Credit where it’s richly due: Stroud’s new MP Dr Simon Opher deserves our plaudits for risking his future political career by supporting Early Day Motion 115, ‘Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024’ (see tinyurl.com/mj7z5brr), signed to date by 26 MPs as I write.

Dr Opher has aligned himself with the ‘usual suspect’ Labour rebels like John McDonnell, Richard Burgon and Apsana Begum – all of whom have already been suspended from the Labour Party whip because of defying PM Keir Starmer’s uncompromising position on the two-child benefit cap.

It cannot be over-estimated what a courageous move this is by Stroud’s new MP – and the invaluable contribution it makes to undermining the tribalist tyranny of the party-political system. Perhaps former Stroud MP David Drew’s sound advice to Dr Opher ‘to be yourself’, mentioned in his maiden speech, has already paid dividends!

Newly elected MPs have a stark choice: they can either vote according to their conscience on every issue – in which case they will know that they can almost certainly kiss 'goodbye' to any future chance of promotion in their political career – and at worst, could conceivably be de-selected next time by their centralised party leadership’s autocratic regime.

Alternatively, they can simply parrot the party line and become a lobby-fodder robot who votes with their party, whatever the policy might be and whatever they might themselves privately think.

Irrespective of the left, right or centre bun-fight, an MP who is prepared to nail his or her colours to the mast of conscience, and to risk their future political career advancement as a result, is an MP who deserves our support – even if some of us completely disagree with him about the beneficence of mRNA vaccines! Being a conscience-centred MP makes Dr Opher eminently well-suited to represent this great independent-minded constituency in Westminster. We can only hope that voting for the person rather than the party is an idea whose time is coming.

Yours

Richard House

Stroud ‘