If you are a man reading this – read it and then give it to your mother, wife, partner or daughter to read. If you are a woman or girl – read it yourself. My message is simple: ethnic minority women are less likely to go for breast cancer screening than other women (and not enough other women do anyway!) – so please don’t risk your own life by not going for screening yourself.

I was lobbied at Parliament by the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer, who are trying to raise the awareness of women in those groups whose take up of screening is too low. There are two groups that in particular do not take advantage of the screening programs now available throughout the country – one as I say is women from ethnic minorities and the other is women over 70 of all ethnic groups. So I promised Breakthrough Breast Cancer that as an MP, I would take some action to try and alert women to the need for self-examination and screening.

Whatever the reason for the low take up – I hope that by writing this article I will be able to persuade more women to get screened. Whether it is modesty or shyness, lack of information or barriers in accessing health services that causes low take up rates, people should remember – the screening process saves lives.

Early detection is estimated to save 1,400 lives per year. One in nine women will develop breast cancer at some time in their lives and nearly 13,000 women die each year from this disease. Not only does early detection save lives but it can also prevent mastectomies – having to have a whole breast removed. Cancers in screened women tend to be smaller and therefore less likely to be treated by removal of the whole breast.

Breast Cancer Care carried out some research in 2004 – ‘an investigation into breast cancer related knowledge, beliefs and attitudes among women from minority ethnic groups living in London and Sheffield’. Asian and Arab women identified a number of barriers to accessing information about breast cancer. Many of the women appear to put themselves last – i.e. their priorities are their role in looking after children, the house and the cooking way ahead of their own health care. They identified, particularly amongst older women, a lack of literacy amongst the most disadvantaged – and this, combined with views that the materials were hard to read or understand, meant the information was just not getting through. Another barrier was that these women found it difficult to access primary care and almost none of them accessed information about breast cancer from newspapers or magazines.

So – that is why I began this column by asking whoever reads it to make sure that they or women they know understand how important it is to get themselves screened. There were some very good suggestions in the document about how more information could be disseminated. The Asian and Arab women in the study suggested that education outreach should be organised in places where they met – at places of worship or in their own community centres. They felt that the UK based Asian and Arab TV and radio stations could also play their part in getting the information out there. Of course, their local GPs need to play their part too.

And of course – word of mouth. Women talk – and they need to be talking about screening.

So – please don’t let lack of information, cultural modesty or putting everyone else ahead of yourself stop you getting screened. If you are the fulcrum of your family’s life and if it is on you that everyone depends to keep home and hearth – then there is an even greater imperative that you take the best possible care of yourself.

Here are a couple of quiz questions for any would-be lobbyist:

Question A: when are Parliamentary candidates most busy and least likely to deal with something that isn’t directly about winning votes? Answer – the few weeks before polling day.

And Question B: when do lobbyists put in the most effort sending information to Parliamentary candidates?

You guessed it – not too smart in my book!

Although many of the organisations and causes that lobbied me when I was a Parliamentary candidates in the run up to May (and since) are very worthy and ones I’d be willing to support, my heart frequently sinks at the quality of the lobbying done to me.

Becoming an MP was a bit of poacher turned gamekeeper for me. As part of my campaign to get elected, I lobbied all sorts of people to tackle issues in my constituency. Now I’m an MP of course I’m still nagging away day after day – but now many more organisations nag me too. Lots of people have always been in touch asking me to do one thing or help with the other, but post-polling day it’s the number of organisations suddenly interested in me that’s really notable in my inbox and postbag.

So much of it seems to have very little understanding of what it is like to be on the receiving end of the lobbying campaigns. Even worse, large amounts of money (often charitable or taxpayers’) gets spent on producing and posting glossy colour brochures which do very little other than let someone tick the job done box on a list somewhere.

What’s wrong with all this lobbying then?

First – bad timing. Candidates are at their busiest just before an election. New MPs struggle the most just after an election (it takes Parliament an age to allocate offices, new staff to be appointed etc.). These then are the two worst times to be approaching people – but perversely there are the very two times when the most effort seems to be put in!

Second – what’s the point of most of the mailings? They are mainly glossy colour brochures, chock full of information. Well, there’s no shortage of colour brochures in my life – what is needed to stop them being just a waste of time and money is for them to give me a compelling reason to read them. Being stuffed full of information the organisation thinks is interesting isn’t quite the same thing, alas. To me, a good mailing would be well thought out – how does it have a chance to survive in the deluge of mail and to get attention of the would-be reader?

Of course, for some organisations lobbying involves getting members of the public to get in touch with their MP or candidate. Sounds good so far – having your potential voters get in touch is always a good way of getting our attention! But again so many organisations blow it.

What not to do when lobbying an MP

So here’s my four-step guide to wrecking such a campaign:

1. Get your supporters to email candidates three days before polling day demanding that candidates reply within 24 hours. (That’s right – pick one of the busiest days for most candidates in the 4 or 5 year Parliamentary cycle for no good reason but demand immediate attention).

2. Get your supporters to contact Lib Dem MPs on an issue both the Lib Dems and Labour are publicly committed to – but only mention in the message Labour’s commitment. (Nice way of getting in my good books, hey?)

3. Get your supporters to email in on an issue on which many people have very eloquent and forceful views- but have all their messages word-for-word identical, yet also long. (How many times do you need to read the same long message?).

4. Realise that it’s a good idea to make the lobbying emails more effective by letting people personalise them – but stick the personalisation at the bottom of a long standard message where it is very easy to miss.

I regret to report – all these steps are based on real experiences in the last 12 months. Oh dear!

And what would really impress me? What would make lobbying an MP really effective? Here’s one thought: quoting my own words back at me. With my website, blog and thousands of leaflets, there are plenty of public words of mine to pick up on. And if you don’t have any leaflets, there are several libraries that keep good leaflet collections…

(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2006. This article first appeared in Public Affairs News.

I noticed something odd as I was going through Alexandra Palace Park the other day after one of my Friday surgeries.I suppose I hadn’t had chance to notice before with the new session of Parliament starting and trying to re-master the merry dance of trying to be in Westminster and Hornsey & Wood Green at the same time.But I was suddenly struck that in late October all the trees in the park had leaves on and they were all completely green.

I can’t claim to be dedicated studier of the seasons, but I had the terrible sense that what I was seeing wasn’t quite right and I was reminded of something I had seen in Al Gore’s stunning film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth‘.One thing he highlights in his barrage of evidence is the effect climate change is having on our seasons by making spring earlier and autumn later.And here before my eyes I was seeing this in action.

Gore makes the case in the most straight forward way possible why climate change is a fact and what the terrible consequences will be.

This is part of the reason that I voted for a massive overhaul of Lib Dem tax policy at our autumn conference that would see polluters being taxed more and personal income less.Given the timescale we have, hitting people in their pockets is the only way to really change their behaviour for the better.

In his film he draws an analogy of a frog in boiling water.If said frog jumped into a pan of boiling of water, it would jump straight out because it would feel the stark difference in temperatures.However, if this poor suffering frog was put into a pan of cold water and left there whilst the water was heated, it would more than likely boil to death because it wouldn’t notice the gradual change of temperature.

Thus, climate change is the slow boiling of water and we are the poor suffering frog.Our problem being that without as sudden jolt we will be resigned to the fate of our amphibian friend.As a child the autumn leaves would start falling when school went back and here we are, late October, with leaves still on the trees.So, is this jolt enough or are we just left thinking: is it me, or it is getting a bit hotter in here?

(Although Al Gore’s film isn’t available on DVD until late December, you can buy the book of the film and also the last Lib Dem TV film was about climate change too).

I had to pause for a moment recently and seriously wonder about the health of one Haringey’s former police chief superintendents after I received an email about locating Highgate’s Safer Neighbourhood team actually in Highgate.

A few years ago now, I campaigned with residents against the closure of the Highgate police station.Then as now, I believe that our community is better served by a police force that is as close as possible to the area it is protecting.Sadly as many residents will know, Highgate police station was lost in that round of estate reorganisation or whatever the excuse was used for closing the station.

As I have previously reported, we are fortunate that our latest Borough Commander has taken a very positive view on community policing and bringing the Safer Neighbourhood teams back to the local areas they serve.Nevertheless, for fear that all this positive talk maybe lost under a pile of good intentions I had taken it upon myself to actually go out with the local Safer Neighbourhood team.A hands-on approach from an MP is good reminder for the decision makers that there are a lot of people who care about this change and will be affected.

In preparation for my outing I asked local people on my email mailing list to suggest any premises they thought might be suitable in Highgate.I should have predicted what the response would be.There were lots of different responses, but one premises kept on popping up in people’s suggestions: the old Highgate Police station.

So imagine my surprise when I received an email from the police officer who has kindly agreed to go round Highgate with me dropping a little bombshell.

Guess where he’s suggesting we start our hunt?”One of the ideal locations for us to be based at would actually appear to be Highgate Police Station.”Proof that if you stand in the same position for long enough, it all comes round again.

Years ago in one of my meetings with the then Borough Commander, Steven James, where I resorted to pleading with him not to close Highgate police station, he told me in no uncertain terms that Highgate police station would re-open over his dead body.I wonder if I should drop him a line just to check if he’s OK?

I managed to attract Mr Speaker’s eye during Questions last week, coming in on a question from another MP on lost and stolen post.Having done a survey in Hornsey & Wood Green and received well over a thousand responses, it is clear to me that the Royal Mail has major problems dealing with the issues that people raise.

Whilst some respondents praised their local postman with affection – there were many more who complained of not only lost and stolen post – but late post, no post and wrongly delivered post.

I raised the result of my survey with the Minister (Alistair Darling) who said he would see that the Royal Mail addressed any specific issues that my constituents had raised and that 99% of the mail is delivered just fine and dandy. Gee thanks Alistair – but I have already passed all the individual complaints to the Royal Mail having already got their agreement that they would deal with them. And 99% still means a huge mountain of mail going wrong on a daily basis.

It’s not just dealing with the individual complaints – it’s systemic problems of lost, stolen, misdelivered and late post that are driving people mad. Maybe I will send him the 1,000 plus responses I got – and when this tip of the iceberg is plonked on his desk maybe he will stop quoting mantras and start taking action…

Interestingly enough, the Royal Mail refuses to publish local figures on delivery. You can have the national figures – but no local break down. Commercial confidentiality is their defence against publishing them – but it feels like protection against real scrutiny. If I could get the breakdown on mail delivery in Hornsey & Wood Green – I could nag more effectively!

I am in the process of setting up a local pressure group (MailWatch) to get real action locally on the problems. The idea is to work with local sorting offices directly where problems are occurring to resolve any issues. This way there will be a real chance of improving the local service. Dealing with Customer Relations centrally just doesn’t get down to the nitty gritty. I met with the Royal Mail and they have agreed to co-operate in this way. So if you are interested in being involved – just contact me.

Post was clearly the flavour of the week as we Lib Dems had an Opposition Day – which means we got to put a motion for debate in the House of Commons. And as the Government has refused to give the Post Office any debating time – we picked the Post Office network for our debate. The network of sub-post offices has been decimated over recent years – denuding both rural and urban areas of a central function and social fulcrum. Thousands of sub-post offices have given up the ghost as Government has removed function after function from their stock of services making them financially unviable. There are plenty of examples here in our own community.

What the Government seems completely deaf to are the consequences for little local shopping parades all over the country and for the vulnerable who can just about get to a post office. Stony ground during the debate. The Government is not interested in good arguments, logic or reason – only in steam-rollering through ‘modernisation’. Sadly the Government can always out vote us and they did.

That’s why the lobby this week of Parliament by sub-postmasters was so important – and they handed in at Downing Street the biggest petition ever presented – over four million signatures.

Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t about preserving some quaint but failing service that is economically unsustainable – this is about the challenge of true transformation to the sort of services that could and should be provided locally through such sub-post offices serving local people, cutting travel and bringing footfall to those small business that are so vital to our local shopping parades and rural villages.

I was listening to the Nick Ferrari radio phone in show (LBC) the day after Jack Straw’s controversial column on wearing of the veils became public. Numerous members of the Muslim community were phoning in to say that it was a religious requirement to wear such veils. There was an equally large number claiming it was not – but simply a cultural preference. It’s a classic dilemma for toleration and liberalism – what do you do when you think something is optional but someone else insists it is mandatory? My view – women should only wear the veil if they want to rather than if pressurised to.

Personally, however, I think there are more issues around women in the Muslim faith than whether they cover their faces or not. I find the covering of the face quite alien but that’s their choice, but have more difficulty with the different positions of relative power between Muslim men and Muslim women. However, I am equally shocked by that male/female power battle when it is displayed in any culture – including my own!

But I do think that Jack Straw’s line that people coming to his surgeries were happy to remove their veil when he asked them to is highly questionable. When someone comes to you as their Member of Parliament, they are in a vulnerable position and almost certainly will be nervous of refusing to comply with such a request and would remove the face veil for fear that non-compliance would unfavourably dispose the MP to helping them. Quite possibly Jack Straw put it sensitively and without pressure – but it is simply the act of coming to surgery in itself that puts both constituent and MP into a power hierarchy. Because someone meets his wishes in that environment doesn’t mean deep down they are comfortable with that.

All that having been said – we are clearly in some trouble. There does now appear to be a growing unease within the white community about where this is all going. I now hear it all the time in a way I have never experienced before. Most of these groupings are articulating that Jack has a point. They find the reaction to the publication of cartoons or the inappropriate statements of the Pope over the top – albeit acknowledging that such incidence do give offence. Such reactions challenge the very fundamental tenets of British society and some people are clearly feeling restless and put upon. This isn’t just an issue about Muslims – after all the questions about what clothing is appropriate to wear, what fits with our cultural norms and what is seen as separate or threatening apply just as much to the debate over the wearing of hoodies by youngsters of all races. But add in religion in the current climate and it makes the issues more pointed and the emotions more strained.

Well – we are all in this together. And together we need to bridge the schism that the terrorist atrocities of 9/11 and 7/7 have opened up. We need to disentangle the terrorists from mainstream Muslims in the British psyche – at the same time as breaking down the walls of separation between Muslim communities and others.

We are going to have to do some straight talking. I don’t know if this was Jack Straw’s clumsy attempt to begin to do so. But we do need to talk about any differences between us that are causing friction or fear. Covering the face, with a veil, hoodie, big sunglasses or a motor helmet all interfere with communication – that is just a statement of fact. Putting up a sign in a bank asking people to remove a veil before entering is, though, a very different matter from asking people to remove motorcycle helmets. So, is there anything we can do about alleviating those fears raised by some items of clothing- be it rational or irrational?

I think many of the fears are caused by the separateness of different communities. What seems threatening on a stranger seems quite different on someone you know – just as a hoodie on your child often seems quite different to a hoodie worn by complete strangers. This invidious argument about the veil is symbolic of some of a much deeper schism which appears currently to be ever-widening. The problem is how rarely people from some communities meet, mingle and befriend those from other communities. That to me is the real challenge – encouraging communities to engage as with the welcome moves in many Muslim communities in this country for more preaching and teaching in English and more outreach to the local community. That is about solving the problems, not just fretting over the symptoms.

The plan to start parking buses alongside the restaurants in Highgate Village is insane. The bus stands should never have been sited 30 years ago in the middle of the Village on the opposite side of the road from the restaurants anyway – but to propose parking them on the same (south) side as the restaurants … ! The one good thing about the proposals is that fighting them can also mean fighting to get the whole bus station moved to a more sensible location.

So – time to fight them on the beaches I think! Who? Transport for London (TfL). An alternative proposal to solve the issue from the Highgate Society proposes moving the bus stand to the bottom of North Hill. TfL hides behind the cost (£200,000) of extending the route of the 271 to the bottom of North Hill and then they add for good measure that lengthening the route might affect reliability. These are not insurmountable problems. Just for once, Transport for London, think about quality of life. Mayor Livingstone bleats on about the quality of life for Londoners endlessly – but he seems to care less when that quality is for an area like Highgate.

Of course Camden Council is also involved – and I am told that they themselves have so far responded in a very open way to alternative suggestions. Perhaps this is because they dealt with a similar issue with a proposed bus stand at South End Green.

Highgate Village has always been slightly blighted by the bus stand being plonked in the middle. It has also suffered hugely from being split between three local authorities, Haringey, Camden and Islington. Highgate’s issues often don’t neatly fit with the administrative boundaries, but cut across them instead.

We need to involve all local people (from both sides of the Highgate High Street), organisations and local businesses? Surely there isn’t a rush after 30 years for work to begin in November? Let’s use this as an opportunity to improve the ambiance of Highgate Village for visitors, residents and businesses?

The individual shops and restaurants which we all love and which make Highgate so Highgate have a hard enough time struggling against the challenges of chains, the changing parking environment and estate agents. Obscuring many of them behind parked buses is hardly going to help! More positively – moving the bus stands out of the village would improve what should be a central point of the village. Let’s use this opportunity for change to make the change for the better – for our community’s benefit.

With them all over the media at the moment, now seems a good time to ask: what’s the point of party conferences? In my experience, party conferences have a host of purposes – but I am not sure that the wider world actually sees them through anything other than a looking glass darkly, and that dark looking glass is either the media take or the party spin.

But they are much more than that. Political parties are made up of human beings – easy to forget sometimes given the usual adjectives and adverbs hurled at politicians and parties! – and conference is like the gathering of the clan. A chance to meet up with old friends, share ideas, be inspired and invigorated – and have a good gossip. It’s those personal touches that do so much to both keep people involved in politics and make them more effective in their involvement.

It’s where even the humblest member can corner the high and mighty and bend their ear on their concerns. And despite our cynical modern contempt for the political classes – there are many, many good people who care passionately about how we are governed, the political choices on offer and using the political and government systems to make our life and their communities better.

TV coverage tends to centre on the main hall, with the set-piece debates and speeches. Beyond that, though, is the "fringe" – hundreds of meeting where speakers speak and questioners question on a whole range of topics. You name it – there’s a fringe on it. The political stars of each party are on a permanent merry-go round to see and be seen and met and challenged by the audiences.

Conference is also the place where you can build your profile if you are an aspiring politician or seeking election to a key party committee or indeed even the Lords – as we Lib Dems (uniquely) elect a panel from whom the party’s new peers are chosen, unlike the other parties – where the leader just decrees.

Eating is a favourite pastime and fringes that offer refreshments are the most crowded as it is quite expensive to go to conference and free food and drink on offer from the host of a fringe often makes the difference for a poor but geeky student to be able to attend.

As the conferences become more professional, as they have, there is (certainly at the Liberal Democrat conference) a wealth of training opportunities. You can learn how to make a speech, become a candidate, agent, press officer, learn the IT for membership or how to keep cohesion in your council group, design a leaflet or learn the secret campaigning techniques behind the big wins – Hornsey & Wood Green for example!

There is the exhibition too, where on a collection of stalls, from the Post Office to British Nuclear Fuels, and the RNID and the RNIB, outside bodies come to persuade us to their cause and to inform.

And then of course – there’s the debates and keynote speeches in the main hall. Liberal Democrats still do have a genuine debate and any local party can put forward a motion for consideration by the Conference Committee to go on the agenda. Any individual can do the same if the motion is signed by 20 conference representatives. Then there are amendments and topical motions too. These, together with policy papers from the party, form the main meat of the debates – and these still are debates where the outcome is not fixed in advance. Many times I have sat in the hall and felt the audience (and myself) shift their views one way and another as the debate has progressed and different arguments deployed.

And lastly, of course, it’s the media. The level of coverage is huge during party conference week – and the media do try and dictate the agenda – as indeed do the parties. For example – this year the media decided the Lib Dem conference would be all about whether Ming could cut the mustard, whether we would abandon our 50p tax and whether Charlie would upstage Ming.

Sadly for them – we had a good week. Charlie gave his valedictory speech and we acknowledged the good years we had had with him. The tax policy went through – making tax fairer and greener but not raising the overall take – and Ming was good.

So we all go back to whence we came, politically rejuvenated and enthused and physically knackered. That’s conference!

It takes some leap of faith to believe that Haringey Council could deliver the ‘vision’ they have presented of a modernised and extended new Muswell Hill Library! Disabled access, fabulous facilities AND a restaurant!

But is it the right vision? Does Muswell Hill need another restaurant – and would the space be better used for something else? Or is the money from such use essential to get the best out of the rest of the space? Or should Haringey find extra funds from elsewhere (such as stopping any more over-spends on the notorious Tech Refresh IT fiasco!)?

I was expecting to have to make some difficult (and possibly unpopular!) decisions about exactly what combination would be best – and so to argue for. But Haringey has not provided the costings so we – the audience at a recent public meeting – were meant to take without question the assertion that the scheme couldn’t survive without the central ground floor part of the library being commercially leased out.

Since the dark days of ’98 when library borrowing was falling – due to Haringey Council’s ever decreasing opening hours and reducing numbers of books – a revival has been in train. However, the library itself is falling apart and this beautiful building needs a lot of money to not only restore its former glory but also to bring it, as a library, into the 21st century.

The most recent public meeting was reasonably receptive to the plans BUT there are some flies in the ointment that were raised which need swatting. First and foremost is the lack of rigour around the business plan that sees land sold-off for housing and the leasing of a central space in the library for a restaurant. Commercial confidentiality was the excuse for lack of figures – but there was no way that anyone could assess the merit or indeed, the viability, of the plan without some figures.

Do we need the restaurant? Could it be a space let for community functions or a coffee / reading shop? Did all the land need to be sold and if it is luxury housing – then surely the money would be more than was needed? And what other bits of land might the council be able to lease to those residents of Avenue Mews whose parking would be taken? Could some affordable housing be provided?

Local Muswell Hill residents (and their political representatives) need answers to these questions so that they can fully assess the benefits of what is being proposed and contribute to ideas around the usage of the central space. Haringey Council needs to trust local people more. Give us the real figures and facts – and then local people will want to contribute their ideas and views to make a judgement about what is actually needed to deliver a state of the art library – with or without a restaurant!