Let’s All Party

Did you know that there is an All Party Parliamentary Group for the Channel Islands?
Or that it was visiting Guernsey a couple of weeks ago or in Jersey at the end of 2008?

So what does this Group do and who do they meet when in the Islands?
Since the sight of MPs from the UK usually has our petty Island nationalists hoisting the drawbridge and telling them to mind their own business it’s strange that the Group should be quietly wined and dined as honoured guests by our establishment.

The Chairman of the CIs All Party Group is Jim Dobbin (Lab) (dobbinj@parliament.uk) and other members include Lyndsey Hoyle (Lab), Lord Falkener (Lab), David Cranby (Lab), Paul Keith (LD), John Whittingale (Con), Nigel Evans (Con) and Andrew Rosindell (Con) and there are about 33 members altogether including several others from the House of Lords. The Group was formed in 2005 on the initiative of Lyndsey Hoyle and the most recent visit to Guernsey (3 MPs and 3 Peers) was the fourth.

There is a Manx Group too and Hoyle, Cranby and Rosindell serve on that as well and there are All Party Groups too for Gibraltar, the Caymans, Faeroes, Falklands, St Helena, Turks and Caicos, Montserrat, Trinidad and Tobago, South Pacific, Chagos Islands and Cyprus and the amazing fact is that Andrew Rosindell serves on all of them.
Yet he also manages to serve too on “Country” Groups for Sweden, Uganda, N. Ireland, Mauritius, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon, Thailand, Denmark, Australia, Iceland, Brazil, Bulgaria, Estonia, Canada…..Altogether there are about 140 “Country” Groups……….
And he serves on All Party “Subject” Groups (there are over 400 of these) for St George’s Day, The Flag, Veterans, Local Democracy, Tackling Terrorism, Royal Marines, Third World Solidarity, Markets, Space, Greyhounds, Holy See, Commercial Radio, ITV, Conservation and Wildlife, Crossrail, Cycling, Dentistry, Sickle Cell, Race and Community, Yacht Club, in fact almost everything from (and including) Aviation to Zoos and Aquariums.

Besides which there is an Overseas Territories Group too which includes Anguilla, Bermuda, BVI, Caymans, Falklands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, St Helena and Turks and Caicos Islands collectively (in case anywhere is missed out) and Andrew is involved with that too.

Well aren’t you really amazed and gagging to know how this chap manages to be a member of so many Groups and compare that with some of our elected representatives in Jersey who moan if they attend 2 meetings in a day!!!
He should be constantly flying from one exotic lunch to another all over the world but he employs just a few staff operating out of a tiny London office to deal with all the correspondence. He receives about 45 e-mails each day plus 20 letters (including a significant number from the CIs and Gibraltar) and he has a constituency of 100,000 residents at Romford (more than the entire population of Jersey) with all sorts of time consuming and varied problems to be dealt with…….
Since early 2008 he has declared travel to Malta, Taiwan, Gibraltar, China and Syria.

Andrew Rosindell (andrew@rosindell.com) is 43 years of age and has always been involved in politics as a local Councillor, MPs research assistant and since 2001 as an MP for his home town of Romford with a huge Conservative majority. He was until a few weeks ago a Shadow Home Office Minister. He is on the right of the Party yet displays some unusual anti-ID pro-animal welfare tendencies among his very extensive range of interests and is a Christian. Until recently he had a famous bull terrier that often sported a Union Flag jacket.

In the Jersey context he was pally with Frank Walker and would doubtless identify with the Ozouf/Maclean faction and the promotion of the Finance Industry rather than Bob Hill and the pursuit of Human Rights standards. But you never know!!!!!

In normal circumstances he would almost certainly have become a Minister in the likely Tory government next year and would very likely have found a role where his extensive interest in off-shore jurisdictions could be utilized. But the recent removal from his Shadow post is puzzling and may be related to the curse of the Daily Telegraph and the £125,000 allegedly claimed for his 2nd home expenses for a flat in London while designating his childhood home 17 miles away – where his mother lived – as his main address.
He said;
“I am extremely dedicated and am often at work in my Westminster office till 2 am.
I’m always the last to leave the House”.

Other expenses claimed included the maximum permitted £400 per month for food but he
also submitted a chitty for £1.50p for a packet of Farley's Rusks although he doesn’t have children.

So it is now difficult to predict just who might be serving on the All Party Channel Islands Group next year. But we really should be planning for every eventuality in the meantime and we THE PEOPLE ought to be making contact with this Group NOW in order to set OUR OWN AGENDA for any future discussions and meetings…………..

We at “The Voice” asked Senators Breckon and Shenton for a comment – but what do the other 51 of our “elected representatives” think about our All Party Group of representatives at Westminster?
CORRECTION.

We have been contacted by Andrew Rosindell's office with the following "Andrew is still a Shadow Home Office Minister with responsibility for Animal Welfare and at no stage was he removed from his post, nor was he involved in any discussion about the prospect of being removed from his post"