Posted by Dr Robin Bignall on 22 November 2000 at 19:34:25:
Clive Soley MP is currently fighting to retain his post as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party. His backbench detractors state that instead of taking their concerns upwards, eventually to Tony Blair (ie: on the meagre 75p increase in pensions last year), he simply fed them the Blairite line. He is my MP, and his potential importance to us here is that he is close to Mr Blair and well informed of the PM's, and therefore the Government's, thinking. He is also on record (reported in 'The Times' Monday this week) as stating that all pensioners are 'a gang of right-wing, racist ratbags'. His response to my letter on the 'C' Plan was a postcard preprinted with the House of Commons logo, and the message 'Your communication has been received'. That was some weeks ago.