Members of North Swindon Constituency Labour Party bade their farewell to Michael Wills and his staff at a dinner in Meadowcroft Community Centre on Saturday 20th June. Â Michael has been a fantastic MP for North Swindon. Â All Labour supporters and many others of all political persuasion are very sad to have lost him, but at least an articulate voice for Swindon will remain in the Houses of Parliament.
Michael said:
Thank you all for coming here tonight for this celebration. And thank you to all those who have gone to so much trouble to organise this great spread. And thank you too for giving me the opportunity to serve this town for the last thirteen years. In his last speech before he died, John Smith said that all we ask is the opportunity to serve our country. And that is all I too have asked. And I am so grateful to all of you and to many others who could not be here tonight for giving me that opportunity. Although an MP is inevitably the face of a constituency, we all know that an MP can do nothing without the hard work and support of party members and their staff and I have been very lucky in the help and support I have received from all of you for so many years now.
We have done a lot together. This town is so much better off than it was in 1997. As I drove around during the campaign, everywhere I went I saw evidence of what we and the Labour Government achieved. Schools in Swindon have been transformed with substantial rebuilding and refurbishment. Hreod Parkway is no more, replaced by a brand new school. Sevenfields has been rebuilt. The sparkling new Isambard School is co-located with new Uplands and Brimble Hill special schools. Following my first speech in the House of Commons in May 1997 which begged for a new hospital for Swindon, GWH opened in December 2002. The Blunsdon bypass has been opened and noise barriers are going up along the A419 to protect residents from the noise of that increasingly busy trunk road. Highworth Rec has a new roof and facilities. And a new town centre is beginning to emerge.
It’s not just the buildings and the physical infrastructure of public services that have been transformed in Swindon. The delivery of public services have been improved out of all recognition. I remember the agony of people who came to me in surgeries in 1998 saying that they had been told that they would have to wait 18 months for an angiogram, a wait that condemned them to waking up every day not knowing whether that was the day they were going to have a heart attack. Those lengthy waits, not just for angiograms but for all NHS procedures, are now history. Neighbourhood Policing Teams are beginning to get grip with the antisocial behaviour that has blighted so many parts of the town for far too long. There is still some way to go until we get the public services we all want and need but it is too easy to forget what an extraordinarily long way we have come since 1997.
And your help and support and that of my great offices in Swindon and Westminster have helped me to respond effectively to requests from over 16,000 constituents. This is what we all joined the Labour Party for and we can all take comfort from what we have been able to achieve.
But the struggle continues. We had a bad election result, despite having a first rate candidate in Victor Agarwal. We now have two Tory MPs and a Tory council in Swindon and we already know what the consequences will be for the neediest and most vulnerable residents. Just look at the cynical way they have gone about justifying butchering Dial-a-Ride. As time goes by, people will realise more and more what these Tories are doing and the town and they will be ready to come back to us.
But they will only do so if we are ready and work to ensure that there is a Labour alternative. That is why I was so pleased that Victor chose today to be his first campaign day after the election and you turned out to support him. Although I can no longer represent the people of North Swindon as their MP, I intend to use my new position in the House of Lords to ensure that the issues that matter to the town receive proper and effective scrutiny and I hope you will continue to ask me for help whenever you think I might be able to provide it. You have all my thanks for the last thirteen years and all my best wishes for the years ahead.
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