderful that with her diamond wedding anniversary, our country has a head of state with unique continuity.  Thank heavens it does not apply to the shower running the country.

The headline yesterday in the Evening Standard was ‘Bank Crisis to Hit Taxpayers.’ Just about every day at the moment the news for the Government is bad.

By contrast last night there was a Conservative City Circle reception at which David Cameron spoke. There were 1250 acceptances and he was very enthusiastically received. As he observed, when Margaret Thatcher won in 1979, she had to fix the broken economy. Today our society is broken, with violence and dysfunctionality its hallmarks. That Eurostar advertisement of a yobbish looking man urinating is supposedly an amusing insight into contemporary Britain. Manneken Pis he is not.

David Cameron was mobbed after his speech. People present felt that they were in the presence of the next Prime Minister and dozens told me this afterwards. It cannot come too soon!   

I was wrong. When after the last general election Michael Howard put in place a long leadership process I thought it would be disastrous. During the 1990s the Conservative Party was irredeemably associated with lack of unity and I thought it would all flare up again. It did not. It was an extraordinarily civilised process. David Cameron has led the party to new levels of popularity, whilst David Davis has been an exemplary Home Office spokesman. 

Now it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats. Yesterday I uncharacteristically turned on the lunch time TV to witness the most vicious verbal punch up I have ever seen between two colleagues from the same Party. Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg were at each others throats like Neapolitan fishwives. It was breathtaking. 

Many Liberal Democrat voters are decent people who have voted this way because they do not like confrontational politics. I hope that very few were watching this most unedifying spectacle. The two contestants clearly detest each other.