If Harold Wilson thought that a week was a long time in politics, I cannot imagine how he would have described the month of July in 2008.
This month has seen some of the most important decisions with regard to West Cumbria for the last 60 years being made and in doing so, establishing the course for our future prosperity and success as a community. 

New management at Sellafield

This month saw the announcement of the preferred bidder to operate Sellafield by the NDA. The winner, Nuclear Management Partners, is a consortium made up of AMEC from the UK, Arreva from France and URS Washington Division from the United States. The messages coming from NMP to date are extremely positive: the consortium understands our ambitions as a community and has the wherewithall to assist. Regular readers will know that I continue to work to make Sellafield an international centre of excellence for the nuclear industry and this international consortium fetches this a step closer. Importantly, like you, I am pleased that the union jack will continue to fly above Sellafield. Our community requires and deserves a new deal from the nuclear industry, NMP and the NDA are aware of this, hence the launch this July of...

Formerly known as the West Cumbria Masterplan. This is the plan which will make West Cumbria into the area we all know it can be and should have been for many years. Produced by local and international experts in partnership building and economic development, this is a plan written by West Cumbrians for West Cumbria. The plan has been covered extensively by the local media with significant national coverage too, and is the plan which if implemented properly will build a new West Cumbria: new schools, new healthcare facilities, a new hospital, new houses, new transport links, new jobs and new nuclear investments. This is what I continue to work for as your Member of Parliament and in doing this, deliver the new deal we deserve. As a West Cumbrian, I could not, nor would I want to be, an MP for any other part of Britain. This would be intellectually and emotionally dishonest. As a West Cumbrian  I have often asked myself why pockets of social deprivation, low educational attainment, inadequate health levels and more, exists cheek-by-jowl in some parts of the towns and villages surrounding Sellafield when for sixty years, the plant has played host to some of the most cutting edge scientific and engineering R&D in the world. This plan addresses these issues and marks the beginning of the end of those days.
Building a new West Cumbria will not take place overnight, but much of the investment we seek is already going in - the Westlakes Academy and the new Cleator Moor health Centre are but two small examples - and the recent establishment of the National Nuclear Laboratory at Sellafield is further proof of this. Providing world class research and development facilities and know-how for the UK and the rest of the world, I have campaigned for the establishment of such a facility for three years. Now it is here, the NNL will play a big part in our future nuclear success, but also in helping to attract international expertise and investment into the area and in diversifying our economy.
None of this has happened by accident. It is the result of deliberate actions undertaken by the people you elect, but one thing is absolutely clear. When politics is reduced to soap opera - as it increasingly is - when personality is deemed more important than policy and when words are judged more important than deeds, it can be difficult to understand why certain decisions are taken and to what end.   The truth is though, that these are Labour investments, delivered by a Labour MP working with a Labour government and a Labour council. Building the new West Cumbria - the schools, the healthcare facilities, the houses, the jobs, the universities, the nuclear investments and much else can only happen with Labour and will only happen with Labour. Every investment we require has been opposed by the Conservatives in Parliament - no new haircut or press release in the world can change the fact. Political parties are not "all the same"; only Labour will help us the build the future we deserve for ourselves and our children. We have begun to build this future and we must succeed.