I am hosting our local Lib Dem monthly political debate at my house this evening. It’s called Pizza and Politics and basically we choose a subject, invite a speaker, order in pizza, add some wine and have a good old political ding-dong on the subject in question.

So much of local political activity is about raising funds, delivering leaflets and so on that you could find you never got to actually talk politics – so this provides an occasion for our members to remember why they joined in the first place.

Sadly – the speaker failed to turn up! So sitting in my living room with a disparate (and probably desperate) group of random individuals, I brightly suggest that we just have a debate amongst ourselves.

In the way of these things, it was somewhat uncomfortable at the start but ended up one of the best debates we have had. It was about ethnic minority issues and in our debates there are no holds barred.

It is an interesting time locally for the Liberal Democrats in Haringey. The make-up of our members, activists and voters has become much more ethnically diverse in the last few years. And nationally, ethnic communities are moving away from their traditional loyalty to the Labour party and are looking towards us for a new home.

It isn’t just the war. It’s a lot of things. And on the other side of the coin – the most important prerequisite for joining the Lib Dems is to share the values and beliefs of the Lib Dems – equality, community, fairness and justice.