The missing – Daniel Morcombe (2)

Posted by on May 19, 2007 in updates | 7 comments How do the parents of Madeleine McCann really feel? Only other parents who have unfortunately found themselves in the same position can truly empathise. This is how Danel’s father Bruce (pictured with his family) described the nightmare they have endured since their son Daniel was abducted in Australia three-and-a-half years ago, aged 13, in an email to me, after I...
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510 MPs did not vote over Freedom of Information

Posted by on May 18, 2007 in Uncategorized | 8 comments Only 136 out of a possible 646 MPs voted at today’s heated debate to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information Act. It now passes to the Lords for consideration. Private Members’ Bills are debated on Fridays when most MPs spend the day in their constituencies.  Surely this demonstrates that urgent matters like this should be heard mid-week. Five years...
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A day in York

Posted by on May 18, 2007 in updates | 5 comments I’m spending the day with Julian Sturdy in York, discussing our campaign for his parliamentary seat in York Outer which he will contest as a Conservative candidate. We hope to build on our success from the recent council elections when Conservatives won eight...
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The missing – Lawrence Harvey

Posted by on May 18, 2007 in updates | 1 comment   Children are precious whatever their age. Image your son goes off on a gap year or an overseas adventure and is never heard of or seen again. That’s what happened 32  years ago when a happy-go-lucky, 19-year-old Lawrence Harvey headed for the stunning Greek island of Mykonos. He arrived in April 1975 and the following month he phoned his mother saying he wanted to...
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Glossy mag glamorises binge drinking

Posted by on May 17, 2007 in updates | 11 comments Do you know the saying: “Everyone likes a drink, but nobody likes a drunk?” Veronica knows it only too well because as a reformed alcoholic, she is passionate about helping others kick the habit if it is destroying their lives. She was furious with an article in the latest Red magazine which glamorises binge drinking and hangovers. Writer Bibi Lynch describes how she has...
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The missing – Ruth Wilson

Posted by on May 17, 2007 in updates | 6 comments Ruth Wilson vanished mysteriously in November 1995 from Betchworth in Surrey.  She was 16 and on the day she disappeared, Ruth didn’t have any lessons in the morning so she stayed at home until 11.30am when she took a taxi into Dorking. At about 12 she went to a florists where she ordered a bouquet to  be delivered to her mother. She then went to the...
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Post Office closures the end of an era

Posted by on May 17, 2007 in updates | 8 comments I live in a village with a population of around 2,000 and when I moved here 16 years ago it had three shops and a butchers. Now it has one remaining shop – it is a Spar store with a post office which is well used by our local community – and under threat of closure. We will know soon enough. The subpostmaster wants to retire and has been trying to sell his store for...
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Why must Brown wait another 42 days?

Posted by on May 16, 2007 in Uncategorized | 8 comments After waiting 13 years for his moment of glory, why must Gordon Brown wait another 42 days before he can become Prime Minister? What is the reason for this...
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The missing – Estelle Mouzin

Posted by on May 16, 2007 in updates | 8 comments A blog has been set up so nobody forgets Estelle Mouzin who vanished without trace in January 2003 when she was nine years old. She was returning home from school in Guermantes, France, a village with a population of 1,392, near Disneyland Paris. She was last seen outside the bakery. Despite a very high profile police search involving 450 officers and the...
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Where have all the sperm donors gone?

Posted by on May 16, 2007 in updates | 23 comments Did you realise there are just over 200 registered sperm donors in the UK, despite a male population of more than 22 million men? I wrote about this crisis last August after Bourn Hall Clinic turned to a donor bank in Denmark to make up its desperate shortfall. The crisis is a result of new laws introduced in April 2005 which removed anonymity from sperm donors. I heard...
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Baggage carousel ads at China’s airports

Posted by on May 15, 2007 in updates | 7 comments Former dull, grey baggage carousels at Beijing airport in China are now adorned in colourful advertising as it embraces consumerism. The airport has 15 baggage carousels and traffics 48 million visitors annually. Then it occurred to me that this would be the perfect platform at airports to display posters of children who have been abducted and could be flown out of the country. What do you...
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Will movie smoking ban be kiss of box-office death?

Posted by on May 15, 2007 in updates | 14 comments There was a time when it was considered cool to smoke in films, but now it is to be censored along the same lines as sex, violence and swearing – suitable only for over 18s in America where it will be R-rated. As the non-smoking film maker Marshall Merskovitz points out,  the world is filled with terrible things that can influence children, but should every terrible thing...
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The missing – Louis Mackerley

Posted by on May 15, 2007 in updates | 6 comments Louis Anthony Mackerley looks a fine young man in the latest picture produced by age progression techniques, an invaluable tool used for missing people searches. Louis hasn’t been seen since June 1984 when he was seven after returning home from school in Allentown, Pennsylvania and telling his babysitter he was going to play with some friends two doors down from his home. Louis never...
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How green really is Gordon Brown?

Posted by on May 14, 2007 in updates | 15 comments   I thought I smelt a rat when I heard  that Gordon Brown had earmarked Oakington Barracks, close to where I live in Cambridgeshire, as the first of his planned eco-towns.  The site is currently used as an Immigration Reception Centre which was featured on a BBC documentary for its abuse to asylum seekers. However, Cambridgeshire Horizons has already earmarked the...
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The missing – Philip Cairns

Posted by on May 14, 2007 in updates | 7 comments Philip Cairns has been missing for 20 years, but investigations are still ongoing. The 13-year-old vanished while walking back to school in south Dublin in October 1986. Every year, on the anniversary of his disappearance, his family make a fresh appeal for the public’s help in solving the case. Philip’s younger brother Eoin was 11 when his only brother disappeared. He described how...
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The missing – Daniel Morcombe

Posted by on May 13, 2007 in updates | 12 comments This is Daniel Morcombe, who it is feared was abducted and may have been murdered after disappearing 7th December, 2003 while waiting to catch a bus for a shopping trip along the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. It was a few days before his 14th birthday. He would now be 17, the same age as my eldest son. A website has been set up appealing for information and offering a $250,000...
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No more migraines for Kate

Posted by on May 12, 2007 in updates | 9 comments A guest post by Kate, CEO of Headway Cambridgeshire, of which I am a trustee. Kate suffered excruciating migraines for many years until she took part in a trial using a well known herb organised by the Migraine Action Association which has transformed her life. Her story is to be published in She magazine, but you can read it here first: I started suffering from migraine when I...
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The Missing – Rui Pedro Mendonça

Posted by on May 12, 2007 in updates | 32 comments Every day from today, I am going to write a post about a missing person. I am doing it to remind us that this is a terrifying nightmare that happens to some families. How they continue their tormented lives, I cannot imagine, it must be a living hell. I am doing it because of a comment posted by Tom Paine in my recent post about Madeleine, four today. He questioned whether the intense media...
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New PR book for bloggers

Posted by on May 12, 2007 in updates | 2 comments A clever piece of marketing here by David Meerman Scott for his latest book The New Rules of Marketing & PR. He has mentioned in it a whole host of bloggers, including myself, and a copy is winging its way to me. In his promotion, he has linked to us all on his site, it is a neat way to test out viral marketing as he knows we will all give it a plug. I am naturally delighted to be included...
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President of Iraq in Cambridge today

Posted by on May 11, 2007 in updates | 3 comments I have just heard that the President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, visited Cambridge today. He has been speaking at the Cambridge Union Society. I asked if I could have a press pass, but was told that all names for those wishing to attend had to be submitted to police in advance and vetted by them. Geoff called me after noticing the intense security checks and sniffer dogs in the area,...
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Call for lorry overtaking ban

Posted by on May 11, 2007 in updates | 7 comments A treacherous stretch of the A14 in Cambridgeshire has been dubbed the “road to hell”, it is a regular accident blackspot. Cambridgeshire’s top 18 movers and shakers are lobbying Government about it. I am thankful I don’t need to use it daily.  My MEP Robert Sturdy is calling for a ban on lorries overtaking in those hotspots during peak...
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Meg Matthews fights her demons

Posted by on May 11, 2007 in updates | 9 comments It can be easy to envy those who you think “have it all”.  But what you see on the outside can be just an act, their real lives could be very different to what you perceive. Veronica Callanan reflects about this on her latest post after reading about Meg Matthews‘s determination to win the battle of the booze, and says: It was interesting reading...
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Can Peter Hain reconnect Labour with voters?

Posted by on May 10, 2007 in Uncategorized | 13 comments I have just heard Peter Hain praise Tony Blair’s 10 year leadership on one hand, then describe how Labour must now reconnect with voters and fight the Conservative resurgence on the other hand. That statement alone surely demonstrates how Labour has been dragged down under Blair’s rule. Didn’t last week’s council election results give a clear message after...
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Would you recognise this abductor?

Posted by on May 10, 2007 in updates | 12 comments Would you recognise the face in this sketch? It is a copy of an artist’s impression used used by Portuguese police hunting the abductor of Madeleine McCann. It has been described as looking like “an egg with a side parting”. It has no eyes, nose or mouth, no distinguishing features at all. How can police hope catch this evil person if they do not release any description...
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Neighbourly love, or war?

Posted by on May 9, 2007 in updates | 9 comments Do you get on well with your neighbours? Would you want to live next to them for 96 years? That is the extraordinary record of Alex Baker who has never left the two-up, two-down terraced house in Portsmouth where he was born. Being on bad terms with your neighbour must be extremely stressful and upsetting, with most disputes about loud music, car parking and leylandi. There certainly...
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