A week is a long time in Asperger Syndrome...

A WEEK IS A LONG TIME IN ASPERGER SYNDROME …

…That’s if Angela Browning had something to do with it.

Above: Angela Browning MP, who has a son with Asperger Syndrome.

Click here for Ms Browning's Asperger Syndrome debate being raised at Westminster Hall.

OK, I am now going to talk about something that is really boring but quite controversial. No, I am not going to talk about trainspotting and which train goes to Milton Keynes through Wellingborough or who the Archbishop of Canterbury was when Queen Victoria died, but I am sure that someone will tell me. I am talking about the very British world of politics. Those 650 odd MPs sitting on those green benches in Westminster, which have the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour party elected from the last General Election. The Green Party are also probably there, but camouflaged between the seats.

Labour have proved that they have do have a right-wing side to their party after all. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott getting anti social when an egg happened to come into his direction while visiting Wales as part on a General Election campaign and also Jack Straw when he was Home Secretary causing residents who only live a couple of miles from where I live to also be anti social when he decided to house nearby paedophiles in Nottingham as seen on BBC 1’s Inside Story. People say that the Conservatives are both left and right-winged, but all parties have left and right-winged politicians, it’s a fact of life. Is it any wonder that I refuse to watch East Midlands news on the television? I prefer to watch Calendar or Look North now that I have digital television; at least Yorkshire is a better area and out of my way.

Where I live in Nottingham, my local Member of Parliament, John Heppell is a Labour backbencher. He’ll never get a job in Tony Blair’s cabinet, as there are over 400 of them that have been elected at the last General Election and can there only be room for a fraction of that amount. He’s even listed in Who’s Who, but I cannot think in a million years what he has done to be listed in that book. The majority who live in my area are strong Labour supporters, which include blood relations – and they read the Guardian to prove it, a Labour supporting newspaper of course. But from my point of view, as a citizen with Asperger Syndrome, should I support the red rose party like the majority of people where I live, or should I hold the blue torch and join Iain Duncan Smith and company? After all, blue is my favourite colour.

The Conservatives had been in power from when I was eight months old right until I was 18 years old. Margaret Thatcher and John Major had 18 years of premiership between them, so no wonder that I got used to what they were doing to the country. Even the Conservatives were represented during the Thatcher era where I live, when Nottingham East’s own Michael Knowles was Member of Parliament from 1983 to 1992 when Mr Heppell took over. Yes, the Conservatives may have been famous for putting your taxes up, sleaze, grey haired men with glasses and getting the taxman at Inland Revenue rubbing his hands together with glee when he realises how much tax he has collected thanks to the government, but there was a lot more to it than that. Let’s look at autism and politics; you hardly ever hear the two in the same sentence. How many labour politicians have relatives that are autistic or even Asperger Syndrome? Not many who are really well known, although they may have protected it from the public eye. But let’s turn to the Conservative party, the party famous for sleaze and wrongdoing and the odd increase on a pint of beer at their budgets when Kenneth Clarke was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Who do we see on the backbenches of the House of Commons but the right honourable member for Tiverton and Honiton, Angela Browning MP?

Ms Browning maybe a Conservative Member of Parliament, but you could say that she knows quite a bit about Asperger Syndrome, even if she didn’t know about the party she represents. Angela Browning has a son with Asperger Syndrome, so I suppose if I ever said to anyone that I voted Conservative I would probably have a good reason why, much the annoyance to local Labour supporters. Ms Browning’s son’s disability meant that she had to cut down on her workload in 1998 and move to the backbenches. Caring for someone with Asperger Syndrome is more important than politics, so Ms Browning seemed to do the right decision in a 1998 cabinet reshuffle. Coincidently she was Education and Disability spokeswoman before going to the backbenches. She did also spend some time in 1999 as shadow trade secretary. If there is a Labour politician who has family members with Asperger Syndrome, I would like to know about it. I am sure that they have an answer to that.

So why am I talking about a Conservative Member of Parliament who is based at the other end of the country from where I am, apart from the fact that she has a son with Asperger Syndrome? Well, in the November 2001 edition of Disability Now following the Conservative Party Conference at Blackpool (they do pick the good British holiday destinations, don’t they?) On the page marked Party Conferences and the page, marked Conservative (oh the shame of it – perhaps not). An article reveals that Angela Browning is to fight the rights of autistic people now that she has returned to the backbenches. At this point she was Shadow Leader of the Commons until Iain Duncan Smith was voted in as leader in September. (I didn’t want Kenneth Clarke to get the job as his constituency borders the one that I live in, so it was good news for myself). Anyway, Ms Browning was reported as saying that she was angry that the government’s white paper on learning disabilities, Valuing People excluded many autistic people because their IQ’s were too high, although the chances are that these people had Asperger Syndrome like myself where average or above average intelligence isn’t unusual.

This was the best bit though: Ms Browning told Disability Now that she had requested a first ever Commons debate on Asperger Syndrome and wanted guidelines to ensure such people are not discriminated against or ignored and a commitment to a well resourced advocacy service for autistic adults. Ms Browning had been speaking at a Mencap fringe meeting that was held to mark a report for the charity, which was recommending tightening the law on various offences against people with learning disabilities.

What I can’t understand that why hasn’t there been many Labour Members of Parliament that have brought up the subject of Asperger Syndrome like Ms Browning has? If they have, I haven’t heard much about it. People always tell me that Labour is more to the left than the Conservatives, so why isn’t this left-wing subject brought up more often? It seems that the Conservatives are more aware of Asperger Syndrome than Labour are. Labour should get more Asperger aware otherwise I will know where my vote will go to at the next election. Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said that a week was a long time in politics, but to someone who has to look after someone who has Asperger Syndrome, a week is even longer.

Want to know about what happened around my neck of the woods with the 2001 General Election? Look here and prepare to be dazzled.