Monday night was the live Sky TV hustings for the Lib Dem leadership contest. So I went up to Martin Horwood and David Howarth’s office to watch. I was somewhat surprised to see myself doing a sort of Big Brother walk on, sit down, speak to camera and off as one of three little pieces preceding the main event. I had simply forgotten that I had run into Sky the week before and done it – not realising it was for the live hustings.

Anyway – irrelevant! Chris Huhne did good. I have to say – he came over really well: determined, passionate, eloquent and convincing. And I really enjoyed seeing the other three already adopting the issues and ideas he had raised on the first hustings on green taxes, commitment to black and ethnic minority MPs, localism and so on. Imitation being the best form of flattery etc

Afterwards they went to a random grouping they had set up in a pub in Carshalton to see how the four candidates had gone down. The one I really liked was a floating voter who had thought that she would like Ming or Simon – but said that although she had not heard of him previously – Chris came over the best. Way to go!