Standing Down
Page 28
We’re at a danger now that the whole mantra is ‘economy is all, is everything’ but it can’t be if you totally ignore the environmental impact of what’s going on.
You have to find a way of embedding that in policy decisions at very early stages. Failure to do that might be OK in the short term but in the long term it’s storing up problems.
For much of her time in Parliament, Mrs Walley has concentrated on helping her constituents. She says:
Doing the job that I love doing and being in a position to help the people in Stoke-on-Trent, in a way that I could, that was always the main thing and always has been.
[I feel] very privileged to be doing something that I really, really, really wanted to be doing and believed in.
There’s a difference between standing up in the chamber for things that you want to make happen and standing up in the chamber and just making a political point, and I think the former is what matters to me.
***
Joan Walley: CV
Raised in Staffordshire; attended University of Hull; worked on an alcohol recovery project and in local government; served on Lambeth Council.
1987: Elected MP for Stoke-on-Trent North
1991: Appointed to front bench as transport spokesman
1994: Made environment spokesman before returning to back benches
2003: Rebels over Iraq
2010: Elected chairman of Environmental Audit Committee
2013: Announces she will be standing down at the 2015 general election
Joan Walley is married to Jan Ostrowski and has two sons.
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ISBN 978-1-84954-929-5
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