Can I just say that during a recent conversation with one of my contituents on the question of whether or not I would be wearing a poppy I told them this.....
"I am begged to wear an Aids Ribbon, a breast cancer ribbon, a Marie Curie flower... You name it, from the Red Cross to the RNIB, they send me stuff to wear to raise awareness, and I don't. And in those terms, and those terms alone, I do not and will not wear a poppy.
Additionally there is a rather unpleasant breed of poppy fascism out there - 'he damned well must wear a poppy!'. Well I do, in my private life, but I am not going to wear it or any other symbol whilst at Parliament.
I respect our armed forces, the sacrifice and the loss, and like others I remember them on Remembrance Sunday. That's the way it is. I won't be wearing a black tie for anyone's death - I don't for my own relatives, so why on earth would I for anyone else's?
When the Queen Mother died, our coverage was not of dark grief but of a happy life remembered.
In the end there really must be more important things in life than whether an MP wears symbols on his or her lapels".