With the release of the first register of MPs’ interests of the new parliament, Labour is under the spotlight for its union connections. More than half of the Starmy Army took donations from unions totalling £1.8 million since the general election was called. Unions aren’t the only parties interested in keeping wide-eyed Labour MPs sweet, though… 

Michelle Welsh, Labour’s new MP for Sherwood Forest, apart from claiming to work 145 hours per week (four times higher than a normal working week), took £10,000 from solar developer Elements Green to fund her election campaign. Would that have anything to do with the huge (and unpopular) solar farm it is building on her doorstep?

Elements Green are constructing a 7,000-acre solar farm around entire villages in the local vicinity all while getting busy sponsoring council-run events in the planning area. Make hay while the sun shines…

Michelle Welsh, who took Sherwood Forest off Tory frontbencher Mark Spencer, has got straight to work in her constituency. By opposing new houses…

The new Labour MP’s first ever meeting of her parliamentary career was with the local NIMBY group “Hucknall Against Whyburn Farm Development“, which opposes new homes being built in some fields. For some reason the campaign even has its own merchandise…

For all the excitable reporting that disciplined Labour is “waging a war against NIMBYs“, the frontbench will obviously have to get through swathes of their own MPs if it wants to force rapid development. Campaign in poetry, govern in prose…