An evening with Marie Goldman MP

We were pleased to host Marie Goldman the recently elected Liberal Democrat MP for Chelmsford for an informal evening of chat and supper.

Marie spoke to a well attended meeting about the recent experience of the Liberal Democrats in Chelmsford and her early impressions of being an MP

In 2017 Chelmsford had 5 Liberal Democrat councillors. Marie described what they did to increase that to 31 councillors and control of the council topping that off with her election as the first Liberal MP for Chelmsford in over 100 years. She shared with us how a combination of hard work and focus on the needs of voters had driven this transformation providing an inspiring vision of what we have to do in South Suffolk to match that achievement

As for being an MP she said her experiences have been mixed. She loved the case work and making a difference for her constituents. For her this was the thing that made the job so rewarding

What she enjoys less is the politicking that goes on at Westminster to score points but not impact on our daily lives. The example she gave was the recent Conservative antics over the need for a further enquiry into grooming gangs. The Conservatives chose to table an amendment to a Bill aimed at strengthening child protection which if passed would have killed the bill delaying the strengthening of the law. This was unacceptable to the Liberal Democrat MPs  even though they remained open minded about whether another enquiry might be useful. When the amendment was lost the accusation that other parties were covering up  or resisting an enquiry was made by the Tories who themselves have a track record of doing nothing to implement the recommendations of previous enquiries that they themselves had commissioned and then studiously ignored.

Marie then took questions from the floor for half an hour.

All in all an enjoyable and inspiring evening emphasising again the need to dream big and work hard to gain our voters confidence