For what it's worth

Despite the unexplained and irritating objection of a single arrogant, unnamed Tory to the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill, the Jubilee Debt Campaign is leading an urgent campaign to get the Government to readopt the Bill and push it through Parliament before the imminent end of the session. The Bill will regulate the activities of so-called Vulture Funds, hedge funds which prey on heavily-indebted poor countries and make their financial problems worse, as Liberia found out to its cost last year. As the Treasury is formally in charge of sponsoring Bills going through the Commons, and Liam Byrne is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he's the chap to get to. I emailed him. If you fancy doing likewise, either visit them or copy and paste this text what I wrote and send it to him at byrnel@parliament.uk.

Dear Mr Byrne,

I am writing to lend my support to the urgent call to the Treasury to take up the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill as a Government Bill. The way in which the passage of the Bill was blocked last week during the third reading was a shameless abuse of Parliamentary convention by the MP concerned, and it would be a great credit to the Government if it were to give this Bill time to pass into the statute book before the end of the session.

I hope that you will take the opportunity to set this matter right and demonstrate that petty political games are not to be allowed to interfere with this country's commitment to global justice.

Yours sincerely

(Get the address right - JDC spell "Byrne" wrong in their text. Nitpick, nitpick.)

I don't blog often, but I like to think it's worth it when I do.