Richard Spring MP
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

Was it deja vu all over again? Those of us who were here in the 1992-1997 Parliament, when John Major had a tiny majority, remember how sensitive our dealings were with the Unionist MPs. As it happens I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

John Major, Paddy Mayhew and Michael Ancram drove the political process on with real focus, despite considerable personal danger, and a whole series of known and unknown unknowns, as well as hideous bear traps.

However there was a big difference. The Unionist MPs by and large wanted to sustain the then Conservative government and recognised the valiant attempts, despite the setbacks and mistrust, to keep the peace process underway. Additionally they suspected Labour, fronted by Mo Mowlam, and looking at their voting record, of being too uncritical of Sinn Fein. However there was no specific pork barrelling for Parliamentary votes, not least because the Northern Ireland economy was in poor shape and Government spending was consequently high. The overall scale of the spending had nothing to do with votes in the Commons.

The votes of the Unionists this week drew comments of ‘we’ve seen this all before!’ However the difference now is that peace has essentially been restored., the Northern Ireland economy is doing hugely better, and there is green-orange power sharing. The Unionists have no interest in sustaining Labour in power in the way that they did for the Conservatives 15 years ago. Government spending in Northern Ireland remains high.

For the Unionists, we shall know in due course if they get even more funding for their pet causes. And they have the luxury of knowing that 42 day detention will be hit for six in the House of Lords, not only over the boundary, but over the grandstand too - unless they try very provocatively to use the Parliament Act.

All of this, I suspect, will have been at the heart of their calculations. And they also know that long term pragmatism in the Commons always wins out against short term anger and emotion. In passing therefore in the context of the David Davis by election, once upon a time the Liberal Democrats were trying to deliver their decapitation objective on him.    

Putting aside the furore over 42 day detention, let us just remind ourselves how appallingly the PM prepared us for an economic downturn. How many hundreds of times did he imply that he had personally abolished the economic cycle in this country. 

It is therefore richly ironic that the European Commission is to start disciplinary proceedings against Britain for breaching its rules, as set down in the EU Growth and Stability pact. Britain is the only European country to face such severe criticism this year. 

His fiscal laxity has been criticised now by virtually every reputable organisation and commentator, including the OECD. So at a time when many countries are attempting to help their citizens by cutting taxes, we are putting them up. The result of this is that the European Commission believes that the deficit will be growing over the next two years.

We have known for some time that Prudence and Gordon were having partnership difficulties. We had not realised that the divorce had actually come through.   

Tomorrow, Members of Parliament will vote on the issue of 42-day detention. Whether Gordon Brown strings enough votes together to get the legislation passed or not, the Government’s political reputation has suffered badly because of it, and so has his. 

The legislation was designed as a political calculation to outflank the Conservatives and make the Prime Minister appear tough on security. Political self interest was at the core of the exercise. Yet it has now backfired. 

Faced with criticism from many quarters, and possible defeat, the Government has been offering potentially rebellious MPs concessions and compromises.  

Gordon Brown once had the reputation of being a master political strategist. That reputation is now in tatters as a new poll published today shows that Gordon Brown’s leadership standing has fallen dramatically. 

The electorate see the Prime Minister as a leader who has no big story to tell and is obsessed by short term gimmicks. Just look at the way he reacted to inheritance tax and the non-dom issue. It backfired royally. Extending pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects from 28 to 42 days is just another product of mere political calculation. It hasn’t worked. 

He may win tomorrow. But the central objective of trying to push the Conservatives into a corner has failed, and his moral authority has been yet again impaired.  

Surprisingly, MPs do not actually watch much television but many do watch programmes like Newsnight, Andrew Marr’s Sunday programme and Question Time. Radio 4’s Today Programme is compulsory listening in the mornings.

Because it is so widely viewed, I do try to watch the BBC six o’clock TV news from time to time, and did so on Thursday evening. The whole session was extraordinary. We started off with a long piece about an Englishman who is going on trial in the United States – for allegedly murdering his wife: pretty graphic stuff. Then we moved on to three Britons missing off the Bali coast whilst diving – happily all is well now and the subsequent story about toxic dragons was terrific . Then the third item was a tragic story of a young boy who had hanged himself because of the deaths of his mother and grandfather.

Now there were indeed all powerful and exceptional human interest stories. In presentational terms, however, it was the television equivalent of tabloid newspaper journalism.

This was on the same day, for example, when the news from Zimbabwe was really very grim indeed, yet it fell into fourth place.    

The BBC is entitled to put on popular viewing programmes, and it does. But surely, as a public service provider, the main evening news should be a serious exercise in prioritising what is really happening in the world we inhabit, whether here or abroad. After all, the BBC boasts a unique number of foreign correspondents, and they are of world-beating quality, as indeed are their commentators on the local political and economic scene.

The offer by Mr Obama, however conditional, to talk to the axis of evil countries is indeed something of a departure.  So change is in the air indeed.  What the Bush Administration introduced was a new concept in diplomacy, namely you simply do not talk to countries you dislike. This considerably delayed a settlement with North Korea: in the end the Americans were forced to accept Chinese advice, and the rest is history.  The US attitude to Iran has been stop-start over the years in varying degrees, and is still an open question.

One by-product of the British Administration’s world view is its exceptional dislike of Syria.  Indeed it has been reported that the US vetoed Israel engaging in a dialogue with Syria.  US sanctions are operating against Syria too, which has made them more dependent on Iranian largesse.

Yet there appears to have been some movement, inasmuch as the Turks have brokered talks, and these have received the formal encouragement of the Syrian President.  Apparently the Americans, perhaps finally listening to James Baker, have modified their position.

If Israel, and indeed the United States, regard Iran as a menace in the region, then their central strategy should be to limit or cut off its influence.  Syria and Iran have a close relationship, and that involves support for Hezbollah.  So at minimum, Israel should try to distance secular Syria from theocratic Iran.

There may now be an opportunity.  The Lebanese political situation looks more stable and a dialogue between Israel and Syria has begun. Nevertheless, history teaches us to be cautious about being in any way optimistic.

What is clear in Damascus, where at least we carry no historical baggage, there is a real desire for us to resume a considered and focussed role in the Middle East.  Also for us to reassert our more traditional partnership with the United States.  There should be some reward and recognition for Syria being burdened with 1.5 million Iraqis.  They have received no humanitarian assistance.

The Iraq invasion has seen the Christian communities of Iraq decimated and scattered.  At least in Syria, an adjunct of the so called axis of evil, they are protected and cared for.  It is the ironic by-product of this whole tragic episode. 

If it was not that he is known as a very partisan and very politically ungenerous individual, I might have had just a fleeting tinge of feeling sorry for Gordon Brown at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday.

It was simply horrible, porkies and all. In contrast to Tony Blair, the present incumbent is wooden and flat-footed. Now out there Prime Minister’s Questions may seem unpleasant and irrelevant to some, but it is a tribal experience, and it impacts the morale of MPs very considerably. The wretched expressions of Labour MPs, most especially the Cabinet, was a sight to behold. Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon, the Chief Whip, looked shaken.

Pressure and tension affect people in different ways. Margaret Thatcher looked energised by the demands of her job. David Cameron seems to have exactly the same quality.

Gordon Brown, by contrast, looks as if he has undergone an extraordinarily rendition experience. Yesterday was obviously torture for him, and it showed.   

And the one sided bullfight is set to continue week by week.

Roads, like airports, provoke mixed emotions. A new road may destroy some precious green spaces. Yet congestion causes a negative environmental impact and is costly on time and stress. How also do you measure the cost of death and injury brought about by a dangerous road?

In West Suffolk, leading into Norfolk, is one of the most treacherous and congested roads in the country, the notorious A11. To dual it, and bypass the village of Elveden, would mean cutting through a man-made forest, with one landowner. By anybody’s standards, the planning and ecological impact is very low indeed.

For 30 years a plan has existed to resolve the problem of the A11. BBC2 actually put out a programme to illustrate dramatically its sheer awfulness. The incoming Labour government promised to act, and then just at the point we believed it would be built, it was moved to the East of England Regional Assembly (EERA) to prioritise this project.

There is no point in revisiting what happened next. However, following a meeting with the Transport Secretary, Ruth Kelly, there is a greater sense of understanding between EERA and the Department of Transport.

There are important hoops to get through and over £100 million would need to be found. But at least EERA understands now that it unequivocally has to back the scheme if it is to be realised.

Charles Clarke and I are hosting a meeting today to bring together all the local and regional stakeholders, to get our ducks in a row.

This is not a party political issue. When people lose their lives on the A11, as scores have, nobody asks whether they vote Labour or Conservative.

I have such a sense of personal disappointment as the local MP that the A11 has not been dualled yet. It is a disgrace. I can only hope today that our meeting really does move the matter forward.  

A couple of years ago I was standing in an airport check-in queue in the United States. A lady from Mexico, also en route to London, asked if I had been very polite to the rather bemused check-in attendant. “I believe English people are so polite and have wonderful manners” she enthused.

Well I hope she was not too unpleasantly surprised on her visit here. Whilst it is surely true that most people here are indeed polite, we have a terrible loutish, yobbish minority whose behaviour here or abroad is at times grotesque. Drunkenness and violence are now internationally recognised characteristics of contemporary British society.

The extreme manifestations of this is the knife and gun crime culture which takes such a tragic toll. This Government has sought to redistribute wealth to try to help people at the lower income scale. However alienation and feral behaviour has worsened. It is clear that money will not solve the problem, and endless new criminal justice legislation.

Iain Duncan Smith has tried to examine the causes of this through his Social Justice Commission. He has explored the darkest nooks and crannies of British life. It is not a pretty picture.

He has examined the causes and come up with some solutions which go well beyond simply deploying redistributive tax and welfare arrangements.

Family breakdown is at the heart of our social malaise, people trapped in welfare dependency, educational failure, increasing addiction and soaring personal debt – these are the root causes of anti-social and at times brutal behaviour.

For this we should be hugely grateful to him. It will be up to the next Conservative government to begin to reverse the destructive atomisation of our national life.

Iain is guest speaker at my constituency annual dinner tonight. It is a sell out. Everybody present will know that this has been a huge failure of this Government, and will be listening to him with great interest, admiration and concern. 

On Wednesday there were some graphic photographs of tourists in the rock pool literally on the edge of Victoria Falls. On the one hand it brought back personal memories, but as the week ends, for some reason I keep thinking about Gordon. 

Some years ago, after a lunch on a small island very close to the waterfall’s edge, my son and I set off for the pool. It involved swimming against some quite strong currents, over some slippery rocks, and then into the deep safety of the pool, literally overlooking the waterfall. 

I cannot say that I hugely enjoyed it, either at the time or in retrospect, although I am not aware that anybody has ever been swept over the edge. However my status as an intrepid father did improve somewhat. 

As to Gordon, it seems impossible that it could get worse…… except that we have local elections next week, and of course the strong possibility of Mayor Boris. In the circumstances I have the feeling that if Gordon managed to make it to the pool, somehow he would lose his grip and be swept over the side. Perhaps he might even have the temptation, no doubt quickly dismissed, of jumping before he gets pushed.   

Last weekend’s local press reported that sightings of UFOs in Suffolk were the tenth highest in the country. Regrettably I have not witnessed one of these events, though some years ago a UFO allegedly landed in the Rendlesham forest and was witnessed by both US service personnel and local residents. 

But ghosts are something else. When the children were small and having an afternoon sleep, very often we would hear the cries of a young child and its footsteps running along the upstairs passage. We would check – the children were definitely asleep – so there were no explanations. The Czech au pair had hysterics one day when the light switch in the loo was inexplicably clicked off. Equally one afternoon a very loud single note on the piano downstairs was struck, again with no explanation. None of this really bothered us. Two other perfectly rational people I know have had rather more direct ghostly experiences, and they are not exactly excitable people. 

But back to UFOs. On holiday once in the United States, white-water rafting in the Rockies, a commercial airline pilot and I got talking about this. He had been in the USAF and was something of a cool cat. So I was surprised when he said whilst flying a F-111 he and the co-pilot were visited by a UFO. He said that he never normally talked about it because he thought nobody would believe him. I don’t think he was having me on. 

The vast majority of people sensibly do not exactly go around thinking about UFOs and ghosts. I certainly do not, but there is something rather engaging about the fact that some people do.