My Views

January 8th, 2023
Written by John Grogan

PRESS RELEASE

John Grogan told a coffee morning of the Ilkley Women’s Labour Group at the Outside the Box cafe in Ilkley that the average wage in Keighley and Ilkley Constituency had fallen in real terms after inflation by £1388 or 4.3% since 2010. The figure is based on Labour Party analysis of Office of National Statistics Data.

January 1st, 2023
Written by John Grogan

Valley Parade was the place to be on New Year’s Day to see Bradford record back to back victories! In a pulsating battle of the roses the Bantams beat Salford 3-2. Before the Christmas break they had not won at home since Liz Truss was Prime Minister ! Mind you the top sporting fixture to look forward to in Keighley in 2023 has to be Keighley Cougars v Bradford Bulls on Sunday March 26th. Meanwhile here are ten things I will be working on in 2023 - more to come on each of them in the coming weeks:

Decamber 30th, 2022
Written by John Grogan

In this period between Christmas and the New Year many of us enjoy watching the TV or streaming services. Unlike the United States, the UK is fortunate to have a long tradition of public service broadcasting which refers to broadcasting intended for public benefit rather than to serve purely commercial interests. This includes not just the output of BBC and Channel 4 but also programmes produced by ITV like the regional news programme Calendar. 

From The Yorkshire Post, December 20th, 2022
Written by John Grogan

In a speech to the Scottish Labour Party conference in 1994, the then leader of the UK Labour Party John Smith, referred to the creation of a Scottish Parliament as “the settled will of the Scottish people”.

In the Autumn of 2022 from an admittedly much more modest place in the political hierarchy, as Co Chair of the One Yorkshire Committee, I addressed in turn the Yorkshire Party Conference in York, the Green Party in Harrogate and the Regional Labour Party in Barnsley.

Decamber 3rd, 2022
Written by John Grogan

On Small Business Saturday (December 3rd) we celebrate the enterprises which are the backbone of our local economy.

It is a tough time for many such businesses faced with rising energy costs and falling demand. Government needs to give more help to  the 340 small businesses in the constituency (with between 10-49 employees ) and 3225 micro businesses (with between 1-9 employees). Labour are proposing three measures that would not cost the taxpayer any money but would make a big difference to the bottom line of our local entrepreneurs.

November 27th, 2022
Written by John Grogan

This is how we win Keighley and Ilkley for Labour and put Keir Starmer in 10 Downing Street.

Firstly, we ourselves must believe in the radical change we are going to bring to our country. If we are not convinced, we have no chance of persuading others. Our economic inheritance is likely to be difficult. Nye Bevan the founder of the NHS said the language of priorities is the religion of socialism. In this context we can bring progressive change in three different ways.