{"id":166092,"date":"2024-11-01T11:30:04","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T11:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/01\/alex-burghart-shadow-secretary-says-he-hasnt-visited-ni-due-to-lack-of-funds\/"},"modified":"2024-11-01T11:30:04","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T11:30:04","slug":"alex-burghart-shadow-secretary-says-he-hasnt-visited-ni-due-to-lack-of-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/01\/alex-burghart-shadow-secretary-says-he-hasnt-visited-ni-due-to-lack-of-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Burghart: Shadow secretary says he hasn&#8217;t visited NI due to lack of funds"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/9d75\/live\/a9c93c70-982e-11ef-b6b0-f17636916de7.jpg?resize=1024,576&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Alex Burghart: Shadow secretary says he hasn&#8217;t visited NI due to lack of funds\" title=\"Alex Burghart: Shadow secretary says he hasn&#8217;t visited NI due to lack of funds\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Conservative MP Alex Burghart has defended not visiting Northern Ireland during his time as shadow secretary of state.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Burghart has claimed &#8220;getting the funding for trips&#8221; has &#8220;not been as easy&#8221; as he would have liked.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">He has served in the role since July, following the general election.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">His party, he said, has been &#8220;in flux&#8221; and it has been &#8220;very annoying&#8221; that he has not been able to visit.<!-- --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;I very, very much wanted to come and if I had the money to do so I absolutely would have done so,&#8221; he told <!-- --><a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b007cps5\" class=\"sc-c9299ecf-0 bZUiKB\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC&#8217;s Good Morning Ulster programme.<!-- --><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The shadow secretary of state said he has visited Northern Ireland &#8220;many times&#8221; in previous government roles and has &#8220;spoken to a great deal of people in Westminster and on the phone&#8221; in his current position.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;I am very much engaged in this job,&#8221; he insisted.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;I hope one of the reasons I was appointed to the role is that I am very familiar with Northern Ireland, have a great fondness for it,&#8221; he added.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Burghart&#8217;s comments come one day after <!-- --><a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cx2dqzqx2y1o\" class=\"sc-c9299ecf-0 bZUiKB\" rel=\"noopener\">voting ended in the contest to replace Rishi Sunak<!-- --><\/a> as Conservative leader.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The winner will be announced on Saturday morning, almost four months after the Tories&#8217; crushing general election defeat which triggered Sunak&#8217;s resignation.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Party members have been choosing between former Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch and ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick, after four other candidates were eliminated in a series of votes by the party&#8217;s MPs.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Burghart has endorsed Badenoch for the leadership.<!-- --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/clyd8j7ejwqo\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conservative MP Alex Burghart has defended not visiting Northern Ireland during his time as shadow secretary of state. Burghart has claimed &#8220;getting the funding for trips&#8221; has &#8220;not been as easy&#8221; as he would have liked. He has served in the role since July, following the general election. His party, he said, has been &#8220;in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/9d75\/live\/a9c93c70-982e-11ef-b6b0-f17636916de7.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[21999,115169,1261,3736,30027,6061,34,5098,14563],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166094,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166092\/revisions\/166094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}