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Running can help bridge Westminster divide, say MPs ahead of London Marathon

Running can help bridge Westminster divide, say MPs ahead of London Marathon

They include experienced runners such as Labour's Josh Fenton-Glyn, a fell runner, and Conservative Harriet Cross, who won a 50 kilometre ultra-marathon in 2023 and is tipped by Tory colleague Andrew Bowie as among the fastest of the party's MPs.
Others are taking part for the first time such as shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, who sparked rumours of a leadership challenge after he accidentally added 600 people to a WhatsApp group while trying to fundraise for the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association.
Harriet Cross, an ultra-marathon winner, has been tipped by her Tory colleague Andrew Bowie as one of the fastest MPs in the Conservative Party (Michal Wachucik/PA)
Meanwhile, Lib Dem Tom Gordon will be running his second marathon this month, having completed the Paris Marathon on April 13.
Another of those who will be lining up on Blackheath on Sunday is John Slinger, newly-elected Labour MP for Rugby and chair of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on running.
Speaking to the PA news agency, he said he had found running to be one of the things that brought people together in Westminster, despite their differences.
He said: 'I'm a new MP, I was elected in July, and what I found was there's a huge amount of cross-party working in all-party groups and select committees and just in and around the House.
'Don't believe everything you see in the chamber. Yes, there's a lot of yah-boo Punch and Judy, there's also a lot of serious debate there and outside of the chamber people are, to a person, very friendly and civil with one another.
'So, it's yet another way that we can enhance cross-party working because, at the end of the day, we are all colleagues at one level seeking to do the best for the country.'
While Mr Slinger's group intends to encourage more MPs to take up running, many require no additional incentive, finding it helps them unwind from the stresses of Parliament.
Mr Bowie, the shadow Scotland secretary and acting shadow energy secretary who started running properly in the Royal Navy, said it 'provided an opportunity to get away from the madhouse' and 'think things through, contemplate and clear the head'.
Parliament marks the final stage of the London Marathon course (Yui Mok/PA)
Labour's Cat Smith said she had taken up running during lockdown, 'more for my wellbeing than my physical fitness', completing Couch to 5k before taking on the London Marathon in 2021 and 2023.
She said: 'I've done it twice before, and it's a bit addictive, so I want a third one.'
Meanwhile, Mr Fenton-Glynn, the fell runner, saw things as a more binary choice, telling PA: 'An MP told me you need to be careful, because there's two kinds of MPs – running MPs and drinking MPs.
'You don't want to be the latter.'
Six of the MPs taking part in this year's race have run the London Marathon before while in office, although none are close to matching the record held jointly by Alun Cairns and Edward Timpson of 12 appearances in the race.
The most frequent participant this year is Labour's Alex Norris, who is taking on his fourth marathon as an MP – and 10th in total – despite claiming to have done 'precisely three training runs'.
Another returning runner is Lib Dem environment spokesman Tim Farron, who did the marathon in 2021 and 2022 before a knee injury while serving coffee at his local church a year later put him out of action.
He said: 'I thought for a while that might be it, I might no longer be a runner.
'But, slowly but surely, I have mended, I think, and I guess you get to 54, nearly 55, you think, if I stop, bad things will happen.
'But I enjoy it, I enjoyed the buzz of doing it last time round. I also enjoyed the challenge of trying to be ready for it, the discipline of it.'
He would not say whether his party leader, Sir Ed Davey, should make running a marathon his next election stunt, but said he too had 'paid a lot of attention to his physical wellbeing and is, like me, a man in his 50s who is, I think, fitter now than we were 10 years ago'.
Whether any of this year's MP runners will break time records for the marathon remains to be seen.
The fastest ever time by an MP remains 2:32:57, set by Matthew Parris in 1985; and the fastest time by a female MP stands at 3:57:00, set by Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson in 2011.
But, in the same way MPs generally avoid commenting on expected election results, most refused to be drawn on how they thought they would do, focusing instead on completing the 26.2 mile course and raising money for charities.
Several have chosen to raise money for local charities: Mr Slinger has opted for Back and Forth Men's Mental Health; Mr Fenton-Glynn for the Overgate Hospice; Mr Farron for mental health charity Growing Well; and Ms Smith for the Bay Hospitals Charity, all connected to their constituencies.
Others, however, have opted for national charities. Mr Bowie said he chose to raise money for the MS Society because a member of his team has the condition and it 'doesn't get as much attention as some of the other headline-grabbing charities'.
And although not a parliamentarian himself, David Prescott – son of the former deputy prime minister John Prescott – will be running for Alzheimer's Research UK in memory of his father, who died last November.
The parliamentarians taking part in Sunday's London Marathon are:
– Alex Norris (Labour, Nottingham North and Kimberley)
– Andrew Bowie (Conservative, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
– Blake Stephenson (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)
– Cat Smith (Labour, Lancaster and Wyre)
– Chris Curtis (Labour, Milton Keynes North)
– Chris Evans (Labour, Caerphilly)
– David Simmonds (Conservative, Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
– Harriet Cross (Conservative, Gordon and Buchan)
– John Slinger (Labour, Rugby)
– Josh Fenton-Glynn (Labour, Calder Valley)
– Lloyd Hatton (Labour, South Dorset)
– Michael Shanks (Labour, Rutherglen)
– Patrick Hurley (Labour, Southport)
– Robert Jenrick (Conservative, Newark)
– Tim Farron (Lib Dem, Westmorland and Lonsdale)
– Tom Gordon (Lib Dem, Harrogate and Knaresborough)
– Lord James Bethell (Conservative)
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Scotland takes on record levels of asylum seekers – amid calls for migrant hotel crackdown & protests loom
Scotland takes on record levels of asylum seekers – amid calls for migrant hotel crackdown & protests loom

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Scotland takes on record levels of asylum seekers – amid calls for migrant hotel crackdown & protests loom

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‘Well done to Starmer for making it difficult for girl of 12', blasts Lucy Connolly's husband after riot-tweet mum freed
‘Well done to Starmer for making it difficult for girl of 12', blasts Lucy Connolly's husband after riot-tweet mum freed

Scottish Sun

timean hour ago

  • Scottish Sun

‘Well done to Starmer for making it difficult for girl of 12', blasts Lucy Connolly's husband after riot-tweet mum freed

Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) RIOT-tweet mum Lucy Connolly was freed from jail to rejoin her husband and 12-year-old daughter — after more than a year as a victim of 'two-tier justice'. Husband Ray, a Tory on Northampton Town Council said she had coped 'relatively well' with jail, adding: 'The only person who hasn't is our daughter.' Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 6 Lucy Connolly with husband Ray, who says Starmer deserves a 'pat on the back' for 'making it so difficult for a girl of 12' Credit: SWNS 6 Lucy Connolly was caged for stirring up racial hatred after the Southport killings Credit: PA 6 Lucy left HMP Peterborough in a taxi at 10am Credit: picture Stone Ltd 'It will be good to have her home. We are thankful for the support. 'Our focus will be to try to sort out our lives and for my wife to reconnect with our daughter.' Lucy, 42, caged for stirring up racial hatred after the Southport killings, left HMP Peterborough in a taxi at 10am. Her punishment sparked a major debate, with PM Sir Keir Starmer accused of 'two-tier justice'. Thanked public for support Tory councillor Ray added sarcastically: 'Well done to Starmer for making it so difficult for a girl of 12. Let's all give him a pat on the back.' He said the family were delighted Lucy was coming home after more than a year and thanked the public for their support. Ex-childminder Lucy wore pink for her low-key departure from HMP Peterborough — crouching down in a white Skoda estate at 10am. She did not immediately return to the family's £400,000 semi in Northampton and is understood to be staying away from her home. In all she spent over a year behind bars — two months held on remand before she was sentenced at Birmingham crown court. She was freed at the automatic release point, after serving 40 per cent of her term in prison. 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'Law itself is broken' 'Charged with encouraging violent disorder, he pleaded not guilty and was acquitted by a jury who saw his words as a disgusting remark made in the heat of the moment, not a call to action. 'Juries are a cornerstone of justice, but we shouldn't have to rely on them to protect basic freedoms. 'Protecting people from words should not be given greater weight in law than public safety. 'If the law does this, then the law itself is broken and it's time Parliament looked again at the Public Order Act.' Sir Keir defended Lucy's sentence in May saying: 'I am strongly in favour of free speech. 'But I am equally against incitement to violence against others. I will always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe.' Lucy was one of around a dozen lags freed from 1,200-inmate all-female HMP Peterborough yesterday. She had been put on a 'basic regime' after refusing to return to her cell. It meant she had £5.50 a week to spend in the canteen. Mr Tice claimed she was bruised after being manhandled by guards. Yesterday ex-prison governor Ian Acheson suggested Lucy could sue, which would mean jail logs would be disclosable to her lawyers. He added: 'I've no idea whether this will happen, but features of her treatment alleged in media were so perverse it's a real possibility. Interesting times ahead.' LOCKED UP FOR ONE TWEET IS SCANDAL By Lord Toby Young, from The Free Speech Union I was glad to see Lucy Connolly finally walk free today, but the fact that she has spent more than a year in prison for a single tweet -- quickly deleted and apologised for -- is a national scandal, particularly when Labour MPs, councillors and anti-racism campaigners who have said and done much worse have avoided jail. The same latitude they enjoyed should have been granted to Lucy. Sir Keir Starmer said in May that Lucy's sentence was justified because her tweet was 'incitement to violence against other people'. But was it? The test we employ when deciding whether to prosecute someone for supposedly inciting violence should be the same as it is in the United States, namely, was it intended to cause violence and was it likely to? I don't think Lucy's tweet met either limb of that test (and for speech not to be protected by the First Amendment in America it has to meet both). Had she urged her followers to burn down a particular asylum hotel, maybe it would have failed those tests. But she did not and she added the words 'for all I care', suggesting she was indifferent as to whether asylum hotels in general were burnt down and not inciting people to set fire to them. Had she pleaded not guilty, she might well have been acquitted by a jury, just as the ex-Royal Marine Jamie Michael was after being charged with the same offence. The Free Speech Union, the organisation I run, paid for Jamie's defence and we offered to pay for Lucy's. But unlike Ricky Jones, the Labour councillor who urged people to cut the throats of anti-immigration protestors, she was not granted bail and worried that if she pleaded not guilty she would have to spend longer in prison awaiting trial than if she pleaded guilty. As it turned out, she was wrong about that, but then she was not expecting to be sentenced to more than two-and-half years, which is longer than some members of grooming gangs have received after pleading guilty to child rape. What Lucy has suffered at the hands of the British state is a clear case of injustice. She has become Exhibit A for those of us raising the alarm about the assault on free speech in Starmer's Britain. And if it's any consolation to her, that alarm is now being heard across the world, from the White House to Quinta de Olivos in Argentina. Let's hope the people of Britain wake up to this attack on their right to freedom of expression before they lose it entirely. Lord Young is the founder and director of the Free Speech Union.

Lucy Connolly has suffered at hands of the British state – let's hope Brits wake up to this attack on their free speech
Lucy Connolly has suffered at hands of the British state – let's hope Brits wake up to this attack on their free speech

The Sun

timean hour ago

  • The Sun

Lucy Connolly has suffered at hands of the British state – let's hope Brits wake up to this attack on their free speech

I WAS glad to see Lucy Connolly finally walk free today, but the fact that she has spent more than a year in prison for a single tweet -- quickly deleted and apologised for -- is a national scandal, particularly when Labour MPs, councillors and anti-racism campaigners who have said and done much worse have avoided jail. The same latitude they enjoyed should have been granted to Lucy. Sir Keir Starmer said in May that Lucy's sentence was justified because her tweet was 'incitement to violence against other people'. But was it? The test we employ when deciding whether to prosecute someone for supposedly inciting violence should be the same as it is in the United States, namely, was it intended to cause violence and was it likely to? I don't think Lucy's tweet met either limb of that test (and for speech not to be protected by the First Amendment in America it has to meet both). Had she urged her followers to burn down a particular asylum hotel, maybe it would have failed those tests. But she did not and she added the words 'for all I care', suggesting she was indifferent as to whether asylum hotels in general were burnt down and not inciting people to set fire to them. Had she pleaded not guilty, she might well have been acquitted by a jury, just as the ex-Royal Marine Jamie Michael was after being charged with the same offence. The Free Speech Union, the organisation I run, paid for Jamie's defence and we offered to pay for Lucy's. But unlike Ricky Jones, the Labour councillor who urged people to cut the throats of anti-immigration protestors, she was not granted bail and worried that if she pleaded not guilty she would have to spend longer in prison awaiting trial than if she pleaded guilty. As it turned out, she was wrong about that, but then she was not expecting to be sentenced to more than two-and-half years, which is longer than some members of grooming gangs have received after pleading guilty to child rape. What Lucy has suffered at the hands of the British state is a clear case of injustice. She has become Exhibit A for those of us raising the alarm about the assault on free speech in Starmer's Britain. Lucy Connolly is freed after jail term for racist tweet over Southport attack And if it's any consolation to her, that alarm is now being heard across the world, from the White House to Quinta de Olivos in Argentina. Let's hope the people of Britain wake up to this attack on their right to freedom of expression before they lose it entirely. Lord Young is the founder and director of the Free Speech Union. 3

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