Whoops! I forgot it was on tonight.

Channel 4 at 9pm.

How much do you think it costs to make a meal for 12 people?

Dizzy says it all for me today   http://bit.ly/c4SinI

Thanks Dizzy. Not sure about the spoon though.

This is a story of greed and corruption.

It has taken place on the floor of a London Derivatives Trader used by ordinary people who are investing savings or a pension in currencies.

Before I posted this blog, I have sent a Barrister's statement of case, a CD with a transcript of recorded conversations and the technical analysis of email traces to Hector Sants at the FSA and Detective Superintendent David Robertson, at the fraud desk of the Economic Crime Directorate. They have both received their copies hand delivered this morning.

I have retained a separate copy of the documents for one reputable financial journalist, or blogger, should any be interested.

The Trader I have reported trades not in the City of London area, known as the square mile, but on a London street normally associated with up market shopping.

Via a duplicitous manner, someone from the floor of this trader obtained the password for a clients dormant email account. They then sent emails backwards and forwards, without the client’s knowledge, every day instructing themselves to buy and sell losing the client a vast amount of money. I also have evidence that false values of currencies were recorded at the end of each day in order to hide huge and vast client losses.

The technical evidence shows that all the emails were generated and sent to and from one server in the trader’s office.

The trader’s management at first blamed a ‘rogue’ trader, who is named in the documents, however; secretly recorded conversations with the management clearly identify that he was not the only person involved.

Over £70,000 has so far been spent in trying to bring this case to court; however, it now needs to go forward to the International Court of Arbitration subject to a contractual agreement between the company and the former client, owner of the computer falsely accessed, this will cost another £30,000 which is not available.

The depressing thing is that upon further investigation, the management of this company originated from a company that had already been investigated in the past when trading under the name Square Mile Securities, by the FSA. Square Mile was fined a reduced amount due to their own financial difficulties, closed down and the bulk of the management and staff became employees of the trading company I am now reporting.

I am making this case known on behalf of someone else as my concern is that as long as it takes to reach a legal solution, others may be suffering the loss of their life savings at the hands of a company I believe to possibly be corrupt through to its very core.

If a financial journalist or blogger would like a copy of the statement which identifies all parties fully, please call my office.

I love this place and all the history and tradition it represents - my deferred vote slip signed in quill and ink.

It was hot in the chamber, fuelled by Cameron's performance. When Gordon gets mad and he knows he is losing, the colour fades from his face. David was absolutley right re the new facination in vote reform to an AV voting system and when he quoted from Paddy Ashdown's diary and the fact that Gordon had always blocked reform - it was as much as we Tory MPs could do to remain seated.

Gordon wasn't interested during as '97 landslide for Labour, he never mentioned it during comfortable Labour wins in '01 and '05, however, all of a sudden Gordon thinks it's time we changed the way we vote. Now, why could that be I wonder?

The link for The Daily Politics Show today. Discussion re Bercow was at the end.

Martin Salter MP argued the case for Bercow, and had a briefing document with him - who provided that? Was it Tim Hames?

If it was, should that be the case?

http://tinyurl.com/yjcacpf

Just about to write my blog for today and thought I would share an email which made me chuckle..

Nadine,

 Since the expenses scandal I have checked out your blog periodically.

 And I hate to say it but you just haven’t delivered the same fire, passion energy or insight that you used to..

 Until today..

 Absolutely love the ‘Backs Against the Wall’ post.

 Excuse me but.

 Oh Baby Your ARE BACK!!

 Go Nadine.

Walking down the back of the Speaker’s Chair corridor at 11pm one night last week, I encountered the Speaker.

He had just finished sitting in the Chair for an adjournment debate.

It is a tradition that, if the Speaker is walking down a corridor, MPs stop immediately with backs against the wall and eyes diverted.

Frequently a member from the Sergeant at Arms department will shout ‘Speaker’ in a very loud and elongated manner prior to the Speaker leaving his office. This is to warn us all that the Speaker is on his way, and to clear out of the corridor quickly.

The practice of standing still, if you can’t get out of the way, and the clearing of the corridor is a seriously enforced tradition. Police are situated around every corner who shout ‘Speaker’ at you, if you are moving into a corridor the Speaker is moving along.

When the Speaker came into the corridor the other night, I kept on walking. I even smiled and said good evening to the Mace bearer, who looked so shocked I thought he was going to drop the Mace.

This incensed the Speaker, who I heard turn and complain, in a very loud voice, about what I had just done. I caught the word ‘she’ repetitively and loudly.

My response: if you want to drop the tradition of wearing the Speaker’s dress, then don’t expect me to honour the tradition of standing still in the corridor when you move along it. You don’t pick and choose traditions. If you do you begin to erode away at what brings millions of pounds into this country each year via our tourism economy. You erode the authority of the Speaker’s chair and, by doing so, erode the authority of Parliament itself.

So, I call upon my colleagues to join me. Don’t clear the corridor; walk with your head high. Look him in the eye and if he loses his rag, as he did with me the other night, then maybe he will realise that deciding which traditions to honour, or not, is not entirely within his remit.

Last week the Commons was dead. To be fair, the life was sucked out of it months ago and each resignation brings with it brings a new grey cloud, as one MP after the other stands down. Chat surrounds those who haven’t yet made the decision whether or not to go and some of those still deciding haven’t been here for very long.

The only buzz is in Portcullis House, where all MPs put on a brave face, those that bother to emerge from their office that is. MP spotting isn’t that easy these days.

If the public complained that they didn’t see enough of us sat on the Green benches before, they must be enraged by now.

To be fair, the depression is highest amongst Labour MPs, like you would expect I suppose - although the snowstorm plot did usher in a ray of sunshine for some, it quickly faded.

What has got people going today is the General Election chatter. Overheard just now (by me) in the ladies loo, was one lobbyist to another, quoting a Labour MP, “he said it could be June”.

'No it won’t', thought I, not unless Gordon really has lost the plot.

Imagine the scenario: Labour councillors are wiped out during the council elections in May. As soon as their defeat has been announced on national TV, on every radio and in every newspaper, with headlines declaring ‘Labour Massacre’, and Nick Robinson has stood outside No 10 declaring ‘It’s impossible to imagine how on earth Labour can recover from this‘, Gordon Brown calls the General Election and asks all his activists and councillors to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and start all over again.

Never. It’ll never happen. Not unless he really has lost the plot. March, April or May – and just to be different – my money is on April. Too many astute Labour MPs have dropped the May 6^th date in an ‘ooops, I didn’t mean to do that’ kind of way.

No one is talking about April; April would be a surprise. Would an element of surprise give Labour any advantage? Who knows, I just know I’ll eat my non-existent hat if a sane PM calls June.

I was shocked today to read the following statistic that the number of people being discharged from hospital in a malnourished state has increased by 146% since Labour came to power in 1997.

I was shocked, but not surprised. It doesn’t take anything more than a little common sense to understand how we have arrived at this situation and just a little more to know how to put it right.

But first, let’s just remind ourselves of a few simple truths. Patients are admitted into hospital to be made better. Given the advances in medical science and the need for as many patients as possible to be treated at home or in the community due to the threat of MRSA (another story), those patients you do find in hospital today tend to be very poorly.

Advances in engineering such as safety features in cars, air bags and side impact protection mean that only the very serious RTA results in long periods of hospitalization and so the situation is that those people who are lying in a hospital bed need the very best care.

A hospital bed should be a very safe place. Nurses are expected to be compassionate and caring and should have both the time and motivation to be so. Wards used to be calm quiet places within which a nurse got to know her patient well. Today they are bustling busy places with almost 24hr visiting and a constant flow of traffic in and out (a contributing factor to MRSA)

It's time to bring back the auxiliary nurses. The non-qualified nurse who loved to wear her uniform with pride and simply enjoyed the patient contact. They used to be responsible for filling in the patients diet requirements, making sure the food arrived correctly, as ordered from the kitchen and then if the patient required, helped kindly with feeding. They provided the friendly banter, talked through patient’s worries and concerns and they were never hampered by a constant throng of people coming and going.

They cleaned bedside lockers, helped with toileting, made sure sheets were changed, linen cupboards were full, cleaned up the accidents, chatted to and motivated ward cleaners and were like the worker bee’s; they kept everyone happy and everything ship shape freeing the qualified nurses to tend to dressings, medications, theater cases and all the other jobs which requires the attention of a qualified nurse.

They dominated the ward kitchen. Always offered the relatives of very poorly patient cups of tea and a hand to hold or as hug and looked after the broken hearts of student nurses.

I remember on night shift at Warrington Infirmary how the night auxiliary always used to bring me milky coffee and toast at 6am when I sat down to start writing the night report, that was just before she began sorting the breakfasts for 30 or so patients. They were the ward mums.

We need to return to that deeper level of patient care. It’s what in political speak we refer to as front-line care. However, it cannot be reached until the wards are once again empty of  permenant visitors. Until a healing environment returns, until the authority of a ward sister or charge nurse (I really dislike the term manager) is paramount –until we bring back the army of ward mums, until we accept and acknowledge that hospital wards are a sanctuary and a place for the sick and vulnerable to be returned to health, and until we acknowledge that the delivery of care is delivered by people, not managers. People who should care for patients as though they are their very own flesh and blood and take a pride in discharging patients in a healthier and better nourished state than when they arrived.

Not half starved as the case appears to be today.

Yesterday was the last day of filming for The Tower Block of Commons series for Channel 4.

Tower Block of Commons has been one of the most interesting projects I have been involved with since I became an MP and the production crew at Love Productions for Channel 4 were a tremendous group of people to work with.
 
It is incredibly hard for an MP to work with the media in any of its forms. The media can manipulate and distort so much, and they very often do when it comes to MPs.
 
This project was incredibly important for me as it literally opened one door after another and let me step into the lives of people with whom I would never otherwise meet; people who, as a result of a target driven culture, languish at the bottom of society. Forgotten people, people who provide no political brownie points for any politician but who are possibly the most costly within society to support in all ways one can imagine.
 
It is with these people that repairing the broken society should begin.
 
It was a little sad saying goodbye to the crew yesterday. I was never left alone during the filming and at one point, the cameraman even slept next to me on the floor as it was the only comfortable floor to sleep on, if that makes sense! When you spend that long in the company of a small group of people you get to know them. You chat about their families and lots of stuff that isn’t anything to do with work, and so saying goodbye was a bit like closing a book half way through. I will only ever know their stories up to a certain point. But more importantly for me, I trusted them all. I had to or it would never have worked and that was a huge and difficult thing too.
 
And so for a name check: to Cal, the series producer, who must be the best in the business, I say this because I heard so many of the crew commenting on how much they liked to work with her, because she was the director/producer they could learn the most from. To Micha, Alex, Miles, Dave, Jamie and Andy, it was a great pleasure to have worked with you all. I think we all learnt a great deal during our time walking in other peoples shoes.
 
I will find out one day soon when the series is going out!
 
I can’t actually comment on any of the people in the series yet, or anything we did, because obviously that would be telling :0