My London constituency in Hackney has one of the highest levels of gun crime in the country. But the problem is no longer confined to inner city areas. Gun crime has spread to communities all...

Gun crime is a major cause of fear and distress throughout the UK. The problem is deeply entrenched in a wide range of social and cultural factors and therefore not an isolated issue.

When fast food is not a treat but a dietary staple, the children surf the internet all day in dark corners of the room and are bombarded with latest gadgets. Things replace parental standards.

In my 26 years I haven’t run into a baby who was rolled over on in bed, or who suffocated next to mom. Possibly it happens, but it happens a lot more often with moms...

The honest truth is that if this government were to propose the massacre of the first-born, it would still have no difficulty in getting it through the Commons.

I’m not thick-skinned at all, and of course I’m hurt by people attacking me as a person.

I don’t think you can have pain and soul-searching doing the right thing for your child.

She has proven herself to be a likable and strong-willed woman. I am sure she will prove herself very worthy of this place in history and will serve as an inspiration for women the world...

Because when you watch U.S. television, all the presenters and reporters, they’re all out of central casting.

I’m not the only Labour MP who sent their child to public school but I’m the only one who’s questioned about it.

Outsiders often have an insight that an insider doesn’t quite have.

This is a historically significant victory for women worldwide but for Jamaicans in particular. Portia has already made history, and looks set to consolidate her place in the history books of the future by becoming...

You learn from mistakes.

I believe every abortion is a tragedy.

Families are struggling against a tide of junk information on junk food.

Abortion is an issue of conscience for the Labour party.

I spend a lot of time visiting local organisations.

I was a postman one Christmas and I developed a morbid fear of dogs.

I want to write a best-selling book.

My father was a manual worker.

Finally, there’s a sense in which I look at this Westminster village and London intelligentsia as an outsider.

In Parliament we debate on and we decide the laws that are going to govern the country.

My mother liked Jim Reeves. I hated his records. He was unbearable.

I knew what could happen to my son if he was sent to the wrong school and got in with the wrong crowd.

It’s very lonely bringing up a child on your own.

Many young people carrying real or imitation firearms do so in a mistaken attempt to either boost their image, or from a misguided idea about self-protection. In addition, most London shootings involve members of the...

In politics, the people I most despise are those who have no values.

My family were from Jamaica.

Private schools prop up the class system in society. It is inconsistent, to put it mildly, for someone who believes in a fairer and more egalitarian society to send their child to a fee-paying school....

My forebears refused to cut the sugar cane for plantation owners, and I am recognisably a product of that background.

I wanted my marriage to work, but it didn’t.

Mental health is often missing from public health debates even though it’s critical to wellbeing.

Whenever I felt like slitting my wrists I used to like listening to depressed singers from the 1970s. It was great music for a misunderstood teenager. And when I’m feeling misunderstood these days, I’ll stick...

Tackling childhood obesity is key.

I’m a West Indian mum and West Indian mums will go to the wall for their children.

You can’t defend the indefensible – anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical.

because that was the only way they felt they could survive.