Yesterday in Westminster Rob Flello and Tristram Hunt, two of Stoke on Trent's MPs engaged in some rather embarrassing backslapping. You see instead of looking after interests of their electorate with regards to jobs, housing and crime, they have this habit of banging on about the Second World War. You get what you vote for.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab): I
congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important
debate and on representing the views of his constituents
in Fenton and elsewhere. I agree with him about the
heroic role played by Sir Barnett Stross. Does he agree
that it is hugely important that Stoke-on-Trent pupils
understand the heroic part that the city played in world
war two, not only because of Sir Reginald Mitchell,
who designed the Spitfire, but because of this story of
internationalism and solidarity in a city that has,
unfortunately, in the past been plagued by fascism and
the British National party. This is a story of hope.
On the subject of hunts, I watched the film "The Hunter" over the weekend which concerns itself with a rather mercenary attempt to get DNA samples from a Tasmanian Tiger. All was going well until Willem Dafoe suddenly shot the last one dead. I couldn't believe it and went straight to bed in disgust.
Saw a woodcock the other day for the first time in a few months. A spectacularly chestnut coloured bird with a darting flight and a master in the art of camouflage. Meanwhile there are a lot of reports of seagull species normally confined to the Arctic being seen in Scotland and Northern Ireland, not that I've seen any.
