Political opinion: Lee Anderson MP
Last week was Remembrance Day. A day that we remember the courage of those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
I recently wrote to all Primary Schools in Ashfield inviting them to let their students create a poppy wreath for Armistice Day. Croft Primary School in Sutton-in-Ashfield, as well as Abbey Hill, Morven Park, and Kingsway Primary Schools in Kirkby in Ashfield, all took part, and each made their own wreath.
I took these wreaths with me to London and laid them at the Cenotaph in Whitehall on Remembrance Day. Laying them I felt so proud of our local school children for making these wreaths and it was an honour to lay them at the Cenotaph on behalf of the whole of Ashfield. I also laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in Sutton at the parade on Remembrance Sunday, Remembrance is so important, and it was a delight to see the huge turnout for the Sutton parade, as well as the other parades around Ashfield. Lest we forget.
The BBC has proven to the world once again why the TV license should be scrapped and the BBC reformed into a subscription service. Twice doctoring footage of the leader our most important allied country, falsely depicting him inciting violence, acting as a mouthpiece for the terrorist organisation Hamas, publishing their propaganda without adequate checks, one-sided reporting on transgender issues, and senior management repeatedly disregarding internal reports of BBC bias are the latest offences in a long line of controversies around Auntie Beeb.
Since becoming an MP I have always maintained that the TV license should be scrapped, or at the very least not paying it should be decriminalised. The BBC has been biased for decades, which in the circumstances of any other media outlet would be fine, but not when it is state-funded, and the public are forced to pay for it. Reform UK will end this madness and scrap the TV license.
The collapse of our prison service continues, last week I asked the Justice Secretary, David Lammy, if we have prison officers who can barely speak a word of English. It does not take a genius to figure out that this would be a recipe for disaster.
He made a junior minister answer, and to my unsurprise I did not get an answer. I was appalled by the news that a number of criminals had been accidentally released from prisons, including sex offenders.
Accidental prison releases are up 128% under this Government, up to 262 in the 12 months to March 2025. I remember when criminals had to dig tunnels to escape prisons. Now we have sex offenders prowling the streets, people are afraid to leave their houses, and now thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money are being spent on the following manhunts.
This Government has lost control of our prisons.