The visit to the UK by Aung San Suu Kyi this week has been an opportunity for us to pay tribute to her enormous courage and determination in leading peaceful opposition to the Burmese dictatorship.

The personal sacrifices she has made, spending most of the last quarter of a century under house arrest, have been enormous. I said in the House this week that her bravery and fortitude have been an inspiration to many and deserve the deepest admiration.

Because of the courage of Aung San Suu Kyi and others Burma is finally taking the first tentative steps on the road to democracy.

And it is our job to do all we can to help ensure democratic reform in Burma.

In Burma the signs are promising, but in Egypt there are worrying signs the military is reluctant to give up power, and in Syria the government’s actions in massacring their own people is completely unacceptable.

On Thursday, I asked if the leader of the House would give an undertaking that the foreign secretary will continue to keep the House aware of the efforts being made to ensure transition to democracy in all these regions.

Meanwhile, MPs have received a letter from the culture secretary this week announcing a U-turn on the planned communication bill green paper. It was to be published this summer. It was then delayed until the autumn and now we’re told it won’t be published at all.

Instead, we are promised a white paper next year.

The culture secretary told members in his letter this would incorporate the government’s response to the Leveson report. The position of the culture secretary and the government is getting beyond parody!

I asked if the government thinks it is remotely credible for Lord Justice Leveson’s report to be sent to the culture secretary to consider, given he has, to put it kindly, a strong personal interest in its conclusions.

On Wednesday the prime minister rushed to the TV studios to condemn the reported tax avoidance scheme used by Jimmy Carr.

Oddly he did not take the opportunity to condemn as ‘morally repugnant’ the alleged tax avoidance scheme used by Conservative supporter Gary Barlow who has given a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Take That.’

Why is the prime minister’s view of what is dodgy in the tax system so partial? Sir Philip Green has interesting tax arrangements but far from being labelled ‘morally repugnant’ in a Mexico TV studio, he got a government review to head up.

While the prime minister talks the talk in the TV studios the reality is that his government is cutting HMRC resources making it much harder to tackle tax avoidance schemes.

And in the botched budget his government gave every millionaire a legal way to reduce their tax bill by cutting tax for the richest one per cent.

At Business Questions I asked if leader of the House arrange for the part-time chancellor to make a statement to explain why the government is cutting taxes for millionaires when hard-pressed families are struggling to make ends meet.

Finally, another U-turn this week was the admission by the gaffe laden Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, that the government had recruited additional special advisers breaking the spirit of the Tory election manifesto commitment and the coalition agreement.

I told the leader of the House that the difficulties the government is experiencing isn’t because they have too few special advisers; it is because they stand up for the wrong people and make the wrong choices.

—————————————————————————————

Angela Eagle is MP for Wallasey, shadow leader of the Commons and writes the weekly Business of Parliament column for Progress