No shops today. Up to Parliament instead for a number of things amongst which is the inaugural meeting of my International Development Advisory Group.

This is an erudite, professional group of people to whom I can put issues or ideas on and who will advise me (by internet mostly). I am putting together a Spokesperson’s Paper and I have managed to win my bid for a Spokesperson’s Speech at our Autumn conference. I already have put together a group in Parliament of my Lib Dem colleagues who are involved in international development – but that is more about Parliamentary business than developing cutting edge stuff to deal with the sort of challenges I’ve spoken about before.

Anyway – it was a jolly interesting discussion and fascinating to listen to the experts and their – let us say – range of views. A very good start!