I love it when December starts. For me – that’s when my kids let me watch Miracle on 34th Street (which I do every year) and it starts to feel Christmassy. Then I panic – because Christmas when you don’t really have any free evenings or weekends – you cannot get your shopping done. I have put some half days or couple of hours in my diary between now and the 25th to get some shopping done but it is a real gamble as to whether it will all get done by what is an unmoveable deadline.

Anyway – today is pretty much a constituency day. First on the agenda is a visit to see a music concert at Stroud Green Primary School. Here the children are part of a project where all the kids in the class are learning an instrument. About 20 guitars first – followed by about 20 violins. I am amazed that the kids have learned so much and so well in just 8 weeks. A local secondary school has paid for this primary to hire the instruments – and it was soooooooooo lovely! And they were really good – amazing for 8 weeks only of the project.

The idea is to give the children some pride in something outside the academic; for them all to learn together; and to give them aspirations and confidence. I think it is a brilliant scheme – but sadly it is not funded by the Government and although they have had some help from a music charity the funding will run out in February – and they are desperate to find sponsors to raise more money so it can continue.

In fact part of the idea in me being there was so that the school might be able to get some publicity and attract funding or donations from local people who might read about it. The Head phoned the (Haringey) Council press office to ask them to publicise it – but was told that they wouldn’t because it was too ‘political’. This is an absolute disgrace. I don’t go as a Lib Dem MP. I go as the MP for Hornsey & Wood Green – non-political. I will find out from the Chief Exec what the policy is on this.

Second stop of the day is to bury a Time Capsule at Coldfall School. I imagined that we (the Mayor of the London Borough Haringey and myself) would dig a symbolic first shovelful of dirt in a corner of the playground. Banish such thoughts. In actuality we are taken with lots of children and other adults to a building site – unlocked for our entry – where the foundations for the new sports hall are being dug. And building site it was. And my shoes quickly become caked with sod – into which I sink with each step. Hitching up my trousers – I gamely march forth. The children (school captains) read out a letter to the future. The Mayor and I say a few words and then – a huge mechanical digger (lethal looking) roars into action VERY CLOSE (within a couple of metres) of where we are standing – and digs for posterity. The Mayor and I hold the metal case in which the artefacts of the children’s and school’s existence will carry forward the message to the future. We ceremonially lower it into the hole and the digger roars back into action to cover it over. It was all quite dramatic and thrilling – and pouring with rain!

A quick half hour with the staff, pupils and contractors – and then off to the next engagement.

And the next engagement is to speak at the local event for World AIDS Day at the Winkfield Resource Centre. Very happy to be involved in this. I think we have been burying our heads as to the rise of AIDS. When it first raised its ugly head in the 80s the public information campaign (whilst terrifying and probably responsible for the stigma surrounding this disease) certainly changed the sexual culture of the time. But despite the continuing rise in AIDS and HIV – we seem to not bother so much with safe sex. It’s as if the drugs which are indeed increasing longevity are making people believe it is under control – and continual pictures of the African continent with so many people over there suffering – also seems to contribute to us seemingly believing it is now an African problem just as we initially believed it belonged to the homosexual world. Wrong on both counts.

The users of the resource centre have made a beautiful wall collage expressing their experiences. A candle is lit and a beautiful woman sings a song – the words of which are a real cry of experience of what it is like to be stigmatised and the need to be loved and held. Very, very moving.

I gave my speech (short) and then spent an hour or so talking to the users and posing for pictures. Yes – ironically at this event the Council Press Office had sent a photographer. I wonder if that was because the Labour Executive member was there? Seems a stark contrast to their attitude to the school earlier today. Must find out.