Val Hudson

Thank you. 🙏 I don’t travel that way often but they seemed a nightmare Pity the poor residents that have to use that route every day

CASEWORK WINS LAST WEEK! Education Nursery place secured following issue with Government Gateway Code ReclaimingCosts Supported constituent in claiming back wrongly incurred costs from the RAC Council Tax Waived Supported critically ill constituent with their claim to have Council Tax charges waived Health Hospital Trust reviewing parking arrangements following widespread complaints from patients Family Housed Expedited move for family with a disabled child following a long-running dispute with Valuation Office Agency Believe Housing Repairs carried out after constituent highlighted issues with vermin Lighting Repair Lighting column repaired for residents following their lengthy complaint with local authority DWP Intervened to get State Pension in place for constituent following delays

There's never a quiet week in my office so here's a taster of some recent wins we've had on behalf of constituents. Sometimes the small things can make a huge difference to someone, their family or a group of residents. If you ever need support please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Guarantee a Fair and Open Selection for the Gorton and Denton By-election Labour can win in the Gorton and Denton by-election if we lead with our values and allow a fair, democratic and open selection for our candidate. Sign the petition below calling on the Chair of Lab...

I just signed a @mainstreamlabour.bsky.social petition - Guarantee a Fair and Open Selection for the Gorton and Denton By-election. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/gu...

Guarantee a Fair and Open Selection for the Gorton and Denton By-election Labour can win in the Gorton and Denton by-election if we lead with our values and allow a fair, democratic and open selection for our candidate. Sign the petition below calling on the Chair of Lab...

I just signed a @mainstreamlabour.bsky.social petition - Guarantee a Fair and Open Selection for the Gorton and Denton By-election. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/gu...

These discussions will inform a submission to the Department for Education ahead of the release of the SEND White Paper. I felt it was incredibly important to include the lived experiences of people in my constituency, so please get in touch if you’re interested in attending and contributing to the conversation. The venue and full agenda will be released next week to everyone who has confirmed their attendance. Please note, spaces are limited so I can only admit people based in my constituency. Contact Mary.Foy.mp@parliament.uk with your name, full address and whether you’re a family member, education provider or other organisation to express interest in attending.

CITY OF DURHAM SEND ROUNDTABLE. More info👇🏻

Calling teachers, services and families of SEND children and young people in the City of Durham constituency.

Next Thurs 22 January at 18:15, I’m holding a roundtable meeting to hear direct from families and teachers who have to navigate the SEND system.

Mary with Sarah and James

Some of the goods in jars available to be bought

More of the lovely items to be bought

The Weigh to Shop is a waste free shop, full of alternatives to plastic, the products are absolutely top quality, and there is an amazing coffee shop as well. James, Sarah and the team are so welcoming and passionate about making shopping more sustainable, it’s very clear to see how they had huge support in this competition. Next time you are in Framwellgate Moor (or even if you have to make a special trip) get yourself along! A wonderful business and worthy winners of this award. Congratulations to every single business that was nominated, I’ll be doing shout outs for each one in the run up to Christmas so we can all enjoy shopping small and shopping local! 🛍️🎄 #smallbusinesssaturday #smallbusinesssaturdayuk #shopsmallshoplocal

🥁 SMALL BUSINESS OF THE YEAR 2025 - WINNER 🏆

I’m thrilled to announce the winner of this year’s Small Business of the Year award is -The Weigh to Shop in Framwellgate Moor!
👏🏻 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

More 👇🏻

Delivering in Government: your weekly round up of good news Labour stories: BUDGET SPECIAL – LabourList What a week. The Budget brought no shortage of announcements to talk about, including some truly Labour decisions from the Chancellor. Here are the seven…

📣 🌹 GOOD NEWS! Your weekly round up of the difference a Labour government is making - this week is a BUDGET SPECIAL

Agree 100%Peter. All so wrong Goodness knows what people like Alf Dobbs think about it all

Keir Starmer + Shabana Mahmood propose that reintroducing Priti Patel's 2022 asylum reforms (with small tweaks) can significantly deter Channel Crossings

2022-24 shows temporary status won't deliver control re "pull factors"

Having controlled routes at scale + closing unauthorised routes could

“We welcome migrants, we don’t scapegoat them".

How Keir Starmer promised Labour MPs and members he would lead his party on immigration

The Home Secretary says "we have become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world"

That is a factually untrue claim: the Home Office shows that the UK is fifth, getting 1/10 claims, while Germany gets 1/5 claims

I see that Mahmood, McSweeney and Glasman (who admires Steve Bannon) are continuing to merry go round of cruelty depicted on our current front page

As keep the faith Peter, we do #safc

Brexit impact will be negative for foreseeable future, Bank chief warns Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, said that Brexit’s impact on growth would hurt but that the economy would somewhat adapt to the shock in time

www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

But what about “ethnic change”? Yes, the proportion of Islington’s population who are (like me) white British has dropped from perhaps 85% to about 40%. This change is indeed visible. For West, it is “far beyond what any group would find tolerable.” What he doesn’t and can’t say is why exactly I’m supposed to find it intolerable. Why should I, or my neighbours, be more concerned about what race or ethnicity the kids are at the local school than the quality or financing of local services, or whether the council is successfully balancing the need for more housing with the interests of long-standing residents?

I wrote about Robert Jenrick's embrace of blood and soil nationalism for @bylinetimes.bsky.social

"The British right is adopting an increasingly extreme form of ethnic identity politics, while failing to explain what the rest of us are supposed to be worried about"

bylinetimes.com/2025/08/19/r...

Cutting more public services no doubt, it’s like the Reform Council in Durham who find services already cut to the bone, These populist?politicians have no idea about how democracy works

Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensive

This is devastating but hard to think of more important journalism. 18,457 children have been killed in Gaza (many more not accounted for). Here, The Guardian prints their names and beautiful faces and tells us what they were like before Israel stole their lives. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

A Better Britain - Reboot Britain : Rejoin EU I propose a nationwide series of town hall type events and a campaign combining some speakers and experts with the crucial element of actually listening to the lived experience of those who would norm...

We need a national conversation about a better Britain. I began in Somerset, but it needs to spread.

See brexitrage.com/a-better-bri...

Brexit is Farage's achilles' heel. We must move the Overton Window back into place. See our YouTube film on the matter.

#Brexit #FarageRiots #RejoinEU

currently at record-high search interest for canceling disney plus. pulling kimmel is a bigger deal to the company's bottom line than any of the "woke" scandals of the past 5 years. i think news & entertainment corp execs need put more work into understanding their audience, & get off twitter

I’m with Kinnock. Does anyone remember small boats bring a crisis before Brexit?

Me and Helen Mirren: Life after 80 Professor Bob Hudson reflects on becoming an octogenarian - an article that is of relevance to anyone who is older today than they were yesterday!

Me and Helen Mirren: Life after 80
open.substack.com/pub/eyesande... from @bobhudson.bsky.social A great weekend read

Couldn’t agree more Let’s hope the UK government follows her lead

I think Musk's comments to a rally of 100k people are the highest profile advocacy of political violence in the UK since the end of the Northern Ireland conflict. Does anybody have a counter-example?

"Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die."

Eyes & Ears North East | Brian Aitken | Substack Eyes & Ears is a curated round-up of what's been happening in the North East in the past seven days and was a popular part of The QT, an online news magazine for the North East of England. Click to re...

Eyes & Ears North East
eyesandearsnortheast.substack.com?utm_campaign...
An interesting and informative read

Just imagine if we tried to interfere in American politics like Musk does in UK politics

This man RFK Jr is the biggest threat to public health in my lifetime
Please you good Americans who know this , continue to show how dangerous he is

RFK Jr and Democrats spar in tense hearing about chaos at federal health agencies and vaccines – live updates

Ocado: Ditch the plastic bag In 2024, single-use plastic bag sales in England rose for the first time since the carrier bag levy was introduced in 2015 - a 7% increase, reaching 437 million bags. Shockingly, Ocado alone was respo...

Ocado handed out 221 million plastic bags last year! 😱 Sign the petition and tell them to ditch single-use bags for good. you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/oc...

The perpetrator of this horrendous act should be behind bars

Day in, day out, I speak to ordinary people who are organising to welcome the asylum seekers accommodated in their towns.

They befriend, support them, reach out to them as fellow human beings.

That's the Britain I know, the one I see around me & we never get told about on TV.