Members of Parliament chose to celebrate the New Year in a variety of different ways upon their return to Westminster last week. The Conservatives, in their much-vaunted “election launch”, issued a series of posters bearing the image of a slender looking Mr Cameron attempting to look like a serious statesman which, some uncharitable members of the media suggested, had been enhanced by a team of airbrushers. The spindoctors behind it could have done with airbrushing the message rather than the image, especially on the NHS, when it was the same David Cameron who wrote the last Conservative manifesto which would have made hospital patients pay for up to half the cost of their operations unless they were rich enough to go private!

It was turning into a good week for Labour with the Tory tax plans unravelling and a strong performance from Gordon Brown at Prime Minister’s Questions until two former, but little known, Government Ministers decided that a couple of months before a General Election was the best possible time to launch a leadership coup. The plot collapsed within minutes, with angry backbenchers - myself included - emailing the plotters telling them exactly what we thought of their actions. Not one single Cabinet Minister or mainstream Labour MP supported their botched initiative and by teatime the disgraced pair were running for cover. It beggars belief that in the middle of the heaviest snowfall in recent memory, when schools are closed and people are suffering in their homes and on the roads, that any politician should be engaging in such self-indulgent nonsense.

Meanwhile back in the real world, David Cameron’s Conservatives, began quietly rowing back from their commitment on tax breaks for married couples. Once again, the Tories show that they can’t be trusted on taking the economic decisions that will help families and small businesses weather this global economic crisis. Not only did they oppose the fiscal stimulus that kept the economy afloat during the worst of the recession last year, but they are now refusing to say what they cuts they will make once they are in office. In contrast, this Labour Government has cut VAT and income tax to help people and support the economy, given 150,000 businesses more time to pay their tax bills and put in place the measures that have helped 300,000 people stay in their homes.

Many people in Reading will remember the last economic recession when two thousand homes in our town were repossessed as mortgage rates hit 15 percent. This time we have a Government that is on the side of ordinary people not - as with the Tories in the early nineties - walking away from them.