James Wharton MP

Tonight was the Annual General Meeting of Stockton Conservatives.  It was well attended and lively with an update from me as Stockton South candidate and Ken Lupton, Leader of Stockton Borough Council.

All in all a good evening.

Today was the second day of the Conservative Spring Forum in Gateshead.  It was a great morning and the conference was closed with a speech by David Cameron.  David spoke to the need for more health visitors for new mothers and babies and promised that the next Conservative government would ensure a dramatic increase in their numbers.  There is a real buzz and feeling of optimisim amongst party members and it is an exciting time to be involved with all we are trying to achieve.

Tonight I was the guest speaker at the York Conservatives supper club.  It was a great event and extremely well attended.  I am pleased to support York Conservatives in any way I can as they have an excellent pair of candidates (Julian and Susan) and I am confident that we can win outer York at the next General Election.  There were some challenging questions from local members but if was great fun.  A few even told me they have family in Stockton South.

I joined Philip Hammon MP, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in a visit to Thornaby Town Centre just before lunch time.  It was a good opportunity to meet local people and hear about some of the issues in the town.

Afterwards I took Philip to Gateshead for the Conservative Spring Forum conference, which is being held in the North East for the first time.

This morning I was interviewed by BBC Tees, along with local resident and secretary of the Village Park Residents Association Peter Brennan, about the sad news that Parkview is to close.  The Labour MP, who has done very little to support the campaign, soon jumped on the issue and was seen throughout the rest of the day acting as though she had been central to efforts to keep Parkview open.  I suppose that’s politics but if she had actually shown some real support perhaps we would have had a better chance and Parkview could have been saved.