Day 1 at Party Conference

I arrived at the 2008 Conservative Party Conference today in Birmingham.

George Osborne (Shadow Chancellor) held a session on ways to ease the pain of the economic downturn, Liam Fox (Shadow Secretary of State for Defence) spoke about the need to honour our Armed Forces, and David Cameron promised to use the week to show how we will take Britain forward.

This evening I went to a dinner hosted by Cancer Research UK. 285,000 people in the UK will be diagnosed with cancer this year. At least 2m people have been cured or are living with cancer but 1 in 4 people will die from the disease. Cancer continues to touch many people's lives.

We therefore need to:
a) provide access to world-class cancer services and treatment - 11 out of 12 European countries fund new cancer drugs and it would only cost £400m per year to get the UK up to the European average.
b) detect cancer earlier
c) prevent more cancers
d) tackle the unfairness of cancer inequalities
e) protect the UK's position at the forefront of international research

The priorities are to find ways to :
1. reduce smoking (1/4 of the population still smoke and 450 children start smoking every day)
2. diagnose cancer earlier so that people have a better chance of survival

We also need to address the issue of the postcode lottery.

Cancer will affect us or someone we care about one day... so it is incredibly important to continue making improvements in screening and available treatments.

Raising money for cancer

Cllrs Barbara Reid, Lin Davies, Paul Lynch and I attended a great event last week in memory of Premila Bhanderi. She was a former Hounslow councillor, who lost her battle with multiple myloma three years ago.

Her two daughters, Aarti and Jyoti, organised the Summer Sensation charity event at the Indian Gymkana Club in Thornbury Avenue in Osterley.

It was a fabulous evening, raising lots of money and enjoyed by everyone. Premila's daughters are great role models for what can be done in the local community - bringing people together to make a difference. She would be really proud of them!

Photo: Aarti Bhanderi, Mary, Jyoti Bhanderi, Cllr Barbara Reid and Cllr Lin Davies