Yardley Bound

On Friday the 18th of February, I joined a group of other UpRisers on a visit to the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley and life long Liberal Democrat John Hemming’s office. As a university student I went along to this with some fairly strong preconceptions about politicians in general; however what I actually found was quite refreshing and genuinely inspiring.

From the outset John Hemming’s office was not what I expected. Situated by a busy main road, this centre of local political activity is not the dull, grey, formal looking office one might anticipate; but a bright orange shop front loudly signposting ‘John Hemming Lib Dem MP Constituency Office’ neighbouring a fishing equipment shop and a balti takeaway. Inside it was equally informal and welcoming featuring a large reception area facing the desks of the two constituency officers who deal with most of the day to day running of the office and the complaints and queries of the local constituents.

It was from these constituency officers, Emily Wilson-Gavin and Annabel Dolphin that we heard from first. Like many, I had no idea what a constituency officer was so was surprised to learn that they are the people within the local MP’s office that often deal with a constituent’s query to the MP in the first instance (whether those problems and concerns need to be dealt with either by the council or on a national, or even international, political level). From them we learnt that Birmingham Yardley operates an open door policy whereby constituents with problems can just drop in to the office any week day between 11am and 2pm and talk to the staff face to face.  If they cannot make it in then the constituency office is also available to help via email and phone any week day too. John Hemming also finds the time in his hectic schedule to come in on Saturdays and run a similar open door advice bureau for an hour between 11am and 12pm. 

In fact much of what John Hemming does in his role as an MP does seem genuinely driven by a desire to help his constituents. John’s political career started early: he joined the Liberal Democrat party aged just seventeen, then after founding and running several very successful businesses he decided to take a more active role in politics working as the Deputy Leader of the City Council before winning his seat as MP for Birmingham Yardley constituency in 2005. In our forty-five minute question and answer session with him we learnt that he is very well informed on the problems faced by his constituents and with the easily accessible location of his constituency office, its open door policy and its friendly and casual atmosphere he is clearly doing his best to encourage local residents to feel more connected to their political representative and diminish the generally held feeling of alienation from the political process.

John Hemming is also very convincing in person, handled all of the UpRisers questions with ease and is very earnest about his reason for getting into politics; to change things for the better. He even managed to change my views on the Lib Dem’s apparent backtracking over the tuition fees hike by explaining that the new system will actually be much fairer to students as the student loan repayments will be in the form of a tax, not a debt, which will be relative to what they are actually earning. From what I saw he is someone who genuinely believes in making changes for the better and doing his best for all his constituents. Even the fact that he took the time out of his busy day to do a question and answer session with our UpRising group is a testament to this positive, open attitude. Other MPs should take note: if you want the respect of your constituents, talk to them. 

Many thanks to John Hemming MP, Emily Wilson-Gavin and Annabel Dolphin for an interesting and enlightening afternoon.

Henrietta Brealey 

Linked article - http://john.hemming.name/about_john/activities/yardley/uprising.php?m=weblogs