Tag Archives: mark oaten

Who is Gordon Brown?

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Have a meeting at the pub (my constituency office is in the rooms upstairs of the Three Compasses pub). Sometimes I hold small one-to-one meetings downstairs in the pub itself – particularly in the morning when it is quiet before the lunchtime rush. The atmosphere is fabulously relaxing and I buy coffee or whatever and we sit on comfy sofas or chairs – and you get a lot more out of people in that way.

This meeting was particularly useful as the previous Monday, Mark Oaten (who is LibDem Shadow Home Secretary) had added prisons to my brief and I was about to visit Holloway Prison this coming Wednesday. So Lucy Russell, Director of Smart Justice, had come to lobby me about women prisoner’ issues – which was very fortuitous.

What struck me was how desperately disproportionate the consequences of prison often are for women and their family. To elucidate – punishment has an important role to play in society not just to keep the public safe but to be the price paid for unlawful behaviour. However, the majority of women serve less than six months. Going to prison more often than not means children in care or at the very least disturbed from their home; quite often loss of home and so on. So when you look at the total impact of the sentence, it’s much more than just the sentence itself. That needs to be remembered and dealt with.

Muswell Hill and Highgate Area Assembly in the evening. Not particularly well-attended and I swear I know virtually everyone there. The problem remains how to get ‘real’ people in greater numbers – at times other than when there is a CPZ proposal on the agenda when there is no shortage of attendees.

Tonight it would have been very useful if the council had made more effort to publicize the meeting as it was the opportunity for local residents to choose projects to fund from the local assembly’s budget. All the nominations were up on the wall and each resident in attendance got six green dot stickers to stick up. But lots of really great small projects nominated by various locals – and not really enough of the local residents there to indicate their preferences from which the local councillors then decide.

The main topics however were the future of Park Road Pool and trees. Good news-ish on the pool – it does have a future. Over the next few years lots of improvements promised and the community will still be able to use a room for local activities. Sounds good, but this being Haringey – we’ll see. They had done no work whatsoever on public transport for the venue – simply indicated that they were trying to expand the car park. That is fine (to a degree) but you do need to be able to get there by bus and there is only a very limited service since they removed the W2. Also – they had had no talks with Hornsey Central Hospital – who are just along the road and following my questions on this, work is going ahead on the site in the New Year.

The other main event of the day was watching Gordon Brown deliver his succession speech at the Labour conference. I was under-whelmed. I don’t think it is going to happen soon and I don’t think it is going to do Labour much good in the long run if he does succeed. He doesn’t know which way to play it – New or Old! In reality he has been relentlessly New Labour – so no idea why the ‘left’ think he may be their saviour. Who signed the cheques for the Iraq war? Who forced through part-privatisation of the Tube? Who insisted on top-up fees for students? And on and on.

Therein is the problem – who really is Gordon Brown?

Liberal Democrat conference, Blackpool

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My bags are packed and I hi-tailed it out of town on Saturday morning from Euston. On the train, I sit down and the woman across the aisle from me immediately asks me if I am Lynne Featherstone. I cannot tell a lie! Actually, she turned out to be a constituent living in Creighton Avenue on her way to Glasgow to visit her Mum and we had a few enjoyable hours putting the world to rights; if only we were in charge!

Blackpool may well be a wonderful place for stag nights and hen parties for the young, drunk and noisy, but – sober and middle-aged, truly sorry and no offence meant, it would not be my first choice. Every time I enter the Winter Gardens – which is the conference centre – I try and imagine what nightmares were haunting the author of the design brief. Must have been truly evil!

The Conference Hotel is adequate – but is nowhere near the Winter Gardens and so the delegates are consigned to spending a good part of each day travelling between the two from main hall debates at the Winter Garden to all the fringe meetings at the main hotel and others. In fact, the local authority provided a free shuttle bus – but hardly anyone was told.

But to the business. My guess is – as always – that the media will focus on whether Lib Dems are going to the right or the left and whether Charlie boy’s leadership will be challenged. I turn out to be right on both counts. I do one fringe meeting on the right/left kafuffle. The title of the event is ‘Can the Liberal Democrats be part of a Progressive Consensus’? This is hosted by the Independent Newspaper and chaired by Steve Richards who does the early Sunday morning politics show on GMTV. (You can read my speech on my website).

I have a go a Gordon Brown – basically. Don’t believe he is capable of a consensus – progressive or otherwise. Or more accurately, Brown’s progressive consensus is just that – OK so long as you agree with him. Anyway – as everyone knows – I think Brown is a coward who keeps his head down below the parapet when the going gets tough, votes a straight New Labour ticket, is the author of the astronomically expensive and appalling part-privatisation of the tube and who broods in the shadows whilst waiting for Tony’s tide to go out.

But what the media really, really want – is for the Liberal Democrats to tear themselves apart on the basis that those of us who fight or represent old Tory seats will want to shift to the right and those of us who fight or represent old Labour seats (like me) will want to be on the centre-left of the political spectrum.

Clearly a disappointing night then as all four of us speakers – Simon Hughes, David Laws, Vince Cable and myself – in one way or another all argue that it isn’t a matter of right left – it’s about Liberal values. Especially when the Labour government is knee-jerking poorly thought out legislation into being and striking at the principles of justice and freedom that make our country what it is.

The other great debate going on is about multiculturalism and what it means to be British, particularly after 7/7.

Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, has thrown down the gauntlet with a nifty little sound bite: ‘we are sleepwalking our way into segregation’. His thesis being that we live in our cultural enclaves and mix less and less. Statement of the bleeding obvious I should say – although it strikes me lots of politicos are fundamentally in denial whilst a Sky TV poll clearly puts over 80% + of real people in line with that thesis.

I get two bites at this issue. I speak at a fringe meeting and then there is also a debate in the main hall.

For the debate, conference has introduced a new format where representatives send in their preferred topic for a discussion on an urgent issue. There is no motion or vote – but people’s views are taken back and with further work and consultation a motion will then be brought back to the next conference for decision. It’s my job to summate the debate.

I have my own views too- and whilst I do think we are becoming a segregated society, I don’t think the 7/7 bombers were making a statement about poverty or alienation when they blew us up or that solving the issues of poverty and alienation in our ethnic communities will have anything but a tiny effect on terrorism in ours or any Western country. Terrorists don’t generally come from the poorest or most alienated.

However, history has given us a bit of a lesson about where extremists go to find fodder for their causes. So whilst tackling poverty and alienation won’t directly stop terrorism, it will help make it harder for terrorists to recruit support in future.

I also chair two of the keynote speeches in the main hall. The second one is for my Home Affairs team leader – Mark Oaten – our Shadow Home Secretary. So with only a sentence or two to say I introduce him as the ‘toughest Liberal I know’ – a phrase picked up by the media sketch writers for the Telegraph and the Guardian! Mark had said a couple of days earlier that he would kill me if I introduced him thus – but I did it purposefully as I believe that ‘tough liberalism’ is the way forward – particularly in terms of law and order.

Mark gave a bravura speech.

I (and you will thank me for this) am not going to go through every fringe I spoke at – but I was allowed to pontificate on a much wider range of subjects than ever before. In my previous incarnation I was kept pretty much to my policing and transport portfolios. This time – outside of my usual training sessions for the party on ‘How we Won Hornsey & Wood Green’ and ‘Grow your Own Target Seat’, I covered Lords – the Last Bastion of Freedom?, What Difference would Electoral Reform make to Women? (not a great deal in my view); The Future of our Towns; Making the Breakthrough (or how to get our arses into gear in the 100+ seats we are second to Labour in for next time); Blogging and so on.

New experience for me (it is always great to do something you have never done before) was something called GNS. I had to go and do the radio responses on what Mark Oaten had said about breaking the consensus around Labour’s proposed new terrorist legislation. Whilst we support three of the proposals – an offence of training for terrorism, incitement to terrorism and acts preparatory to terrorism – we can’t support an offence ‘glorification of terrorism’ or the ‘three months detention without trial’. Briefly – the ‘glorification’ one is just too wide a definition. It would turn into a feast for lawyers all interpreting (as is their job) but with such a wide spectrum that it would be very hard for such legislation to be effective – and you don’t want the real terrorist dodging around the new legislation because it is poor and they have a good lawyer.

The other – three months detention – strikes at the very heart of our principles of justice – and is another form of internment. Moreover, having seen how stop and search works in practice when I was on the Metropolitan Police Authority – it would be just too easy for profiling to lead to autom
atic three month detention on suspicion – and suspicion as we tragically know from the Met shooting an innocent Br
azilian isn’t enough. And if after 14 days they need more evidence and more time, there are other ways. They currently put people under surveillance and the numbers are not such that that would be too difficult or expensive. In fact it might very well concentrate the police mind on intelligence-based evidence rather than suspicion. Three months internment would make them casual in their rigour.

Anyway – none of this was the point of my tale. The tale was about the GNS process. I was to speak for eight minutes to each BBC radio station around the country – live! So with headphones on in a tiny studio and with an electronics box – one after another station around the country dialled me up and did the interview. It was pretty tough going. I was just brilliant by about the fifth one – when I had got all my best lines in place – but definitely going off the boil with over-confidence by the ninth! But – as I say – had never even heard of this type of interview before.

And so – the rest was a late dinner with friends and pretty early to bed – and yes – it really was all work!

Getting ready for party conference

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Off to constituency HQ for an interview with Radio 4 who are doing profiles on six new MPs – two from each party. Don’t know how much longer I will be a ‘new’ girl – but it obviously has its advantages!

It’s a very long interview but all very enjoyable. Then back up to office to do some work. Now set up, with computers networked and staff in place – at last feel that normal service has been resumed. It is quite a change from having done everything virtually myself for the last eight years to having a team of staff – but very necessary given all the extra work being an MP involves. They are doing a great job – but inevitably setting up two offices (constituency and in Parliament) takes some time.

My mother gave me three pieces of advice before she died: firstly from her experience running her own successful business – the customer is always right. It’s an old-fashioned concept but one I personally think still holds good. Secondly, the person in charge must know about any complaint against the company. If you don’t know what is going wrong you cannot correct it! The other piece of advice – well that was personal.

Lib Dem conference in Blackpool is zooming towards me – and finally getting hold of my diary I discover that I have around twelve speeches to write before I leave on Saturday – a smattering as examples are “Can the Liberal Democrats be part of a progressive consensus?”, “What is Britishness?” (the in debate of the moment), “Is the Lords the last bastion of freedom?”, and lots, lots more.

Topped by the party’s Head of Policy phoning me to ask if I would summate on an urgent debate in the main hall: “What future for multiculturalism post 7/7?” I am also chairing two sessions in the main hall – Graham Watson MEP and Mark Oaten MP. The fun never stops! So in between other engagements this week I am desperately trying to write these speeches.

In the evening I go to a big public meeting about the proposals for a concrete factory right in the middle of a residential area. About 2-300 people in attendance and an array of Labour (council leader, his deputy, Tottenham MP and a couple of local councillors).

Myself and Laura Edge (Lib Dem councillor for Stroud Green) and several other Lib Dems also there. Labour have called this meeting at short notice, and not told anyone much it was happening. So I had to try and let people know about it at short notice. Laura and her colleagues were great at helping me let as many people know as possible. Plus the glories of email for sending information round quickly! (If you live in my constituency and would like to get similar emails in future, just let email with your name and postcode – lynne@lynnefeatherstone.org).

Am much amused that Labour have suddenly taken enough fright – possible because they fear losing the local elections next May and have realised that we Lib Dems have been campaigning and working with local residents and their campaign group, Green N8, for the last year.

Consultants representing London Concrete (who want to build the plant) are there – but no show from any of the directors etc from the actual company. Bad form! They give pretty feeble answers to the many, many questions raised by the audience who are worried sick about the level of noise, pollution and congestion that will be caused by this application.

We (elected reps) from both east and west of the borough unite to fight off the application. Political pressure is a wonderful thing – but lets hope it is reflected in the rejection of the new proposals going to Planning Committee on October 10.

I exhort everyone to write individually to the planning department and to the Planning Inspector (there is a coterminous appeal on a first application that was rejected). I also suggest they write to Ken Livingston who is misguidedly supporting the application because of the factory being able to bring aggregates in by rail. Firstly – there are no guarantees of capacity on the line. Secondly – the couple of trains a day benefit does not stand against the disadvantage caused by the articulated lorry movements etc.

Parliament debates identity cards

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Busy day as, after the committee stage on incitement to religious hatred, it’s the Second Reading debate on ID cards in the Chamber.

I am soooooooooo against ID cards – and desperate to get called to speak in the debate. The debate starts at 3.30pm and will conclude with a vote at 10pm. I know that I will have to sit in the Chamber for all that time – to have even a flying chance of catching Mr Speaker’s eye to get called. But it will be worth it.

Charles Clarke moves the proposed legislation – defending the indefensible. David Davis (Tory Shadow Home Secretary) then gets a go – and delivers a good speech. Unlike most of the Tories who only so recently in the election were for the introduction of ID cards – Davies was always against them. As power shifts from Michael Howard to the wannabe leaders – the wind has blown Tories into opposition. Latecomers – but nevertheless – finally on the side of the angels.

Then there are another couple of speeches before the Speaker comes to Mark Oaten – the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary. He gives a great speech – and then the debate moves on to back benchers who are limited to 10 minute speeches.

As the day wears on into night – I bob up and down as each speaker finishes hoping to be called. Hour after hour passes. The debate in itself is fascinating – and many, indeed most, of the speeches from all sides of the House (including Labour) are against ID cards. Ironically – the outcome will depend on Labour rebels – and whilst the words are strong, I doubt whether the votes will follow in adequate numbers to defeat the Government at this stage.

Without rehearsing the whole argument – the bill falls on so many counts, one is spoilt for choice as to what to oppose. (There’s plenty of good background on the arguments at www.no2id.net).

For me – the key is civil liberties. This proposed legislation flies in the face of everything I believe in. I was born free and thought I was innocent until proven guilty. I have the right – inalienable right in my view – to walk out of my front door without the need to prove anything to anyone so long as I cause no harm. I do not need the Government’s permission in the form of an ID card – a license to do this – let alone a license that will cost between one and three hundred pounds, is technologically unsound and will lead to a database of information about me that no one – not state nor anyone – has a right to know! I will be treated like a criminal. I will be fingerprinted and information on me stored on a national database – information that no one needs to know or has a right to know.

OK – you get my tone on this!

So there I am, bobbing up and down, as hour after hour passes. I hold the front bench for the Home Affairs team – whilst Mark and Alistair (my Lib Dem numbers 1 and 2 on the team – I am number 3) go to eat. As the clock approaches 8.30pm – I am becoming despondent about my chances of being called – as more people are still rising than there is time to call them. Suddenly Mr Deputy Speaker (the Speakers change throughout the session) announces that because so many people still want to speak – the speeches will now be cut to 5 minutes for the next hour. At 9.20pm – finally – I get called.

I make my key points: civil liberties, the problems with righting wrong information giving history of IT problems and the discrimination that will follow as ID cards become compulsory (which they will – as sure as eggs is eggs) towards members of ethnic communities who from my experience with police stop and search will be stopped and asked to produce the card in the end.

I cite what has happened with DNA and how now innocent people’s DNA is being kept on a database and how much more black DNA is being stored than white DNA in London.

Then we are into the winding up speeches. The Labour man – Tony McNulty – chooses to attack me from the Despatch Box as he closes, calling me irresponsible and wrong. So I must be doing something right!

Then the Speaker calls for Ayes – and there is a roar of ‘ayes’ from the Labour benches. Then the Speaker calls for the Noes – and there is a roar of ‘no’ from the Lib Dems and the Tories. It’s all very tribal and traditional, but we have the shouting match before the Speaker calls out ‘Division’ – and the bells start ringing as we pour into the lobbies to vote in person. Sadly – not enough Labour rebels rebel – and the second reading is passed. The Bill now passes into its Committee Stage.

Amazing to have had a voice and a vote (however tiny) in opposing something I believe will destroy our way of life and begin the journey to a police state. And – many, many local residents have contacted me to say they care passionately too. The weight of opinion in my postbag is very clear.

Violent Crime Reduction Bill

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Big day – as ‘my’ Bill (the Violent Crime Reduction Bill) is getting its second reading today. I won’t have to lead on the floor of the Commons as our Shadow Home Secretary, Mark Oaten, will do that. But I will have to speak and get a grip on the debate so that when I lead for the Lib Dems as the bill goes through its committee stage I will know what I am doing and where the debate is.

(If you’re wondering what second readings and committee stages are, there’s an explanation of how laws pass through Parliament at www.libdems.org.uk/parliament/legislation.html).

But first I have lunch with the Evening Standard lobby correspondent. He seems really OK. Have worked with lots of journalists from the ES and they have all been great – so far.

Then (barring quick press conference on the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill) off to the chamber for the debate on the Violent Crime Reduction Bill. Basically this bill tries to address the twin rising problems of alcohol and weapons. In a typically Labour way – some of it is right, but some of it is gesture ‘tough on crime’ politics.

For example – there is a proposal to stiffen the laws around the manufacture, sale and carrying of imitation firearms. I totally agree with the general intent of this. However – the bit on carrying states that the sentence will be raised from 6 months to 12 months. So I make an intervention whilst Charles Clarke (Home Secretary) is introducing the proposals to ask why a 6 month stiffening? What work has been done to estimate the reduction in carrying that that particular length of sentence will deliver?

Basically – it’s all speculative says Charles. Hmm – not an impressive way to make laws! (You can read the exchange in Hansard).

OK – so what would I have done to establish this before guestimating an addition to the sentence? I would have first established how many people had been done for carrying and what sentences they had (in fact I have a Parliamentary Question down on this). I would have gone back to them to survey whether they had any idea of what sentence was on the books, how much of deterrent it was, etc.

Anyway – the main area of disaster in these proposals is the plan for Alcohol Disorder Zones. If there is a lot of drunken, abusive and criminal behaviour in a particular location, the Local Authority and the Police will have the power to create an area where all those inside deemed to have alcohol as their main trade (a minefield in itself) will have eight weeks in which to produce an action plan and improve. But if they don’t – a levy will be imposed to pay for extra policing.

Fine in principle – polluter pays. Love it. But – good landlords will be treated same as bad (and probably move to a better area). The area will get a name as a ‘no go’ area – and people (consumers) will stop going there. Property values will plummet. And so on.

So – sounds a good idea at first – but not thought through. But as I say – the thrust of the Bill to get a grip on the British malaise of drinking yourself to oblivion on a Friday night is right. But as ever with Labour – there is no other side to the equation: examining why people drink themselves stupid, why it is a status symbol to carry a knife or a gun – and so on.

When the great reforming legislation on drink driving and wearing a seatbelt came into being – the Government put immense resource behind the message it was sending out about irresponsible behaviour. The resource was both in enforcement of the legislation yet also the huge educational and advertising campaigns that accompanied the change in the law. Labour is still shallow in its intent and will. Right message – lack of real depth to deliver change!

And I said so in my speech!

Incitement to religious hatred

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10.15 on a Wednesday morning is the Lib Dem Home Affairs Team meeting. We all gather – Mark Oaten (Shadow Home Secretary), Alistair Carmichael (his deputy), me – (police, crime and disorder), the Lords Home Affairs team, staff and – today- Lord Lester as we are discussing the Equality Commission Bill going through the Lords that day.

I am still not one hundred percent convinced that we should have a single Commission that bungs together race, gender and disability into one body – but before we have a Single Equality Act. To me it is cart before horse – and smacks more of the Government’s desire to lessen the ability of the three current Commissions to lobby them successfully.

The other main legislation at the moment is the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill. The idea is to tackle discrimination against Muslims in particular, but its provisions are likely to cause them more harm than good and stir up a whole raft of other evils. The increasing emphasis on bringing religion in line with race in terms of legislation is dangerous.

When I was Chairing the Stop and Search Implementation Panel of the Met Police Authority (until a few weeks ago) it was beginning to creep into that agenda too. There was a move to suggest that because of the increasing number of stops on Muslims (or more accurately those who looked ‘Muslim’) the police should introduce religious monitoring.

The initial reaction of the Met and the Labour members of the MPA was to jump to and deliver this to rectify the blatant discrimination that was being perpetrated against Muslims. But I fought it (amongst others) as the wrong solution to the problem – and moreover a political solution prior to the General Election.

I had the Home Office in to give some of their evidence on the research they had been doing into this area. It was very interesting – as Muslims in the North of England were dead against it – as opposed to Muslims in London. Many of the religious groups were dead against it – unsurprisingly. Jews and Sikhs who have both been persecuted through the ages for their religious beliefs made it quite clear that they did not wish to have to reveal their religion to anyone.

Anyway – the point I am making is that these are tinderbox times – and all of us in the political maelstrom had better be careful that we do not create a monster that destroys us. I know – dramatic language – but I am extremely concerned about religious freedoms, rights and free speech – which I regard as the tenets of a civilised and peaceful society.

Later at the Parliamentary Party meeting we have the hustings for Chair of the Parliamentary Party. It is the first time this has been contested – as in previous years there has only been one candidate. The result is the challenger (Paul Holmes) wins, defeating the incumbent (Matthew Taylor).

My maiden speech

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Frantic rush to get out two of the most urgent casework queries from Friday’s surgeries and write my maiden speech. Difficult process – as traditionally you are meant to say something nice about your predecessor, describe your constituency and that’s about it.

Having listened to a few already like that, it seemed a bit pointless to not have any substance. But how to get away with it in the confines of what’s “expected” of a maiden speech?

I had dropped a note to the Speaker (which is what you do) the previous week to ask to speak on the Tuesday of the Queen’s Speech debate. Tuesday was for debating education and health – only you don’t really have to relate your speech to the subject – but a fleeting nod in that direction is appreciated.

You have to be in the chamber at the start of the debate – rise to your feet at the end of every speech to indicate to the Speaker that you want to be called – and not leave the chamber at any time or you lose your place.

So starting at 2.30pm I got up. I sat down. I got up. I sat down. This performance went on and on and on. Various colleagues coming and going throughout the process – including my mentor Don Foster (each of us new kids have been given a mentor). Don has a flip through my speech and seems to think it OK.

At around 8pm – by which time I am parched, hot and very warn out from the tension – Don goes and has a word with the Speaker to get me excused for a ten minute break and we go to the ‘smoking room’ where Don and John Thurso have whisky – and I have a glass of water. This is not the time to have a drink as much as I want one.

I go back into the chamber having managed to give a quick phonecall to my daughter to say I think I will be called in the next hour. Sure enough – at about 9.20pm I rise to my feet to attract Mr Speaker’s attention – and realise – as I am literally the last one standing that he will finally call me – and he does.

I was nervous – I saw on the tape that my kids took – a bit of shaking of papers. However, it went well I think. (You can watch the speech for up to a fortnight after it was given on the Parliament TV website – click on Archive on the left and then search for my name – so judge for yourself! Or read it in Hansard.).

I covered the ground I wanted to: Hornsey Town Hall (getting the Deputy Prime Minister to exempt Haringey from best value rules so it doesn’t just have to be sold off to the highest bidder); phone masts (the need for legislation to give local authorities powers to refuse applications on the precautionary grounds); school places (shortage of); over-cramming development with poor design and inadequate health, school and transport infrastructure; gun and knife crime and anti-social behaviour.

A huge sense of relief flooded through me as I finished. THe Labour MP who followed was very flattering – and I am grateful that it all went so well. Everyone had warned me that the first time you rise in the House to speak your knees knock and your hands shake – and thus it was.

Out onto the terrace (so beautiful) for a quick drink. Mark Oaten (our Shadow Home Secretary) joins us. Can’t remember if I already said – but I am to be in the Home Office team and Mark has informed me that I will be spokesperson for Police, Crime and Disorder – which is just the best possible brief.

I go home to my children and we watch the tape they made of me speaking. They liked it – but eldest daughter says my hair is a disgrace and needs cutting!

Crime policy launch

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Meet our press officer outside Millbank and we go and do SKY. They have decided not to do a live feed but a pre-record – that was just fine. They edit and take what they want – usually about a nano-second by the time it actually reaches the news.

Tougher on ITV – live to camera – and a proper grilling on our policies. Apart from mangling one set of words – I was pleased because they had gone tough and thrown every possible attack at me – and I lived! I always reckon it’s been a good day if I’m alive at the end of it.

Then off to the crime manifesto launch – all good stuff. It’s me, Charles K and Mark Oaten. Now the big boys have arrived, I become relatively ornamental. I say my piece but Charles and Mark, being the national figures, field the questions – very well I thought.

I go into City Hall to clear my paperwork and emails there and spend some hours finishing a variety of chores.

Then back to a stuffing evening at my house. I like stuffing evenings as it is a mindless task leaving us activists to gossip.

In the middle of all that has been going on, I have had to truck backwards and forwards to the vet several times. My dog, Purdy, ate a whole chicken carcass (bones and all) overnight on Good Friday. It was the first time I had cooked a proper meal since Christmas – and the oven broke. So moral of that story is – I should never cook!

Vet’s fees need a bit of scrutiny is my overriding thought for the day. I have insurance – but the cost is exorbitant. Must have a look at this in due course … but too tired tonight.

A rival for Paxman

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Canvassing again with the ‘hit squad’. But today is nice and dry and I have a very pleasant time up and down Southwood Lawn Road. Much as before, several Labour supporters who won’t be voting Labour and several definite LibDems.

As I am chatting on one doorstep, my phone goes. I excuse myself and it is our national press office asking if I will step in for our Home Affairs Spokesperson Mark Oaten who can’t make the live TV interviews the next morning before the launch of our crime policies. It’s always one of those moments – you obviously want to do it, but it is quite nerve-racking. I say yes.

This means I have to cancel my plans to go to the NewRos celebrations at Ally Pally – as I have to study the brief and be up at 5am to get to SKY and ITV in time.

Home to study. My daughter pretends she is the interviewer. Watch out Paxman I say.