Welcome to the inaugural post of Bookbenchers where we ask backbench MPs what they read when they’re not white paper-pushing.
Kicking things off is Steve Baker, former engineer officer in the RAF and currently MP for Wycombe – when he isn’t helping run the educational charity The Cobden Centre, or skydiving.
On Saturday in @AllSaintsHW, we gave thanks for the life and work of the late Bishop of Buckingham, Dr Alan Wilson.
The tributes were a fitting and poignant reminder of a good life, well-lived. This passage was a good illustration of his character and wisdom.
#Wycombe
1 day ago
💡Fresh and clean new website: www.stevebaker.info. What do you think? Comments here please. Thanks! 🙏
3 days ago
💡Why not pop in to @wycombemuseum to learn about Civil War leader John Hampden, “A Wycombe Man with a Global Impact” (1595-1643)?
#Wycombe
7 days ago
🛍️Very pleased to meet today with @hellomywycombe Chair Mark, Chief Exec Melanie and board member Cllr Tony Green to agree how we can best promote the flourishing of our town centre
👀More to follow!
7 days ago
🇬🇧A terrific trip to #NorthernIreland - many thanks to everyone we visited and met: your optimism, energy and application were inspirational!
💪Now looking forward to the week #Working4Wycombe
#Wycombe
1 week ago
✝️He is risen! May the peace of the Lord be with you now and always.
🤗#HappyEaster
2 weeks ago
✝️“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
😳“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
😔“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
🔗Isaiah 53:4-6 NIV https://bible.com/bible/111/isa.53.4-6.NIV
#Easter
3 weeks ago
🛍️Today, I asked shopkeepers on Desborough Road for their opinions and thanked them for serving our community.
🔗Find out more about the Future High Streets Fund here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/future-high-streets-fund
❤️#Wycombe
3 weeks ago
Steve,
Some excellent choices.
I am a godless heathen, but CS Lewis’s Cosmic Trilogy are extremely fine (I firmly believe that That Hideous Strength is the best book title ever!*).
I am also pleased to see that you intend to tackle Green’s Working Class Patients and the Medical Establishment. As you may know, it is a book that has informed many of my thoughts on how a freer society, based on mutualism, might also practically deliver cheap, efficient critical “public” services.
I shall put some of the others down on a list, for when I finally get around to reading some political and economic philosophy…!
Regards,
DK
* It is used in a fine Waterboys song entitled Savage Earth Heart (also a good title):
“Then I was taken smoothly by the vulture of the soul /
the hideous strength that numbs the tongue /
Oh and he led me, poor shivering cinder through the fields of hell /
to doubt my friends and to hate myself…”