It would seem that the season of goodwill to all men doesn't extend as far as Scunthorpe Labour who run North Lincs Council. There is a very nasty (we've come to expect that from Labour locally) attack on our hard working Burringham and Gunness Councillor, Rob Waltham, in the Scunthorpe Telegraph tonight penned by a Labour Councillor.

The only problem with this letter is that the Labour Councillor in question has got his facts slightly wrong, well actually very wrong. He has accused Rob of lying over a bus service which Rob is paying for to take pensioners into Scunthorpe from the Hilton Avenue area on a Friday. According to the Labour Councillor, this service is being paid for by North Lincs Council. Sadly, for the Labour Clowncillor in question, it isn't, Rob is paying for it out of his own pocket at the moment. Rob was alerted to the letter by some angry local residents who rang him to express their anger at the letter.

This isn't the first Labour lie we have seen locally. indeed, they have tried to take the public as fools on a number of issues this year, such as -

• The Labour MP's claim to be against Post Office closures was exposed to be nothing more than spin when it was revealed that he had voted for the Government's Post Office policies in Parliament and never even bothered to take part in a debate on the issue on November 29th 2007.
  
  
• Labour claimed to be in favour of improved public transport and then as soon as they got into power cut back the Isle and Wold Villager services.
  
  
• The Labour MP pretended to be against the imposition of parking charges in Brigg, but then it was revealed that the very Labour Councillors introducing the charges were the same ones he had personally written to residents urging them to vote for back in May.
  
  
• Gordon Brown's Labour MP then tried to claim that NHS dentistry was improving until I revelaed figures which showed that the number of people being treated on the NHS had actually fallen since Labour's new NHS contracts were introduced.

Whilst we have been out on the streets fighting to protect our local NHS services, successfully campaigning for improved opening hours at local police stations and working hard on numerous local problems, Labour's response locally has been to orchestrate nasty letters in the local media.

I am pleased to say that if my mailbag is anything to go by, their efforts are falling well and truly flat. I had a lovely letter from an old lady in Goole thanking me for exposing the Labour MP's hypocrisy on Post Office closures, she also enclosed a very kind donation to help with our local campaigning.

We end this year knowing that we have genuinely tried to help local people on many issues. As a result we also end the year in the strongest position we have ever been in. We have more identified support, more helpers and more equipment than at any time in the past. That means that next year we will be able to step up our positive campaigning for local people and continue to call Labour out on their cheap local spin.

Most of all, we wont be responding to Labour's highly personalised style of politics. We will remain positive and ensure that local people see there is a positive alternative to the old style nasty politics and clever spin of Labour.

Andrew Percy and local Councillors John Berry, Carl Sherwood and Nigel Sherwood, have slammed the decision to include Wrawby on the list of Post offices threatened with closure as part of the Government's closure programme.

Andrew explains, "We thought when Labour's closure list was announced in October, that Wrawby was safe. Then out of the blue it was added on to the list last week. That takes the total number of Post Offices scheduled for closure in this constituency to 6.

The local Councillors and I wasted no time getting on the doorstep in Wrawby to gather people's views. We have made sure that everyone in the village has the opprtunity to let the Post Office know their feelings on this important matter. If this closure is confirmed, local residents will have to go to Brigg to use the Post Office. They will also have to pay the new parking charges introduced by the Labour Council in November, so it's a double whammy for Wrawby residents."

Gordon Brown's Labour MP for Brigg and Goole has supported the Government's closure programme in Parliament and residents have not been fooled by his crocodile tears on this issue.

So Gordon Brown has gone and done it. He has signed another piece of Britain's sovereignty over to Brussels by signing the EU Constitution in Portugal.

I find it a total disgrace that we have a Prime Minister who is refusing to offer a referendum despite getting elected on a pledge to hold one. Here in Brigg and Goole, the Labour MP was elected on a pledge to offer a referendum and now refuses to support one.

Too many powers have been given to the EU already and it is about time we let the people have a say. That's why we should have a referendum on the Constitution and my poll clearly shows a majority in favour.

I have had quite a lot of letters from local people in recent months on this issue, including from a number of confessed Labour voters, or rather, former Labour voters. I take great pleasure in either writing back or going round to see them to assure them that, if I become our MP, I will fight to protect British interests rather than sell us out to the EU.

Figures revealed by the Government show that local cancer patients are receiving thousands of pounds less per patient in treatment than patients nationally.

Official figures show that patients in the East Riding receive just £6,198 in funding, as opposed to a national average of about £8,500. Patients in North Lincolnshire receive more but still receive thousands of pounds less in treatment than patients in other areas.

NHS Campaigner Andrew Percy says, "These figures are truly shocking and demonstrate how unfair funding arrangements are in the NHS. We need to ask serious questions about why our area is missing out when compared to other areas.

The current Labour MP has tried to attack me over these figures but has been embarrassed by the revelation that these are his own Government's figures. This is not the first case of hypocrisy we have seen from the local MP, who is perhaps too busy serving as Vice Chairman of the Labour Party in London to know what is really going on up here.

I won't name everyone in my family who has been touched by cancer as I find that sort of politics a little tasteless. Needless to say, like many families, I have lost close family members to this dreadful disease which is why I will continue to speak out on this appalling funding; despite the cheap attacks of my opponent."

The military top brass think that this Government doesn't value our troops enough and we agree! That's why myself and Cllr Caroline Fox (pictured left posting some more cards in Airmyn) thought it was important to show our support for our troops this Christmas by sending out presents and Christmas cards to our brave troops.

We have already sent a number of parcels out, including to a local soldier from the Goole area. The others are simply sent to random British soldiers who we hope will appreciate the gifts. The Troops are apparently desperate for simple things like lip salv and talc as well as more tasty delights.

Afghanistan is seeing some of the bloodiest fighting since World War 2 and there is certainly a feeling among the troops that their efforts are not appreciated back home. Cllr Caroline Fox and I hope that the parcels we have sent will show the troops that people in our area certainly appreciate their efforts.

I hope local people will also send cards and parcels out to our troops. There are a number of ways that gifts and cards can be sent out, and so if you would like more information please e-mail me on brigg.goole@gmail.com and I will send you the details.

Well what a couple of weeks we have had. This tired out Government is going from one mess to another and the national interest is really beginning to suffer. We have seen the Defence Chiefs slamming Labour, and rightly so, for failing to support our troops, millions of people's data have been lost by the Government and now we know Labour took hundreds of thousands of pounds of illegal donations from a big businessman. Apparently, Gordon knew nothing about it! Yeah right.

If my mailbag locally is anything to go by, there is a real mood for change. The number of people who start letters along the lines of, "I voted Labour last time but never again", is quite staggering. We have also had some very successful fund raising campaigns too; and unlike Labour, ours are legal.

I love the poster above, it really does sum up this Government. The serious point however is that our country is beginning to suffer from the current disastrous leadership. Locally, our Labour politicians never have anything serious to say, and now nationally we see the business of Government being driven off course by their own incompetence.

Having got back from Belfast, I had another busy week visiting various people and events across the area. My highlight had to be running the 'Play Your Cards Right' stall at the Brigg Primary School Christmas Fair.

For one night I got to be Bruce Forsyth, although without any glamorous assistants. Anyway, the event was packed and I got to chat to a lot of people who seemed to enjoy the event. Our stall managed to raise a few pounds which I know will be put to good use.

I also had the pleasure of speaking to a packed Hook Ladies Lunch at the Viking in Goole. I was told by the Chairman that it was their best turnout for some time. That's despite having to endure me as their speaker!

Andrew at the home of East Riding PCT

For some time now my team and I have been raising concerns about breast screening rates across East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. Presently, just 7% of women aged between 50 and 70 are receiving their screening within the 3 year target set by national Government. No wonder so many local women have contacted me regarding the delays to screening which in some cases have been as much as 10 months.

Indeed, just a couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a lady in Haxey who had to wait 46 months between screenings. With a diseases such as breast cancer delays of this kind can mean the difference between life and death and it is vital that the Humberside Breast Screening service moves swiftly to hit the target.

I have been raising this issue in every forum I can and I am delighted that neighbouring MP David Davis has raised this at Westminster. Local women deserve a first class service and we must continue to push until those important targets are met.

The striking statue above is Mother Canada weeping for her lost sons at the Vimy Ridge Memorial in France.

This morning I attended the annual Remberance Day ceremony which I try to do every year. I am always greatly moved by the ceremony and I think this year it was extra special because Remembrance Sunday fell on the 11th.

As I stood there this morning in silence at 11am, I wondered what was going through the mind of my Great Grandfathers Mapplethorpe, Theakstone and Feasey who were all in service on November 11th 1918 when armistice was declared. One of them was with the Yorks and Lancs Regiment in Italy, one with the 9th Yorkshire Regiment and the Norhumberland Fusiliers in France and one of them in France with the 142nd Field Ambulance.

With my Grandad serving in the Second World War, I grew up with a strong sense of the importance of the sacrifice made to us by our armed forces in defending our way of life. I became so interested in it that I have been researching my three Great Grandfathers first world war experiences for some time. Given that two thirds of World War One service records were destroyed by a German raid in the Second World War, this is no easy task. All three of my families records were destroyed in that raid but I did have some papers and photos for two of my Great Grandfathers and so my research was made much easier.

I have spent quite a lot of time at the National Archives in London researching their wartime experiences and just this year managed to piece together the record of my third Great Grandfather whom my Dad knew as a child but whose wartime record nobody in the family seemed to know anything about.

Great Granddad Feasey served with the 12th General Hospital at Rouen from 1914 before moving to the 142nd Field Ambulance with whom he served as a stretcher bearer through to the end of the war. He went across with the British Expeditionary Force (The Old Contemptables) and his field ambulance unit were at pretty much every major battle on the western front in the intervening years. His unit saw action on the Somme and at Passchendaele and the job of the field ambulance was particularly bloody and gruesome. The casualty rate was high and the War Diary of his unit, which I have researched a Kew, reveals just how awful it was for the unarmed men of the field ambulance. The War Diary entry for the Unit in September 1918, at what I think was the Battle of the Hindenburg Line, reveals the following, "The whole bearer personnel were working under great pressure and, although shelling was most severe, all casualties were evacuated." The War Diaries of the various units are very matter of fact about the experiences of the units but I still think this little snippet allows us to imagine just how awful the job must have been.

Imagine the huge pride I felt then when I discovered he had received the Military Medal for Gallantry along with various service medals including the 1914 star. Nobody in the family who knew him remembers him talking about any of his wartime experiences. He simply came back from war and got on with his life, actually becoming a postman. The greatness of that generation is not evidenced just in the numbers who gave their lives, it is also shown in the modesty of those who survived.

All three of my Great-Grandfathers survived, although one of them was gassed, as far as I can establish from the War Diary, at the Battle of Asiago on the 15th June 1918 by the Austrians. He never really recovered from his gassing and apparently had to spend much of the rest of his days sat near the Aga.

I try to keep my website to political issues and not personal ones, but Remembrance Sunday is a day I feel very passionate about, as any of my pupils will tell you. I am very proud of the contribution my family made in the service of our country and I continue to be proud of the sacrifices our armed forces are making today. I hope we never stop remembering.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Andrew at the threatened Eastoft Post Office

Prospective Brigg and Goole MP Andrew Percy this week posted off his response to the Government's proposals to close 5 Post Offices in the local area; West Butterwick, Reedness, Wroot, Eastoft and Westfield Avenue in Goole. Andrew was quick off the mark to defend our Post Offices and surveyed local residents to ensure their views were known.

Andrew says, "It is an absolute disgrace that Labour want to close 5 of our local Post Offices on top of the many they have already closed since coming to power. I have tried to do my best to ensure that the views of local people are taken into account in the consultation process. Hundreds of local residents have written to me expressing their anger at the proposed closures.

The Government says local people's shopping habits are changing and less people use the Post Offices than in the past. This is nonsense when you consider the fact that the reason less people use Post Office's is because this Government has taken business away from Post Offices, e.g. pension books and the sale of TV Licences.

Our local Labour MP has repeatedly voted in Parliament to support the Government's Post Office policies which have lead to the closure of over 4,000 Post Offices.

Our Labour MP is treating local people as fools and I for one will be honest about my support for local Post Offices. No wonder so many local people have expressed their anger to me at Labour's local hypocrisy."