Over the course of the last week, we've had the opportunity to sit down with both Alistair Burt and Stephen Doughty. After everything that's happened over the last eighteen months, I think it's only fair to share where my head is.
Both meetings were positive in their own way. They have been proactive in arranging time with us, approachable throughout, and willing to listen. That might sound like the bare minimum, but after a long period of feeling like we were pushing against closed doors, it has made a genuine difference to feel heard. Neither of them pretended to have easy answers, and I respect that. These are incredibly difficult cases, and I don't expect anyone to solve them overnight.
That said, listening is only the beginning. We've reached a point where doing more of the same simply isn't enough. If Mum and Craig are going to come home, someone has to be willing to challenge the accepted way of doing things. Whether that means trying fresh ideas, revisiting options that may have been ruled out months ago, or taking a different approach altogether, I genuinely believe it will require courage from those now leading these efforts. Not recklessness, but the willingness to ask whether the current path is really the one most likely to bring two innocent people home.
We're continuing to make that case in every meeting we have. We don't arrive with criticism for the sake of it; we arrive because every day matters. We know there are things that can't be shared publicly, and we understand the sensitivities involved. At the same time, it's impossible to ignore that conventional approaches have not yet brought Mum and Craig back. That's why we will keep pushing for fresh thinking, however uncomfortable that may sometimes be.
Our next priority is securing a meeting with the Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband. Work is already underway to make that happen, and I hope we'll be able to sit down with him soon. It feels like an important next step, not just to explain where the case stands, but to ask directly what more can be done and what different avenues are still available.
As always, I want to thank everyone who continues to stand alongside us. Whether you've signed the petition, written to your MP, donated, shared an update, or simply kept checking in, you're helping us keep this moving forward. There are still moments where this feels incredibly heavy, but knowing so many people continue to care gives us the determination to keep going. We're not giving up, and I know neither are you.