LOOKING back, it’s been an eventful year. In May, I and other MPs were again ‘re-interviewed for our jobs’ in the general election.
For all of us in the Labour Party, the result was obviously disappointing and it’s one from which we must learn.
All this is part of democracy though, and the horrors of the attacks in Paris and elsewhere remind us that there are those who want to destroy not only the right to choose our own government, but so much more. The refugees who have been arriving on Europe’s shores have also shown how people – just like us – can be driven to desperate actions to save their families when their lives have been torn apart by war.
The scale of these challenges will stay with us into 2016. It means this Christmas message is less light-hearted than the one I would like to be giving. But it also gives us a sense of perspective about our responsibilities to one another – about valuing the important things in life that we often take for granted.
When better than Christmas to stop for a minute and to remember those things?
Happy Christmas, everyone, and a successful and peaceful new year.
Richard Burden
Northfield MP
