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Kelvin's Articles and Speeches
Luton Citizens
What's your earliest memory?
My earliest memory was of standing, holding my father's hand and in tears as my mother went off in a taxi.
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Herald & Post October 2009
A Day in the life of this MP
Never a dull day, frequently an exciting day, often an exhausting day and sometimes a worrying day - at least that is my experience of parliamentary life.
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UNISON Magazine July 2009
The European Elections
The European Parliamentary election results demonstrated a number of things. Voters clearly want politicians who are committed to principles and not their pockets. They also showed that voters do not want Britain to be integrated into a European super state and want a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
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Herald & Post June 2009
Honourable Public Service
When politicians - and our political leaders especially - are held in low esteem by the citizens, our voters, democracy itself can start to fray at the edges. Britain has long had a tradition of honourable public service and a very low level of corruption, but things have changed in the last 30 years.
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Herald & Post April 2009
Education Politics
It is 12 years on from New Labour's entry into Downing Street and Blair's proclamation that his government would be about 'Education, education, education'. Time now perhaps to assess what has been achieved or at least what has changed.
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Socialist Education Association March 2009
The House of Commons can be frustrating
I have to say that I enjoy the House of Commons and its sometimes whacky and archaic rules. I take every opportunity to speak in debates which interest me and which I think are important.
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Herald & Post March 2009
The Situation in Gaza
Like most people, I have a small number of heroes - Mandela, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King among others. One less well known perhaps is Daniel Barenboim, the great classical pianist and conductor.
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Herald & Post January 2009
A Victory for the World
Just occasionally, something wonderful happens - even in the doom-laden world of politics. The election of Barack Obama was indeed one such wonderful event, Martin Luther King's dream made reality.
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Herald & Post November 2008
The Economic Crisis
'Madhouse economics' and 'irrational nonsense', two phrases I have used many times in speeches on economics (a subject I used to teach in more sensible times). It is with frustration and not pleasure that I think recent events have proved me right.
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Herald & Post October 2008
Monetarist dogmas won't work
Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad - and New Labour's current economics certainly suggests a degree of madness.
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Socialist Campaign Group News September 2008
Increased poverty is New Labour's shame
New Labour has many sins of commission to its shame, but its greatest sin of omission is its failure to deal with poverty. The gap between the rich and poor in Britain is now wider than it was under the Tories before 1997.
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Socialist Campaign Group News July 2008
The NHS at 60
Nye (Aneurin) Bevan was the person who first inspired me, as a schoolboy in the 1950s, to become involved in politics. I am still a Bevanite today. Nye was the great Labour Health Minister and socialist who created the National Health Service in 1948, 60 years ago this weekend.
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Herald & Post July 2008
Learn lessons from this tax debacle
New Labour is dead. It took a long time to die, and has done terrible damage to the interests of Labour, the country and indeed the world. Its final act of hubris was the 10 per cent tax rate abolition, but its nemesis has now descended.
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Socialist Campaign Group News June 2008
Darling's budget – whistling in the dark
Budgets are usually forgotten within days, and judging by the drooping eyelids on the opposition benches, several MPs could not remember this year's budget by the time the Chancellor sat down.
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Socialist Campaign Group News April 2008
Free market traps the elderly
New Labour's free-market ideological drive is shown at its worst in the growing crisis in long term care. Privatisation, means–testing, legislative trickery and rejection of expert advice have brought consequences for the elderly and poor in impoverishment, ill health and loss of rights.
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Socialist Campaign Group News March 2008
Public sector pay – New Labour's vote loser
The 1970s saw Labour hand power to Thatcher with a pay policy regime which was grossly unfair. History must not be permitted to repeat itself and bring the tragic consequence of a Tory government once again.
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Socialist Campaign Group News February 2008
New Labour's credit finally crunched
The final nail in the coffin of New Labour seems likely to be the looming recession. How serious that will be is not yet clear, but it is on its way.
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Socialist Campaign Group News January 2008
Labour must move left for victory
New Labour is now well and truly wrecked, on the rocks, and with no prospect of recovery. The Tories have a menacing lead in the opinion polls and the Lib Dems are beginning to rise from the depths
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Socialist Campaign Group News December 2007
How to prevent an economic crisis
New Labour often trumpets that they have generated long term economic stability. This is simply not true and the left has never believed it. If the economy is stable at all, it is the stability of a top heavy ship which
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Socialist Campaign Group News November 2007
More radical change to combat poverty – a progressive return to universality
Few on the left of the party will have been surprised that Gordon Brown is proving himself to be as right–wing as Blair in his domestic policy agenda.
Party members, Labour voters and indeed the electorate in general expect and wish devoutly for a respite
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Socialist Campaign Group News October 2007
Sustainable railways through public ownership
The left has always known that railways are the transport mode of the future. With approaching gridlock on Britain's roads, the country's railway
corridors, both used and unused, are now more vital than ever.
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Socialist Campaign Group News September 2007
A move to the left - vital for victory
One of Tony Benn's much repeated themes is that the British voters are to the left of the political parties in parliament, and of course he
is right, at least as far as the leaderships of the three main parties are concerned. Indeed, if one put Blair, Campbell
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Socialist Campaign Group News July 2007
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