I couldn’t help being amused this week at the contortions that David Cameron and his spin doctors are going through to try and “de-posh” the Tory Party. Apparently Conservative candidates in Tory target seats have been told by “Dave” himself to shorten any double barrelled or posh sounding names to make them seem like ordinary folk. I see that Simon Radford-Kirby (Brighton Kemptown) now has dropped the Radford from his name and Scott Seaman-Digby, the Tories’ Commercial Director, now likes to be called Scott Digby in deference to his leader’s wishes.

Reading West MP Martin Salter was today re-elected as chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Gurkha Rights. The Group was set up last year in response to the refusal of the Government to allow Gurkha soldiers who had retired prior to 1997 the same rights of settlement in Britain afforded to other foreign nationals who had served in the British Army.

Reading West MP Martin Salter, who spent the summer serving as a Member of the House of Commons Reform Select Committee has today called upon the Government to bring forward an early response indicating support for all the Committee’s proposals including - direct elections of Select Committee chairs, the ability for the public to trigger debates on matters of importance on the floor of the Commons and the need for backbench MPs to wrest control of the Parliamentary agenda away from Government and Opposition whips.

The campaign to establish a permanent memorial to Reading’s only Victoria Cross holder, Trooper Potts of the Berkshire Yeomanry, took another step forward today when Reading West MP Martin Salter wrote directly to the Prime Minister asking for a message of support in order to boost the endeavours of the new Memorial Committee which is due to hold its first meeting on 4th December.

Labour’s spokesman for Angling Martin Salter used a speech in Westminster at an event by the Marine Conservation Society urge UK anglers to become involved in the designation of the new Marine Conservation Zones.

I couldn’t help laughing at the pathetic whinging in last week’s Chronicle from the Reading Tories because none of their number managed to get themselves on the BBC’s Question Time audience when it was held in Reading. Luckily the Wokingham Conservatives were not quite so inept and managed to submit questions and apply for tickets in the normal way. Likewise local Labour party members, councillors and candidates here in Reading put their names forward and several were selected as part of the balanced audience that the BBC always seeks to assemble.

Reading West MP Martin Salter gave a strong welcome today to a range of measures outlined in the Queen’s Speech which sets out the Government’s last legislative programme before next spring’s General Election.

Reading West MP Martin Salter is to plant a “runway tree” to mark the twinning of the town with Sipson, the village earmarked for destruction if the proposed third runway at Heathrow airport goes ahead.

A pilot project developed by the eleven schools in the Whitley Excellence Cluster (WEC) together with the Ufton Court Educational Trust and local MP Martin Salter was presented to Schools Minister Vernon Coaker last week at a special meeting held in the Department for Children, Schools, and Families.

I’ve seen Parliament at its best and at its worst in recent weeks.