Er, after we’ve got Brexit done...

Congratulations to Peterborough’s new MP Paul Bristow. Incredibly his election victory was not the biggest nor best thing to hap- pen to him this week.

Because the day after he unseated Labour’s Lisa Forbes,he happily announced the birth of his sec- ond daughter.

So our new MP is probably elbow deep in nappies and no doubt dealing with a lot of early day motions!

Like all working partners he will have to balance his family and professional life and it will be pretty hectic as he gets to grips with life in Westminster and a new additon to his family.

In his first statement he outlined some of his priorites.

One of them was to crackdown hard on littering and fly-tipping.

I share with Mr Bristow an abhorrence for this antisocial behaviour but I’m not sure it would be so high on my priority list.

Still I hope with whatever he proposes to deal with this problem he is successful. I suspect part of the solution will be education.

Which rather neatly brings me on to (I’m good at this stuff!) another of his priorities – education and driving up standards in Peterborough schools.

On this I am – not least because I am also a father of two young children - in total agreement with him.

As the latest SAT results are published in this week’s paper the performance of Peterborough schools are appalling - and have been for many years.

We’ve had an ocean of platitudes, plans and excuses but nobody has cracked this problem.

The city council cabinet member for education Lynne Ayres is in the unenviable position of trying to crack this puzzle.

In July this year she wrote to the Education minister Dominic Hinds outlining her ‘very serious concerns’ about city schools and the ‘unique’ challenges they faced.

Mr Hinds resigned the next day... although to be fair I don’t think it was because of the predicament of Peterborough schools!

A few months later Mr Bristow invited the new minister Gavin Williamson to the city.

During the visit Mr Bristow told the PT: “Schools in Peterborough must get better. Too many people just shout about standards from the sidelines, including the Labour MP. I’m getting action.’’

I hope those words don’t come back to haunt him (although I’ll be the one putting a white sheet over my head if necessary).

Given the whopping Tory majority its likely that the next general election won’t be until May 2o24.

Mr Bristow’s new daughter will be starting school the next term after that.

I wonder if by then Mr Bristow will feel confident of the progress made by city schools to entrust his child’s education to one of them?