Went to Cranley Dene for an ‘estate visit’. Cranley Dene is a sheltered housing development in my own ward of Muswell Hill. I go into the ‘lounge’ where a group of elderly residents are gathered to meet the estates manager and myself.

I love these visits. And was really happy that the new warden and the new estates manager both seem excellent. The previous ones were both pretty useless and seemed to do very little. When you go and meet people like this, it really brings it home to you how dependent older people are on the staff who are charged with their well-being.

There were a number of issues around security – none of the window catches work properly at ground floor level – and some of them are truly terrified as lots of strangers wander in off the street to the little garden at the back and they have had a number of intruders. One very elderly lady was clearly petrified and couldn’t sleep.

So the key things to make sure happen are to get new window catches, evict a squatter from one of the flats and see if we can get CCTV to cover the back area.

One of the residents told me he had been rung by the Tories (there is a by-election on in Muswell Hill at the moment) and asked if they could rely on his vote. He said that he told them where to go – given he hadn’t heard from them since the last election and that the LibDems were around all the time.

Older people are just older – nothing wrong with those marbles I can tell you!