Our Shadow Home Secretary is really unwell – to the point that he cannot leave his house in Winchester. So I go forth for the Liberal Democrats on the terrorism issue today. I start with an interview for BBC 24 followed by a ‘package’. (That is a pre-recorded interview that they will use later in news programmes about the terror proposals and the 90 day sticking point). Then I go and do the meeting with Home Secretary Charles Clarke. Love the new Home Office building. Lots and lots of media outside. Such are these moments.

Clarke runs through the amendments they will table (or his assistant does the detail more accurately). They are small beer. Welcome – but not the meat of the disagreement between the Government and the rest of us struggling with the need to balance protection of our citizens with our civil liberties. He doesn’t wish to revise the bit on ‘glorification’ or redefine ”terrorism’ – nor does he want to put the number of days on the table.

But what he does say is that the Government is likely to table an amendment tonight at close of business which will be somewhere between 28 and 90 days.

Spend the next few hours coping with media bid after media bid. Basically our position is that we will use Lib Dem votes in whatever way brings the number of days extension as near to the original 14 as possible. Clarke appears willing to pluck a number out of the air based on no criteria or logic or evidence that I could get out of him. Later I hear that T Blair is warning us all that 90 days is a must and if anything happens it will be our fault.

Sabre rattling is so easy when we are all so frightened of terrorist attack. That’s why we have to stand firm and keep cool heads to analyse what is best to deal with terrorists. I don’t believe that the police argument really holds up. There is existing legislation barely utilised – and in one case not even enacted – which would deal with some of the issues and allow police the extended time they crave.

Anyway – at 2.30pm, just to top it all, it is Home Office questions in Parliament and I have to man the front bench and actually have Question 6 on the Order Paper. This is about the DNA national database. I have discovered that there are 3.3 million samples of DNA on the database – and 32% of all black males in the UK are in it compared with only 8% of white males. I ask the minister to investigate what lies beneath these figures – and ask him if he agrees that there is concern that there is racial profiling going on. Not much of an answer in terms of my request – to be pursued.

Do a couple more interviews and then dash off for younger daughter’s reports night having made sure that another of the Home Affairs team can cover the media for the evening.