Last week's acts of commemoration, in both the Memorial Park and the Abbey, to mark 4 years since Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, were incredibly moving, and a tribute to the work of Romsey's Ukraine Support Group who have done so much hard work. Both the Mayor and I were presented with a flower crafted out of spent munition shells, both beautiful and disturbing. Given the current situation in the Middle East we must not lose sight of the continuing conflict in Ukraine and the support needed there.
I have a number of constituents currently stuck in Doha, Dubai and other parts of the region, and it is imperative the FCDO gets its act together and works out how to get them home. We have been in a similar situation before, when Covid struck the FCDO was still issuing advice that said, "only travel if necessary" when clearly there was a job to be done to get people home. Those lessons appear not yet to have been learnt. Since Monday I have been raising with the FCDO the cases of those constituents I know are in the region, but as yet there is no firm evacuation plan, I am pressing them to come up with one urgently.
Meanwhile in Parliament there was a statement from the PM on Monday which I chaired part of, and a debate on Wednesday on the Ministry of Defence Estimates for the year. That was an excellent opportunity for concerned colleagues to come to the floor of the House and highlight the challenges of meeting defence needs in a very uncertain world.
We also took some criticism on Wednesday for having a mass dance lesson ahead of "Let's Dance!" on 8th March. I am the first to acknowledge how bad I am at dancing, but even I recognise the benefits of dance for keeping you flexible and active. Which was the whole point of bringing professional dancers Kai Widdrington, Nancy Xu and Flavia Cacace to Parliament, alongside national treasure Angela Rippon and Strictly legend Arlene Phillips. We have a national obesity crisis, and hitting the gym is not for everyone, so how about we welcome all sorts of types of movement and activity, and try to encourage everyone to move a bit more? The commentators who want to criticise should have heard Angela talking about the benefits of dance for those with Parkinson's, or Alzheimer's, and we know that being physically active makes people more productive at work. I am very clear, the world is in a grim place, and of course we all need to focus on finding solutions, but we won't do that by ignoring the well being needs of the population.
