That’s the glowing verdict of the Birmingham Post’s Jonathan Walker on the city’s Yardley Lib Dem MP, John Hemming:

Let’s give credit where it’s due and celebrate one of the mavericks of the House of Commons. He’s a little eccentric and if he’s blessed with a brain the size of a planet he might just have an ego to match. But he’s frequently championed unfashionable causes – and eventually been proved right.

The trigger for this bout of praise was his role as chairman of a campaign group called Parents Want a Say, founded to fight against new restrictions on term-time absence introduced in September 2013 – which are now being revised so that it is easier for parents to get permission to take children out of school during term time.

The battle is far from won … [b]ut it’s a start. It shows that the issue is on the Government’s radar. And it’s a cause he’s backed more or less on his own at Westminster. There aren’t many MPs willing to stand up and say that parents should have the right to fly their children off for a fortnight in Malaga during term time. But this isn’t the first time Mr Hemming has taken a stance that goes against the grain, and either won the argument or at least got people to take him seriously.

Perhaps the best example dates back to before he became an MP. As a councillor, Mr Hemming warned that massive election fraud was taking place in Birmingham. It was hard to believe. Election-rigging happened in other countries – not here in the UK, surely? West Midlands Police were so unimpressed that they named the inquiry into his complaints “Operation Gripe”. But it turned out that he was right. …

Mr Hemming has also been a critic of the family law courts, claiming that decisions were being made about child welfare – often taking children away from parents – in secret, with parents denied proper representation, and without the welfare of the child properly taken into account. In 2008 he came under fire from Justice Nicholas Wall, who claimed he was “willing to scatter unfounded allegations of professional impropriety and malpractice without any evidence to support them.” And yet, in 2009 the Labour government announced family courts across England and Wales were being opened up to journalists as part of a government bid to boost public confidence in the system. And in January this year, rules were changed so that judgments in the family courts and the Court of Protection must always be publicised unless there are “compelling reasons” not to.

Mr Walker’s paean to John Hemming concludes:

As Mr Hemming says: “When I started off on voting fraud, they said it wasn’t true. With the family courts, they said ‘he’s completely nuts’. But all I did was listen to people.”

I’m sure not everyone will like me saying this – not least the Labour candidate hoping to win Mr Hemming’s seat at the next election (which she may well do). But it’s good to have an MP who isn’t afraid to look a little nutty on occasion.