Brandon Lewis

He is my local MP, mine in the sense that he 'allegedly' works for me in my role as a constituent, and his role as a Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth, which is where I live. I didn't vote for him as I had him identified as a career politician, who will, in political terms, use the cachet of being elected long enough to ensure a stratospheric ascent to the middle.

Since his election, he has continued his fine work in fixing Great Yarmouth Train Station by...wait for it, asking the Transport Minister about it. Never mind that the website created to put pressure on National Express was last updated in February 2010.

Further to this, he has supported Planet Poppadom in its bid to win the Newby Tiffins Cup 2010, which was created by MP's to honour the best Indian restaurant in the South and has a tangential link to paid a visit to B & Q, visited some other places and had some meetings. That is some workload isn't it for such a 'formidable campaigner'?. Note that this quote is unsupported, without any sources to qualify it.

But hey, if you have a problem, you can go see him at one of his surgeries, right? Well, you have to make an appointment with the office either over the phone or via a form on his site, which kind of precludes the point of an open surgery. Never mind that it could reasonably be interpreted that there will be a certain amount of screening involved, and if so, for what reason?

Brandon claims not to be a career politician, he runs two companies - Woodlands Schools Ltd which run two private schools in Brentwood, Essex where he lives and i5 Consulting which is a management consultancy, teaching you skills that you can read in any number of books for under a tenner. All of which make him uniquely placed to understand the issues unique to the town. I haven't seen him at a Sure Start centre or outside ComeUnity, have yet to see him talk about addressing the poverty of aspiration that afflicts this town, no Brandon has spent time with businesses and businessmen.

In short, the man is an archetypal Conservative, nothing controversial, just part of the new intake of MPs who seem to believe that serving their constituents is something to be avoided, let alone actually interact with them because they're people who cannot do anything for him, just want someone to solve their problems, cannot introduce him to anyone useful.

Tony Wright worked for his constituents, if he couldn't have served here, he wouldn't have gone anywhere else. Brandon Lewis failed to secure the role of MP in Sherwood, back in 2001 instead he went into local politics and served as Leader of Brentwood Council. I would consider that he might not have Yarmouth's full attention, seeing as he must have to spread himself quite thin. He holds directorships and I respect his academic achievements, certainly, but I consider that he is only here until he leaves, the political equivalent of a mustard burp - vaguely memorable at the outset but soon forgotten.

Is it about networking, favours for friends, the right words spoken to the right ears?

That he will do nothing of substance for the majority of people in this town is a given, he'll help the people who always get help from politicians and it won't be anyone who desperately needs a surgery with a case worker, will it?

If you voted for this man, you are probably getting what you want from him, for the rest of us, well is it too much to ask that he does his job?