Hi all. Last year when my mother fell ill with cancer I paused making posts on this site to concentrate on looking after her and cracking on with the day to day work as a councillor.

Sadly my mother passed away in February after a long fight with lymphoma. The help she received from carers, hospitals and at the hospice was incredible and reminded me just how important our health services are, just one of the reasons i campaigned so hard on saving our NHS during the General Election.

I am restarting my blog and also have a facebook page set up now during the General Election: Mark Wilkes for City of Durham