Currently, 131 MPs support our work in Parliament
and gives information about the MPs, their name and constituency and in all cases but two, a photo. The figure of 131 MP's is false, grossly inflated, and has been false and grossly inflated for many years.
The MP's on the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East Website's current membership list include Michael Meacher, constituency, Oldham West and Royton. But Michael Meacher isn't currently an MP or a supporter of LFPME. He died in 2015! (His entry is one of the two without a photo. The other is Diane Abbott.)
Other people falsely claimed by Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East to be currently MP's and supporting the organization (they may support the aims and objectives of the organization but they aren't MP's):
Sadiq Khan (Tooting.) Left parliament in 2016 to become Mayor of London
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool Walton). Left Parliament in 2017 to become Metro Mayor of Liverpool City Region.
Andy Burnham (Leigh.) Left Parliament in 2017 to become Mayor of Manchester.
These six people on the LFPME membership list also left Parliament in 2017. Again, the claim that they are current parliamentary supporters is false.
David Winnick (Walsall North).
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough).
Gisela Stuart
(Birmingham Edgbaston).
Ian Wright (Hartlepool).
Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge).
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South
West).
It wouldn't be surprising if the actual MP's for these constituencies feel aggrieved when they find that other people, people who left parliament years ago, are claimed to do the job that they do. If Lisa Nandy likes to imagine that she's destined for high office, such as the office of Leader of the Opposition, then she'll have to improve - or perhaps that isn't a necessity in the current Labour Party. After all, the standard reached by Jeremy Corbyn is pitifully low.
I saved the LFPME membership list, complete with blunders, on 10 September, 2019. The membership list on the LFPME, complete with blunders, is the same now, at the time of updating this section (5 January 2019). It hasn't been updated to reflect the many changes of MP which took place with the election of 2019. The Wikipedia list of members was updated after the election - the amateur writer or writers of the Wikipedia page on LFPME showed professional standards whilst Lisa Nandy has shown not the least interest in doing something about the chaotic Website of the chaotic organization of which she's chair. Now, the claimed numbers are out of line with the reality even more. The Website claims 131 MP's as members. The actual number is far fewer: 93. This is falsifying the figures, inflating the membership figures - or would be if complete cluelessness wasn't the reason for the wildly inflated membership number claimed.
This is just a puzzle, but difficult to solve. You can have a go at solving it if you like. Just read the next paragraph but no further. Otherwise, read the next paragraph and read on, to find the solution.
Take a look at the page https://www.lfpme.org/supporters and ask yourself: is there an organizing principle here, or is the list of (alleged) supporters without an organizing principle, in random order? How would you find out if a particular MP is a member of LFPME or not? Is there an organizing principle which would help you or do you have to plough through the pages - 7 in all - until you come to the name of the MP (if the MP is a member)? If the MP isn't a member, do you have to plough through the list of names right to the last name on the list? Obviously, if you want to find a particular name on a list of 10,000 names or more, then a random list is unusable.
The solution to the puzzle:
Anyone consulting the list of MP's to find out if a particular MP is a member or not will find that the list uses a remarkable organizing principle. It isn't in random order at all - the first impression. These are the first few names on the list: Afzal Khan (Manchester Gorton), Alan Whitehead (Southampton Test), Albert Owen (Ynys Mon), Alex Cunnigham (Stockton North) ...
This isn't in alphabetical order of surname or alphabetical order of constituency but it is in alphabetical order of first name! So, the last few names on the list, on Page 7, are Virendra Sharma (Ealing Southall), Wes Streeting (Ilford North) and Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East).
If ever a Labour MP called, let's say, Zebedee Aardvark joins LFPME he won't be in first place on the first page but in last position on the last page, and anyone trying to find out if Zebedee Aardvark is or isn't a member will need to plough through all seven pages before finding out - or, more likely, will look at the first page, find that 'Aardvark, Zebedee' isn't listed in first position, and conclude, mistakenly, that he isn't a member. If Zebedee Aardvark leaves this chaotically organized organization the inquirer may well find that he's still listed as a member years after he left.
The Wikipedia list of members of LFPME uses useful ordering, by alphabetical order of last name. So, Diane Abbott (constituency Hackney North) is listed first and Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) is listed last.
I've saved the complete membership list on these pages of the LFPME Website as evidence. Eventually, the organization will find out that they've blundered and will make the necessary changes - too late.
The problems posed by Palestine and the wider world of the Middle East are massive and intractable, many of them. They can't be solved by the methods advocated by Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East - the suggestions of the well-meaning MP's and the demands of the hard core. This page gives a comprehensive account, with arguments and evidence which show, I'd claim that the well-meaning MP's as well as the hard core MP's are deluded in their views of Israel and the Palestinians.