Dawn Primarolo: Will She Be Getting Your Vote?

By Hannah2009 | Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 16:10

Dawn Primarolo was elected as the MP for Bristol South in 1987. She has held ministerial posts since 1997 and was appointed Minister of State for Children, Schools and Families in June 2009.

You might still hear the occasional reference to Red Dawn – the nickname given to her by the media for her hard left views at the time of her election to Parliament – but there’s no doubting that Ms Primarolo is now a staunch New Labour loyalist.

Her voting record shows that she has supported the Government very strongly on the Iraq War (despite campaigning against the first Gulf War in 1991) and on ID cards, student top-up fees and replacing Britain’s Trident nuclear defence.

You can find further information about Ms Primarolo on the ‘They Work For You’ website and a full list of the bills she has voted on here.

Locally, Ms Primarolo has campaigned for the South Bristol Community Hospital and spoken out on issues such as Bristol City’s proposed new stadium (she supported the new stadium but would prefer to see homes for low-income families built at Ashton Gate).

Bristol South has been a safe Labour seat since 1935; Labour has a 10,928 majority here.

During the expenses scandal, Ms Primarolo was among those listed in the Daily Telegraph as having ‘flipped’ their homes:

'Dawn Primarolo The Childrens and Families Minister claimed second home expenses for her constituency home in Bristol until 2004, when she flipped her expense claims to her London flat.

‘Overnight her monthly claims for mortgage interest went up from £317 to £1,313.

‘Having claimed a relatively modest £12,553 in 2003-04, Miss Primarolo's total claims under the Additional Costs Allowance rose sharply after the move, and by 2007-08 she was claiming the maximum permissible amount of £23,083.

‘Miss Primarolo also claimed for council tax, utilities, a cleaner and for her TV licence.'

In an interview with the Evening Post following the expenses revelations, Ms Primarolo said that Parliamentary regulations required her to list her London flat as her main home during her early years as a Treasury minister and that when the regulations were changed, she changed her main home back to Bristol.

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Comments

Kaptain -von I so agree with you on one two points, the nanny state that wants to control every aspect of our lives scares me, and tribal voting becaue families have voted the same way for generations. If the policies are not right for you or your MP is not worth his/her salt, do not vote for them, they are your servant not the other way round. I speak from a background of a family of socialist. One of my grandfather's best friends was Stafford Cripps who spent many hours at meetings in my Grandfather 's house with others at the foundation of the Labour Party. My grandfather was encouraged to get involved in local politics but of course in his day, pre expenses,many good people with families to keep could not afford to do so. Having said all this the Labour Party of today is not the same animal of those of gone by days. There main concern back then was the working class man, and he really had to work then. I also feel over the years that the Labour Party has been hijacked by people with their own agendas .As you may have gathered I will not be voting for Dawn Primarolo, she is not a good local MP as far as I am concerned and I do not like or agree with what her party stands for.

By Susie710 at 22:29 on 14/04/10
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Kaptain -von I so agree with you on one two points, the nanny state that wants to control every aspect of our lives scares me, and tribal voting becaue families have voted the same way for generations. If the policies are not right for you or your MP is not worth his/her salt, do not vote for them, they are your servant not the other way round. I speak from a background of a family of socialist. One of my grandfather's best friends was Stafford Cripps who spent many hours at meetings in my Grandfather 's house with others at the foundation of the Labour Party. My grandfather was encouraged to get involved in local politics but of course in his day, pre expenses,many good people with families to keep could not afford to do so. Having said all this the Labour Party of today is not the same animal of those of gone by days. There main concern back then was the working class man, and he really had to work then. I also feel over the years that the Labour Party has been hijacked by people with their own agendas .As you may have gathered I will not be voting for Dawn Primarolo, she is not a good local MP as far as I am concerned and I do not like or agree with what her party stands for.

By Susie710 at 22:28 on 14/04/10
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The Bristol South constituency is supposed to be one of the safest Labour seats in the country yet I often hear people complaining about various aspects of its Parliamentary representation and lack of engagement with its constituents.

Over the last couple of months I have heard people in the area both on this forum and 'out on the streets' mention that MPs surgeries are not publicised very well, are often at short notice and either do not run for long or have been cancelled. Others are of the opinion that the local representative only seems to put in an appearance when there is chance of good publicity and I have heard some complaining about the candidates voting record in past Parliaments on matters of importance to the community.

As others have already mentioned, support for Trident replacement and particularly ID cards is misplaced (personally I am vehemently against ID cards as from a professional point of view I believe that they are not only unworkable, massively expensive to implement using technology that is unreliable but are a huge threat to civil liberties and democracy given the current 'nanny state' that wants to spy on every aspect of our lives).

I'm not going to say who I will vote for, I vote differently at local and national level anyway but I do think that voters really need to consider what MPs have done for their constituencies in real terms and what their parties stand for and not just follow the herd or go "Oh well I've voted for such and such a party for all my life and I'm not going to change now." or "My father and grandfather used to vote for such and such a party and if it was good enough for them...". It does not matter what party they belong to, if an MP is no good then they do not deserve the support of their constituents.

By Kaptain_Von at 11:40 on 14/04/10
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It is a huge sum. And scrapping the ID card scheme, which is something most of us don't want anyway, could save anywhere between £6bn and £18bn depending on whose figures you believe.
But I think that since Dawn has been our MP for so many years, she must believe that she'll be voted in again no matter what she does or how out of step she is.

By Mrs_W2009 at 11:14 on 14/04/10
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I don't think Dawn's judgement is very good if she supports plans to replace Trident nuclear weapons. At a time when deep cuts in public spending are forecast, it makes no sense to spend a colossal £97 billion on new nuclear weapons when schools, hospitals, and other services are facing the axe.

Opinion polls consistently show that a big majority of the public oppose replacing Trident, so Dawn's views are out of step with the public - not a wise move if she's seeking re-election!

By PolitePaulo at 23:02 on 13/04/10
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