Following his appearance on LBC last week, Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Bob Seely, was back on radio station over the weekend.
Appearing on Camilla Tominey’s show, Bob was fielding questions from listeners. One question came from town councillor for East Cowes, Cameron Palin. Camilla read out his question,
“What is Bob doing personally to support those fleeing Ukraine and those in Ukraine. As he’ll know, his residents on the Isle of Wight, including local councillors, are manning donation centres, packing and getting aid shipped to places like Moldova and Poland where there are refugees, as well as those in need in Ukraine. Will Bob thank the amazing work of MAD-Aid, an Isle of Wight charity that’s sending arctic truck-loads of aid from the Isle of Wight.”
Will you take in a refugee?
Camilla asked Bob,
“In the first instance would you take in a refugee? Obviously we’ve heard about this £350 a month scheme (more here).”
Bob replied,
“I mean it’s funny, I had been thinking about that and you know, I think there’s an argument to suggest that I should actually, it’s not impossible that I will.
“They’re going to have to be down here (IW) because I live with some friends of friends in London, so I don’t have the option in London to take anyone, but I’m actually, no, absolutely considering it because I’ve probably got some of those people who are refugees may be mates or former mates or friends of friends and it’s something I worry about.”
What about second home owners?
Camilla went on to ask,
“I was also going to ask you, look, there are probably quite a lot of second home owners who have got second homes on the Isle of Wight, should they be giving up their properties to refugees do you think?”
Bob replied,
“Look, it’s an individual choice but, I do think … people trying to … look, I think we’ve all got to play our part and try to do what we can, so for sure.”
Bob didn’t get around to thanking MAD-Aid and the volunteers, as he went on to talk about the risk of war fatigue and how frightening it was being in Sarajevo during the siege in 1996.
He went on to say,
“I’m donating cash because I think that’s an important thing to do, I’m very pleasantly surprised by vast sums of money that have been raised, I hope we don’t get war fatigue because that normally will kick in and I suspect we will begin to be inured as we did in Syria.
“Look, so many of the horrible things that we see, that are worrying about that will happen in Kyiv, sadly happened in places like Aleppo, and you know, we didn’t really focus on that as we should and when it came to the barrel bombs and the chemical weapons all those things were being used in Syria, you know, and I remember siege of Sarajevo, I spent a couple of nights, well a week in Sarajevo during the siege and that was absolutely frightening.”
Image: xtian30900 under CC BY 2.0
