Beating the Tories 11 to 10

The Conservatives have been making, or attempting to make, a story out of 10 Lib Dem councillors defecting to them since Cameron took the helm of the Tory ship.

So I had a phone call from from Lib Dem Communications Director John Oates asking me for the figures of councillor defections going the other way. The answer I came up with was 11 going over to the Lib Dems since September 2005 when the Tory leadership contest started. One was a former councillor but nevertheless prominent in his area. Two defections cost the Conservatives control of the authority in question.

If you want the full details of who they are, you need to be on the daily bulletin circulation list. George Crozier added it to the round up today.

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Dr Who or Focus leaflets?

I had a wonderful opportunity to go to a special viewing tonight of the first 2 editions of the new Dr Who series. But I also have a large number of Focus leaflets to write for Gateshead. Focus writing has won, along with writing my next email newsletter to constituents, eFocus.

I'll just have to wait til Saturday to watch it. Boohoo.......

Pics from the inside of the stately home of the Lord Rennard

We had a bash at Chris Rennard's house in South London on Thursday so that Media, Communications and Policy staff could meet Jon Oates, the new Director of Communications. Inevitably I turned up with a camera. So here's the pick of the crop.

George Crozier and Greg Simpson went head to head to battle over whether it was the Carpenters or the Eagles that were played.

The Media Centre in particular is known for eating all available food in Cowley St. Their eating skills were applied to the food on offer which was polished off in record time, leaving Lord and Lady R to do the washing up.

And strangely, people decided I had to appear in a photo for once and snapped me with our PCU volunteers Matthew Lavender and James Cooper.

Are there 2 Dave Andersons representing Blaydon?

Does Blaydon constituency have two different MPs who just both happen to be called Dave Anderson?

The reason I ask is that Blaydon MP Mr Dave Anderson, on 15th March, demanded in the House of Commons that there should be an “urgent debate” on the failure of his own government to pay nurses the 2.5% pay rise they have been awarded in Scotland. Nurses, he said, were “incensed” by the lower pay award in England.

But then on 22nd March, Mr Anderson, in the House of Commons, proudly announces that “nurses are finally getting paid the money that they should be paid” despite the government not shifting at all on the below inflation pay rise.

I find it hard to believe that one person can come up with such differing views in the space of a week. Could both Mr Andersons therefore get together and come up with a more consistent approach to representing Blaydon?

Just done TTTV "On the House"

I've just got back from the Millbank Studios having done Tyne Tees TV's "On the House". I was on with Peter Atkinson, Conservative MP who beat me for Hexham back in 1992, and Helen Goodman, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, who I haven't met before. As you would expect, we discussed the budget.

I had a very useful briefing on the budget from those very nice people in the Political Communications Unit of Cowley Street!

At the end, TTTV offered to send me a video of the programme. "Could I put it on YouTube?" I asked, explaining that I do an email newsletter to nearly 3000 constituents and I put links on to videos. "We've never been asked that before!" was the reply. They'll check it out and let me know.

10/10 for presentation but 0/10 for 10p tax rise

Pulling a rabbit out of the hat at the last minute was an impressive performance by Gordon Brown at the end of the budget speech. But then the reality sinks in. The 2p income tax cut turns out to be a 10p income tax rise for those on low and middle incomes. Only New Labour could be so dishonest.

So instead of pulling a rabbit out of the hat, what he's really done is dip his fingers into the pockets of low income people, nicked a load of cash and then offered it to better off people. How incredibly New Labour.

Me and Susan Kramer in Downing Street

Luke Croydon from the press office at Cowley St took this photo yesterday of me and Susan Kramer handing over the Poat Office petition to Downing Street. These were the petitions collected together at Harrogate conference from campaigners across the country. There are however plenty more petitions still out in the country and I have heard that a number of MPs are planning their own hand overs.

We have also put the same photo out on the PCU email list this morning so plenty others will have it as well.

Sun up at 6.20am

I know spring is approaching. It's that time of the year when I get up at some uncivilised hour of the morning and it's daylight outside. It is of course still rather cold. Jack Frost had been out with his graffiti spray can during the night and had set to work on our car. Fortunately it didn't stop me from getting to Newcastle. I'm now on the train to London. And this afternoon I'm in Downing St to hand in a petition!

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I'm knackered!

My plan today was to whiz down to the office, print a load of focus leaflets (along with the crime survey - if you haven't used it yet shame on you!) then deliver a couple of patches in our key defence ward of Dunston Hill and Whickham East.

But then, on 9.30am Yvonne McNicol, our councillor for the ward, sent through some changes to the Focus. So I redid the Focus (actually Focuses - we rarely do ward wide Focuses now, we do estate and village based ones instead), then dragged David down to the office to help print, fold and count them into patches. We were finished at about 1pm but by then the snow was falling.

Difficult decision - should we wait before heading off to the ward to deliver or should we go home and have a bacon buttie (the latter won). Fortunately, by the time I have finished consuming my grilled wafer thin strips of pig, the sun was shining. So, David and I headed out and delivered 800 leaflets between us, then dropped off the bundles at our leafletters as well.

Frankly I feel knackered though after getting home I then had to visit a constituent who lives, fortunately, one minute's walk from my house.

I still have a Focus to write tonight. (It may have to wait 24hrs).

Expect more local videos from me soon. I went to Newcastle yesterday to film a demo by Newcastle Lib Dem students about the cap being lifted on student fees. I decided not to appear in this one but gave it to Ron Beadle to front instead. He is a Gateshead Councillor but is candidate for Newcastle North, one of our top targets in the North East. Video done in one take! I'll put it up on YouTube soon.

Am I a magnet for smoke?

Last night before I left London to come home to Gateshead I met up for a meal with Richard. Why do people feel the urge to light up their cigarettes in the middle of a busy restaurant? And why is it that I always seem to be at the next table to them? Notice how they hold their arms out so that their cigarettes are not wafting smoke across themselves. So why is is that they have to hold their cigarretes in my direction? And then to cap it all, why does cigarette smoke always home in on me? Have I got some kind of cigarette smoke homing beacon on my head or am I just a magnet for smoke?

We ended up having to move table. I am so looking forward to when the liberalisation of clean air comes in and we don't have to put up with smoke polluted enclosed spaces.

Thankfully, GNER trains are now smoke free zones (except when people use the toilets as smoking rooms or when people travel in the vestibules on the old 125s with the windows wide open.) Coach A was always for smokers. Which meant coach B stank of smoke. Thankfully we can breath on the trains now.

Enough ranting for tonight. It's 12.46am and I'm off to bed!

Shock! Mr Anderson votes with the Government

Well, as I expected, Mr Anderson, former firebrand and posturing left winger and now shiny new Labour MP for Blaydon, slavishly voted for the government last night! Shock! Well, not at all. Given his performance since his election in 2005, I would expect nothing else.

So try this for your edification and amusement. Tribune, that trendy, ranting rubbish of the equally ranting left carried an interview about Anderson in February 2005, just 3 months before he was elected. Apart from shouting from the roof tops about how "working class" he was, this Durham University educated former President of Unison bleated on about how he couldn't stomach being in the same room as the other Labour candidates wanting to be selected for Blaydon.

Tribune wrote, "Anderson is acutely aware that he is different from most aspiring parliamentary candidates. During the Blaydon selection, he sat in a room with the other hopefuls and realised that he had nothing in common with them. He says that, while he waited to find out if he was to be long-listed for the seat, he went for a long walk to get away from them."

Tribune then went on to explain, "They seem to want identikit candidates. As Anderson describes it: 'You put the key in their backs and turn them on.'"

And with Anderson, it seems as though the new Labour spin doctors got just what they wanted - an identikit MP who votes slavishly for the government.

And as for not being able to be in the same room as some of these Labour people, now he is in the same lobby (the whips tell him to be in).

I don't have a problem with party loyalty. But Mr Anderson posed as the rebel who wasn't part of the mainstream new Labour project, who wasn't like the others. And as soon as he got to the Commons, the key went into his back to turn him on for Tony and Gordon.

It will be interesting to see how Mr Anderson votes

Regular readers of this blog, including those in my local Labour party in Gateshead, will know my thoughts on the former left-winger-turned-instant-Blairite apologist Dave Anderson, Labour MP for Blaydon. He swept into the Labour nomination on a wave of left wing posturing and "socialist" drivel, posing as the guy who was against the Blair project. He did, of course, leave all that at the St Stephen's entrance to Parliament when he got elected. Now he is a loyal bag carrier for the Blair government, already climbing the greasy pole as a ministerial bag carrier.

So it will be interesting to see how he votes in the Trident debate tonight. I'm watching you Mr Anderson.......

It will be interesting to see how Mr Anderson votes

Regular readers of this blog, including those in my local Labour party in Gateshead, will know my thoughts on the former left-winger-turned-instant-Blairite apologist Dave Anderson, Labour MP for Blaydon. He swept into the Labour nomination on a wave of left wing posturing and "socialist" drivel, posing as the guy who was against the Blair project. He did, of course, leave all that at the St Stephen's entrance to Parliament when he got elected. Now he is a loyal bag carrier for the Blair government, already climbing the greasy pole as a ministerial bag carrier.

So it will be interesting to see how he votes in the Trident debate tonight. I'm watching you Mr Anderson.......

Damned if we do and damned if we don't

Dunston Hill and Whickham East is one of the marginal wards we hold in Gateshead. It should be Labour with a comfortable majority but we gained it when the boundaries were redrawn three years ago.

Labour have put out a claim that we do not consult people, bizarrely on decisions of the Labour run council. The claim is rubbish. We spend a great deal of time carrying out surveys in the ward.

So the letters column of The Journal, our regional morning paper, this morning made for interesting reading. Now we are being attacked by the Labour party for, errrr, well carrying out consultation.

Seems as though we are damned if we do and damned if we don't (even when the don't is a does!)

Alas, we are very familiar with antics of the Labour candidate in the ward. He spend three years trying to get elected in my ward. The end result of his activities was a collapse in his vote!

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Come in Mr Wallace

I went canvassing this afternoon in Lobley Hill which is in the neighbouring ward to my own. Last year we reduced the Labour majority in the ward from 900 to 92. As you can imagine, it is the top target for us in Gateshead.

Not a bad canvass but I was a bit surprised at the first house I called at. A retired person's bungalow and the person who answered the door was, I presume, the occupant's daughter.

"Come in Mr Wallace," she said before I had had a chance to introduce myself. "You'll be here for the elections."

I don't actually know who she is but it was a bit surprising to be so instantly recognised when I wasn't even in my own ward!

After the canvassing I went up to the bulb show in Whickham, with our Euro MP Fiona Hall. "You must get recognised quite a bit," said a constituent to me. I immediately thought of the Lobley Hill resident I had canvassed!

I suppose that having been on Gateshead Council for nearly 20 years, I should be in a position where people recognise me!

I'm currently working on the Whickham North focuses. We rarely do ward wide Focuses - instead, most of the Focuses we do are village or estate based. The current round of Focuses for this ward was meant to see 2 editions, one for the Swalwell end, the other for the Whickham end. Swalwell is written, printed and delivered. Whickham is now written. But we have had such a glut of local issues that we are putting together additional estate letters, one for each of the three estates in the Whickham part. They will go out with the Focus.

Somehow, the news stories keep pouring in. Each month I write 18 pages of text for our email newsletters. So far the well of stories and articles has not dried up!

Those conference pics I promised

I'm back home in Gateshead and now have a chance to post up some of the pics from conference. By the way, the photos I took at the Susan Kramer and Nick Clegg photo ops have now all been emailed out to the people who turned up. Around 80 members or groups had their pics taken.

I've included the one of me handing on the Post Office petitions we collected in Gateshead to SK.

Other pics include running the gauntlet of leafletters at the entrance, the end of Ming's speech, Phil Willis moves the Trident amendment (the one that was defeated) and Nick Harvey moves the Trident motion.

Is is 80 or 100?

I left the office this evening just after the Commons had taken the votes to approve both 80 percent and 100 percent elected upper house. So which is it, 4 out of 5 members to be elected or all of them? I have heard, and it is so far unconfirmed, that the highest share approved is the one the government will accept. It that's the case, it means no appointments whatsoever. Now that could be very iinteresting!

The next question is, is the government prepared to put time aside to get the proposals through. Perhaps Brown will see this as business he needs to see completed. And again, only time will tell. And it waits to be seen whether the government will allow for a transition in which the appointed lords are allowed to wither on the vine or are swept away in either one move or stages. I suspect they will attempt to buy out some with a rather comfortable lump sum (I think it's called redundancy payment) and an offer to use the facilities (no doubt many will regard the building as the best club in town). Persoanlly speaking, I can understand why they would go for the transitional approach.

So is this unfinished business about to be finished? I am reminded of when I was writing my PhD thesis - the biography of Walter Runciman (who was a Cabinet minister under Asquith). I studied the Cabinet papers as part of the research and looked into the Lords crisis of 1910-12. Well, the Liberal government then had no settled view on reform and frankly no government since has been able to sort out the composition either. So I will believe this thorny issue is resolved when I see the final result.

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Conference pics

I was just about to sort through the 700 photos I took at conference but have just realised it is 8.50pm and I really should be leaving Cowley St. So I'll post a few up tomorrow instead.

Just done my second email newsletter of the week so over 1000 households in Gateshead this week have had eFocus.

And on that note, I'm off back to the flat for a Sainsburys pizza.

Were the media at the same conference as me?

Having read the media coverage of of Ming's speech to conference yesterday, I am left wondering whether they were at the same conference as me. What was clearly a speech throwing down challenges for Brown in his first months as PM has somehow been retranslated by the media into the conditions for a coalition. The problem seems to lie with an unnamed official who frankly was suffering from a bout of foot in mouth. One careless remark and an uncomfortable amount of wrong headlines.
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The Sardine Express

Well, would you believe it!? Trains from Harrogate to York are cancelled. So we have to go back to London via Leeds (I'm not going home tonight but instead I'm heading for London). So the local train to Leeds - I'm on it now - is heaving. The Sardine Express. Made all the more exciting by being a short train.

Well, conference is now over and it was a good one. Ming spoke well and as usual I joined the rugby scrum of photographers around him at the end. Politically it was a good conference with the nonsense of the Trident amendment thrown out. The 2 photo ops I put on were successful and it is likely that we will repeat this format in the future.

It could have been so much different if the Trident amendment had been carried. Whilst the oppositionists would have had their pyhirric victory, we would have been torn to shreds by the media. Sanity fortunately, prevailed.
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Trident amendment defeated

Just come out of Trident debate and I'm now sitting in the Lib Dem European Group fringe (LDEG asked me to video it) but the great news is that the amendment to the Trident motion was defeated. This is excellent news and gives us a good policy on the doorsteps.

Mind you it was very close. It went to a count. I was in the middle of the hall when the vote was held. I thought the amendment was carried when I looked around. And when the result of the count came, those in favour was announced first. And I thought that with over 400 votes it must surely have won. But no, those against was higher by about 40 - I can't recall the exact figures.

It was a good debate and there was a late intervention by Ming who spoke incredibly well. The most passion was on the side in favour of the amendment but in the end they were fatally handicapped. They argued a case for straightforward unilateralism yet that was not what was on offer. Instead they had submitted an amendment that was mortally wounded even before the political battle began. There were attempts to rewrite it by some from the podium and that again undermined their own case.

Some supporters of the amendment claimed that it meant we would have no policy on the timing of scrapping Trident but that was a great thing they claimed as we could all come back at a later date to sort that out. Yet they attacked the proposers of the motion for putting back a decision on policy.

Ultimately sufficient members accepted the motion and rejected the amendment. But the headlines woiuld have been so different if the amendment had been carried. They would have been appalling and would have undermined us in the run up to the May elections. Thankfully members decided jumping off the top of a cliff was not a sensible policy.

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A surreal conversation at Harrogate

I had a strange conversation with a guy yesterday who was handing out a flyer backing the amendment to the Trident motion. I asked him why he was backing a position that appears hostile to Trident but then keeps Trident at full strength for the next 20 years. He claimed the amendment had nothing to do with that and that it was a "disarm now" call.

So I pointed out what his amendment does and at that point he admitted he hadn't read the amendment, or indeed the motion. And he was rather shocked about what his amendment was proposing. You would have thought he should have known what he was supporting before he started to encourage others to do the same.

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Off to Harrogate

I suspect a large number of blog postings from Lib Dems will have the same title. We are on the 10am train out of Kings Cross. This train is packed. Every seat is booked. Unfortunately all the Communications Unit staff are travelling on open tickets so we grabbed what seats we could in the hope they would not be claimed. We've just been joined by Norman Lamb in the same predicament!

At this conference we are experimenting with photo opportunities for campaigners. We have set up 2. One for those who have done the Post Offices petition for pics with Susan Kramer and another for those doing the crime survey with Nick Clegg. The one with Nick is going to be especially daunting as we have been inundated with requests for slots. Nick has agreed to a bit extra time but we will have to run it with military precision!

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30,000 viewing on YouTube

Last night the overall number of viewings of videos on my YouTube channel reached 30,000. My first video went up in late June and I am now getting about 350 viewings a day.

There are 132 videos on the channel and admittedly the majority I shot whilst travelling abroad. Needless to say, they have more viewings than the political and local news ones I have put on the channel. Nevertheless, the viewing figures of my local videos, the links to which are sent to constituents, are rising.

My most viewed local news/politics video is about an opencast scheme proposed for my ward with just over 900 viewings. But it is the only one in the top 10:

Copacabana 2740
Pyramids and Sphinx 2240
Soviet Submarine Base 1488
Samba 1218
Santiago de Cuba1069
London Eye 937
Opencast 903
Orang utans in Borneo 795
Tango, Buenos Aires 758
Petronas Towers 745

Trident Forum a success

The Trident Forum last night was a success. I was there to help run the mechanics of it whilst Nick Harvey answered the posts. We finished at 10.30pm, an hour and a half after the scheduled time. So plenty of interest.

Deadline for amendments closed at midday today. It will be interesting to see what has been submitted.

Trident web forum

If I have any criticism of the way we make policy in the Lib Dems then it is focused on the period between the puublication of a policy paper or conference motion and the actual conference debate. In the past I have wondered how much informed discussion and debate has taken place at a grassroots level before the full conference debate is held.

So the decision to hold a web forum tonight with Nick Harvey, our defence spokesman, about the future of the Uk's nuclear deterrent is a sensible move. Well, I suppose I would say that given I helped run the previous web forums we held on Royal Mail and tax! The serious point is that whether or not you support the FPC proposals for halving the number of warheads, and taking a decision on whether or not to replace the submarines after we know the outcome of the 2010 Nuclear Non Proliferation talks, you can raise questions directly with the person who will, if the policy is agreed, have to speak for it in Parliament.

So if you support the motion, support the amendment, are undecided or just want to see what the issues are, the forum will be worth a visit tonight.

I would put the link here but I don't have it with me as I'm currently on the train heading to London from Newcastle!

Trident web forum

If I have any criticism of the way we make policy in the Lib Dems then it is focused on the period between the puublication of a policy paper or conference motion and the actual conference debate. In the past I have wondered how much informed discussion and debate has taken place at a grassroots level before the full conference debate is held.

So the decision to hold a web forum tonight with Nick Harvey, our defence spokesman, about the future of the Uk's nuclear deterrent is a sensible move. Well, I suppose I would say that given I helped run the previous web forums we held on Royal Mail and tax! The serious point is that whether or not you support the FPC proposals for halving the number of warheads, and taking a decision on whether or not to replace the submarines after we know the outcome of the 2010 Nuclear Non Proliferation talks, you can raise questions directly with the person who will, if the policy is agreed, have to speak for it in Parliament.

So if you support the motion, support the amendment, are undecided or just want to see what the issues are, the forum will be worth a visit tonight.

I would put the link here but I don't have it with me as I'm currently on the train heading to London from Newcastle!



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We have an allotment

Well, not quite a full allotment, but half a friend's. We had applied to the owners of the allotments in our village of Sunniside, Gateshead, earlier this year to take on a full allotment but they had none spare. However, our friend Glenys offered us half of hers. David went to see it this morning when I was down in our constituency office to sort some printing.

So, to add to the home made jams, and the home grown food from my Dad's allotment, it now looks as though we will be growing more of our own. We will also be planting out our garden in London soon with vegetable crops. We have already planted fruit bushes there.

Back to those MP travel expenses

Labour MP for Tyne Bridge, David Clelland, claimed in our North East regional evening newspaper, the Evening Chronicle (15th February) that he flies to London so much rather than uses the train because he “lives near the airport.” The explanation was given after the travel expenses of MPs were outed last week.

So I tested his claim against the AA online road map which tells me that the distance from his house to Newcastle Airport is 8.5 miles. But the distance from his house to Newcastle Central Station to catch a train is 7.3 miles.

Mr Clelland said in January at the launch of an exhibition in Newcastle about climate change (ironically in the Centre for Life which is next door to the Central Station!) that people should be encouraged to “make small changes to reduce their carbon footprint.”

In other words, we must each change what we do so that we cause less pollution.

I wonder why Mr Clelland does not seem to be following his own advice by taking the train? After all, it is a suitable alternative to get to London, it is a shorter distance for him to travel from his house to catch a train, and it is far less polluting. Were there to be no alternative, flying is acceptable. But we have the East Coast line that takes him straight into Central London.

His explanation that flying saves him a hour on his journey is questionable. He's got to get to the airport, check in at least half an hour before the flight, then there's the flight time, then landing and getting out of heathrow and then an hour on the tube to Westminster.

But he can get a train to London on a journey time of 2 hours, 45 min (the one I try to get on Monday mornings at 7.18am!). I can leave my house in Gateshead at 7am and be at my desk in Cowley St at 10.40am by going by train.

So is the advice of this Labour MP to cut down on carbon emissions just for others to follow?

A pranged car, a missing letter and a jammed lock

Disasters come in 3s and over the weekend I have my admittedly very minor 3 events that should not have happened.

The first was on Saturday morning when I pranged the car on our front wall whilst pulling out of the drive. The actual cause of this was a badly parked truck someone had kindly parked opposite our drive. We will need a new bumper.

The second was a missing letter. I wanted to send a letter to all the constituents in my village who have been in touch with me recently about bus services. There were cuts to the services in September last year and more unhelpful changes are taking place this year. So my letters were emailed to Gateshead Civic Centre last week to update constituents on the current situation and to invite them to a meeting in my house on Sunday, yesterday, to discuss how we approach the bus company and get some improvement to services. The letters were then to be printed and posted out.

But on Saturday, I discovered that people who were supposed to have received the letters had received nothing. Fortunately, the meeting was able to go ahead because I had also emailed and phoned some constituents who therefore turned up. I will need to ask the Civic Centre what happened to my letters. I have an awful feeling people could receive a letter today for a meeting that happened yesterday.

The final minor disaster was the lock on the door to our constituency office. I went to the office on Sunday morning and printed 1800 village Focuses for part of my ward. I then took back a large pile to my house to hand out to some of the leafletters who I knew were coming to the buses meeting.

I then returned to the office to finish folding the rest of the leaflet only to find the lock on the door had jammed. So I still have my focuses for Sunniside on the other side of a door we cannot open until a locksmith calls out today.

So I went back home and did some work in the office in my house. This included starting the media and campaigns report for Gateshead Lib Dems. I often give an update on the number of email addresses we have of constituents. We now have over 1200, all of which get our monthly eFocus newsletter - many of whom pass it on to others. So we are comfortably past our target of 1000. Our new target is now 1500.

It's now Monday morning and I'm heading to London on the 7.18am train out of Newcastle. Wake me up when we get there.

One big different today from previous Mondays - when I get to Cowley St, the office in which I am based will be occupied by the rest of the Political Communications Unit. The Policy Unit has now been turfed out and sent over to Abbey Gardens, one of the Parliamentary buildings. And that means that George Crozier, Jake Holland and there 2 interns have now moved out of the Whips Office to join me and James, our 3rd intern, in Cowley Street. So at last our unit is under one roof.

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Washingwell Woods and Watergate Park

Just a video I shot in the woodland and parkland near Sunniside, the village in which I live in Gateshead. Much of the parkland was a mining area but was restored in the 1990s.

Today, Lib Dem Blogs, tomorrow, the North East!

A few weeks ago our North East regional morning newspaper, The Journal, announced they were setting up what is effectively a blogs aggregator of people in the region and invited bloggers both current and prospective to be included. So I sent off an email. The editor has just sent me this message:

We're hoping to roll our Journal Blog Central in the next couple of weeks. I've been meeting most people interested in taking part, ostensibly just to make sure that they are who they say they are! I think we can probably dispense with that in your case.

I've given everyone a guide to blogging, which again is probably superfluous to you, but could you have a little look at it, particularly number 6 (our rules!).

If you still want your blog to be hosted on Journal Blog Central, let me know and we'll get it up once it's running.

So I've sent off another email to formally sign up.

This should be fun!

Parliamentary by-election called!

A little known Parliamentary by-election has been called. And the constituency which has the delight of going to the polls is? Well, there ain't one. Instead, this is one of the bizarre results of the miserable failure of Lords reform and the absurd compromise of 1999 leaving 92 hereditary peers in the Lords.

The by-election is for the vacancy left by the late hereditary Tory peer Lord Mowbray. There are 42 candidates, a figure that comes close to matching the 47 electors. Ladies need not apply. All the candidates are men, as indeed are all the electors, who happen also to be all Tories. Staggering to believe that this ancien regime style of democracy is alive and kicking in the Mother of Parliaments. Had this been the story line for a Black Adder plot, it would have been rejected on the grounds of being too absurd!

Picture the 42 different campaign HQs. Blue ink letters could each be written individually. Indeed, the leaflets could be written individually! One'e butler could deliver them for one. One could even host a campaign meeting in the stately pile. Of course it will mean stopping fee paying tourists from having guided tours through the old building but sacrifices have to be made for the democratic process!

Just how is it that the country can be in this position?

(This blog entry was written with apologies to the various hereditary peers I know!)

St Valentine's Day massacre in the Mothers' Union

I have just popped into the Mothers' Union shop just down the road from Cowley St to buy a get well card for a constituent and a couple of stamps (okay, yes I needed to get a Valentine's Day card as well). The scene that hit me as I walked in through the doors will be with me for the rest of my life. Hordes of people battling to get the few remaining Valentine cards. Elbows were the secret weapon needed to battle one's way across the store and to squeeze through the crowds gathered around the displays where people were weighing up whether to get plain, joke or downright tackie and tasteless cards. I guess the choice says a lot about the individual and the nature of his or her relationship (actual or prospective). As for my choie of card.......mind your own business!!!

Labour haven't quite understood leafletting

This little gem was emailed to me yesterday by Chris Ord one of our councillors in Gateshead. He said Labour had put out a leaflet in Lobley Hill and Bensham ward inviting people to meet their councillors at a meeting they were holding. "What's the problem with that?" I hear you all ask. Well, the leaflet came through the door on Sunday for a meeting held on Saturday, the day before! They haven't really understood leafletting despite having represented this area for generations - though with a 92 majority in the ward, we intend changing that unbroken run of representation in May!

Our campaign there is certainly picking up steam. Our candidate Susan Craig is getting plenty of casework calls from constituents. She was out for quite a bit yesterday doing casework. The Focus leaflets are getting a good response as well, as is the one we put out in the neighbouring Dunston and Teams ward, though that one was designed only for a limited area. The ward wide Focus will follow soon.

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Do you want you photo taken with Nick Clegg at conference?

Would you like a photograph for your local Focus of yourself with Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary Nick Clegg, discussing your local crime survey results?

Nick has generously set aside an hour at Harrogate conference for this. If you're interested this will take place between 5pm and 6pm Saturday, in the central foyer of the conference centre, at the bottom of the spiral ramp, next to the doors facing the hotel. I will be there in my Political Communications Unit role to take photos (which we will email to you), but you can bring your own photographer as well if you like. This is open to all local Lib Dem campaigners, not just PPCs. No need to book but it would be helpful if you could email me (j.wallace@libdems.org.uk) to let me know you will be coming, so we can gauge the level of interest.

The Crime Debate in Parliament

By all accounts (well, at least those not written by the Labour Party), our Opposition Day debate on crime on Wednesday was quite a success. Labour members as you would expect were briefed in advance with a long list of misrepresentations, misquotes and misleading points about the Lib Dems. I hear that Nick Clegg flattened them rather well.

So who should pop up yesterday during questions on Business of the House to put in a feeble plea for another debate on crime to attack the Lib Dems? Dave Anderson, the gaff prone labour MP for Blaydon who was recently caught (thanks to yours truly) using Parliamentary stationery and mail to slag off Lib Dem councillors in Blaydon and drum up support for Labour council candidates. (He has been forced to pay back the costs.)

Now, isn't this the same Dave Anderson who, when seeking the Labour nomination for Blaydon before the 2005 general election, shouted from the roof tops about his being arrested and locked up by the police? An interesting unique selling point for an aspiring MP. Mr Anderson's left wing strutting and 'I'm the rebel against new labour and am very working class' posturing won him the Labour nomination. And in the surreal world of trade union fixes within the Labour party, being the boss of Unison probably helped as well.

Now look at him. Bag carrier and loyalist to Blair. All that fancy left wing baggage was dumped the moment he stepped through the door into Parliament. I can see now why Blaydon Labour members are feeling annoyed enough to leak me things that embarrass him!

One snow flake and the country grinds to a halt

I got to the station this morning to get the 8.39 into Victoria. I have just got on the 7.55 train instead which was only 40 min late. Why is it that one snow flake and the country grinds to a near halt? I guess by the time this train gets to Victoria it is going to be a bit on the crowded side.
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A quick Focus photo on way to catch the train

David had to defrost the car before we left the house. Due to roadworks on our normal route, we took a detour through Dunston. This was a useful change as I was able to take a few quick photos for a forthcoming Focus.

Talking of which, much of Dunston lies within the Dunston and Teams ward. This is where we had the byelection last year which was held by Labour but where the BNP failed to live up to their expectations of winning their first seat on Tyneside. (They came third though they were ahead of the Tories.) Our candidate Michael Ruddy, is keen to continue working the ward so we have bumped it up the target list so that it can get some extra help from us. We've just done a petition there, on a phone mast, and had 160 signatures in one weekend. And another 20 or so email addresses came in which means its now worthwhile giving more coverage to Dunston and Teams ward issues in our email newsletter that goes to people in the Team Valley area.

Anyway just got onto the train to head to London. Over and out.
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Parliamentary Campaigner on its way

One of those rare situations tonight. Through the week I drafted the Parliamentary Campaigner, which goes to Parliamentary Candidates Assn members. Normally it needs big changes before we feel it is ready to send out. But tonight the changes took just a few minutes. Members should get it tonight or tomorrow.

As for myself, I am heading up to Gateshead now. I got the 9pm train out of KX. Not having eaten, I got a sandwich, a bag of crisps and a cup of tea in the buffet car. They cost more that I spent in total over the past week on my lunches (which consisted of a packet of Ryvita, a bag of clementines and a lump of cheese). But at least I have lost all my Christmas kilos!

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Labour MP to pay up for inappropriate use of Commons mail

Those of you who read my blog last week would have seen the entry about Dave Anderson, Labour MP for Blaydon in Gateshead (where I live), being reported by me to the Serjeant at Arms about a misuse of Commons stationery and first class mail.

A brief summary of what happens is: I was sent anonymously a copy of the letter Anderson sent out on Commons headed notepaper in prepaid first class Commons envelopes to Labour members drumming up support for Labour council candidates, slagging off people like me as "2nd rate" councillors and calling on Labour to remain united during the leadership contest; I then passed on the letter to the Serjeant at Arms to complain that this was not a proper use of Commons facilities.

Well, today, I was emailed the reply from the Serjeant at Arms. It reads as follows:

Complaint regarding use of Parliamentary Stationery by Dave Anderson MP

Further to my letter of 23 January I am now writing to update you on the above matter. I have now been in touch with Mr Anderson and he has agreed that the letter which was sent out to local Labour party members was not an appropriate use of House stationery and an investigation was carried out.

This was a genuine mistake by office staff and Mr Anderson has asked to be invoiced for the full use of this stationery. His administrative staff have been reminded of the rules governing the use of House stationery and pre-paid envelopes and this situation should not arise again.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. If you have any other queries regarding this matter please do not hesitate to contact me.

All just a dreadful mistake that has lumped Mr Anderson with a modest bill to pay!

Whiff of Watergate

This was going to be a headline in one of our Focus leaflets. Watergate Park which is partly in my ward in Gateshead, is having a problem over the lack of dog bins. People are leaving bags of dog poo hanging from a fence in the park in protest. I wish now I had used the headline!

The first I knew of the arrest of Lord Levy was this afternoon when I was in a meeting with Ed Davey. He was called out after getting a pager message and came back in a few minutes later to tell us the news.

So, the plot deepens. From allegedly flogging peerages on a low interest, full money back (at an indefinite point in the future) guaranteed basis the story line moves on to apparent cover ups. If Jeffrey Archer wrote this, the publishers would have rejected this as too far fetched!

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Gateshead backs Trident policy

Liberal Democrats in Gateshead have backed the policy proposals to delay a decision on Trident until 2014. We had a motion to that effect to Gateshead Council today. I seconded it.

The core of the argument we put forward was that a decision now is premature, there are uncertainties in the international arena but the situation will be clearer in 2014 when the situation with the Iranians' attempts to develop a bomb are clearer, taking a decision now could encourage rogue states to press ahead with nuclear development and spending money now could end up being a huge waste if by 2014 the international situation permits nuclear disarmament.

Labour's amendment was bizarre. It removed most of the motion, leaving in only the start that noted the Government's December announcement on Trident replacement. It then replaced the wording with a load of waffle about how well they allege the economy is doing and calling on the borough's MPs to ensure there was a balance of resources going to various spending priorities (which did not mention defence or the environment).

Even more bizarrely, the few Labour speakers prepared to contribute to the debate gave speeches which were in the main supportive of our motion, even though they were supposed to be in favour of their own wrecking amendment.

The important point on our side is that members were happy with the proposals outlined by Ming in December.

Red meat

On walking into Gateshead Civic Centre this afternoon for full council, I got talking to a Labour member who will remain nameless. He had clearly enjoyed the spectacle of a certain Labour MP, Dave Anderson from Blaydon, in the press for the investigation by the Serjeant at Arms into his Labour party mail shot that went out on Commons headed notepaper, in the Parliamentary prepaid mail. (See my blog entry for Wednesday).

"You seemed to enjoy your red meat this week!" the Labour member told me.

I will not repeat the description he offered for Mr Anderson's activities! Perhaps there are a number of people in the local Labour party who are unimpressed by Mr Anderson. His posturing as the left wing rebel and "working class" trade unionist probably helped him to get the Labour nomination for the 2005 general election. But since the polls he has spent his time slavishly backing the government. I can imagine therefore a large number of Labour members who are unimpressed by him.

Apparent misuse of Parliamentary facilities

Whenever I have a large pile of post built up whilst I have been away, I go through it to open the hand written envelopes first. There was a very large pile of post waiting for me when I got home for the weekend and in it were plenty of handwritten envelopes. It was shortly after midnight on Sunday morning when I opened them.

Letters from constituents and lots of petition replies. But it was the last one I opened that most caught my attention. It was a letter from Dave Anderson, Labour MP for Blaydon, the constituency where I live in Gateshead. At first I was a bit surprised that Mr Anderson should be writing to me. "Dear Friend" it started. And then went on to talk about the Labour leadership contest, how Labour needed to remain united and his hopes for a 4th election win for Labour.

It may have been because I had had a long day working on Focuses and campaigning but the cogs in my brain were not working at full speed. Why, I thought to myself again, would this political opponent be writing to me on House of Commons headed notepaper about internal Labour matters? But the penny dropped when I looked again in the envelope in which the letter arrived. There I found a used House of Commons prepaid first class envelope with the recipients address cut off. Someone had anaoymously sent me a letter from Mr Anderson that was meant only for Labour members or supporters.

I read the next paragraph of the letter in which there was an appeal for people to help Labour candidates in the local elections in May. Mr Anderson took the opportunity to attack opposition councillors in the constituency ( who are Lib Dems - there are no Conservatives here). According to Mr Anderson, we are all "second rate" and people do not deserve to be represented by us!

Well, my understanding is that Parliamentary stationery and mail should not be used for party political purposes. And I phoned Norman Lamb on Sunday morning to check my understanding was correct. The person in the Labour party who sent me this presumably believes I am well suited to ensure an investigation takes place into a possible misuse of Parliamentary facilities! So I sent it to the Serjeant at Arms who confirmed that it would be looked into.

Understandably, a matter of such public interest wasn't going to stay out of the media for long! It was in both the Journal and the Evening Chronicle today. A member phoned me tonight in Cowley Street to tell me she had read about it in the Chronicle. I'll see it tonight myself when I get home (I'm on the train to Newcastle now.)

I wonder what else awaits in my mailbag when I get home!?

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Crime Campaign launch

I went to the press conference for the launch of the Lib Dems' crime campaign this morning as soon as I got to London. I took this photo of Ming. The press conference also launched the Policy Paper "Together we can cut crime" (to be debated in Harrogate in March). The cover has a photo Ming talking to the police during a walkabout he did in the summer last year. I didn't take that photo but I took plenty of others at the same walkabout. I've posted one up here.

Any Lib Dems wanting copies of the pictures for local campaigning can email me on j.wallace@libdems.org.uk (say which local party you are from).

A hint of light - spring must be approaching

I caught the 7.39am train from Newcastle to London - we have just passed through York. I always get that "spring must be on its way" feeling when being driven into Newcastle on a Monday morning and there is a hint of daylight in the east. A hint, mind you, only a hint. Of course, all this coincides with a big freeze that meant the car had to be defrosted before we hit the road.

Our top target ward in Gateshead in the local elections this year is Lobley Hill and Bensham. Our most marginal defence is Dunston Hill and Whickham East. I did some work on both over the weekend. Gateshead have extended the consultation time for the introduction of car parking charges in Whickham, Blaydon, Birtley and Low Fell so we were able to survey more residents on this issue yesterday. The Labour cabinet in Gateshead proposed the introduction of charges and have agreed them in principle. And then the Labour party put out a leaflet in Dunston Hill and Whickham East saying Labour are opposed to the charges but the Lib Dems agree with them!!! Labour never let honesty get in the way of a good story.

And finally, the repeated requests by the media centre in Cowley Street for more home made chocolate bisuits have been answered. David made a large batch yesterday though I doubt they will last long once I get to HQ!

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Trying out online polls

I am trying out online polls as a way of engaging with constituents. My thanks to Stephen Tall for supplying me with the details of where to get free polls. (Stephen - when are you going to do a poll on sexiest member of Lib Dem staff!?)

The poll I am doing is on plans by Gateshead Council to introduce car parking charges at various locations throughout the borough including Whickham (I represent Whickham South and Sunniside ward). All just an experiment but hopefully it will encourage more people to visit our news blog - www.gatesheadnews.blogspot.com.

Give us back our NHS

I went to Westminster Hall yesterday to do the photos for the NHS demonstration with MPs and candidates. I took a number of photos which we hope to put up on the extranet soon. The one below is my favourite, but I would say that as I'm in it! (left, back row - thanks to James our intern for taking this one!)

Having the banner was my idea but Marianne Sladowsky, our health adviser in Parliament, came up with the wording. The key message of this campaign is that central government interference in the local running of health services is causing much of the mess in the NHS. Decisions on local health services need to be taken locally.

Flooding in York, January 2007

This is the video I shot on Saturday when I was in York. The River Ouse had burst its banks though by Sunday flood water levels had gone down considerably.

Will Brown introduce AV?

I notice Politicalbetting is contemplating a Brown move to introduce Alternative Vote in place of first past the post. The announcement would be in the first days of the Brown administration and is akin to the announcement on Bank of England independence after his appointment as Chancellor.

I think this bit of political crystal ball gazing is well founded. I have argued myself that Brown will make such a move - indeed, in a meeting with my colleague George Crozier last week, I argued exactly the same point.

This time Brown will be even more earnest in his bid to break with the past. I suspect other possible moves as well, such as announcements on Lords reform.

No doubt STV fanatics and purist PR supporters will want us to hold out against the move to AV. Personally, I would back it. It would be easy to introduce and would not require a wholesale review of boundaries. And it would also easy any transition to STV with people understanding the need to put candidates in order of preference on the ballot paper.

But it would also introduce a new dynamic into elections. It would increase the number of seats that could change hands and it would also mean parties having to appeal beyond their own supporters and floating voters.

It would also mean that there was more incentive - much more - to get out to vote. Take for example my home town of Gateshead which, under the new boundaries will contain the constituencies of both Gateshead and Blaydon, as well as a bit of Jarrow. Predictions for Gateshead constituency are that Labour should expect to win with over half the votes cast, but on a low turnout. The Conservatives are in 3rd place and have no chance of winning. But their voters could turn out in larger numbers if they thought their 2nd preferences would actually come into play by ensuring Labour were on less than 50%. In other words, there is an incentive for them to turn out to vote even though their first choice stands no hope of winning.

This is even more so in Blaydon constituency. At the last election the Conservatives got only 8%, but we got 38% and Labour were on 51%. It used to be the case that the Conservatives got 10-14,000 votes in the constituency some 20 years ago. Some have shifted to us but many simply stay at home. A modest increase in the Conservative vote would mean the Conservatives' 2nd preferences would come into play.

Similar battles would be replicated over the North East. Labour marginal seats such as Newcastle North, Newcastle East and Durham City would be even more interesting.

And think of all those Conservative held seats that would be vulnerable to the Lib Dems where Labour are in 3rd place. Over the past century, the Conservatives have been the biggest beneficiary of first past the post. Many in the Labour party will be blinded to that by their own electoral success over the past decade, or by their stupidity or reactionary outlook. Under AV, there will be times when the swing in a general election will produce a more exaggerated result. But the long term benefits outweigh this.

So were Brown to introduce AV, I hope the purists in the Lib Dems look on it favourably.

Back from a flooded York

I went to York on Friday for a weekend seminar for councillors on safer communities. Put on by the Association of Councillors (a cross party group to which Gateshead Council signs up all its members), I rarely find them of use and frankly I am finding it increasingly difficult to accept they are value for money. In my 20 years as a councillor (well, 20 years in May) I have attended one a year. It was however a useful opportunity to discuss some campaign issues with some of my Lib Dem colleagues.

The recent heavy rain meant that the River Ouse had burst its banks so David and I went down on Saturday morning to the city centre to shoot some video. It's still on the camera and I haven't had a chance to upload it to the PC to put on YouTube. I spent this afternoon after getting back from York writing Focus leaflets and then went down to the office to print them.

Since it is now 12.45am and I have to get up at 5.30am to catch a train to London, I will not spend the next few minutes editing the York video clips! I'll do that some other time.

How does the defector Porter feel now?

Tory peers on Tuesday managed to drive a knife into the back of Cameron's claims to be a tolerant party when 41 of the old dears voted for discrimination against same sex couples in the provision of commercial goods and services. The figure included 10 front benchers as well, a figure that matched the total number of Tory peers who voted for the rules that prevent companies in Northern Ireland from refusing to trade with people on the basis of their sexuality.

So it leaves me wondering what Richard Porter is feeling about his new colleagues. I was disappointed when Porter defected to the Tories in December. I had some dealings with him before the general election when he offered advise on the lesbian and gay manifesto I wrote when I was working in the Policy Unit (the BBC were wrong however to claim he wrote it himself.) He seemed competent and sensible. But he now seems to have been taken in by a fraudelent Tory party masquerading as moderate. Whilst Cameron realises the impossibility of being elected on all the right wing rubbish he and his party espoused before his election as leader, a large party of his party clearly are not converts to the Cameron attempts to liberalise the Tories.

So Richard, are you really comfortable jumping into bed with these people?

300 online signatures in one weekend

I am even more convinced about online petitions than I was last Friday when I tried out the Lib Dems' new single issue website creator. Having set up a site and online petition against an opencast scheme in my ward on Friday, I sent the link to constituents. This morning I arrived back in the office and opened my inbox to find 300 emails from people who have signed the petition online. Plenty from people not on our circulation list which shows that people circulate our email newsletters amongst family and friends.

It will take some time to process all the replies. Indeed, the number of replies continues to grow with 2 more arriving whilst I write this blog! But I'm not complaining!

Single issue websites - start using them now!

On Thursday evening I had my first attempt at using the party's single issue website tool. I set up a site for the campaign against opencast plans in my ward in Gateshead. The planning application for the site was rejected last year but with an appeal now lodged, the campaign to defeat the plans steps up a gear. I have now produced a petition to Ruth Kelly calling for the appeal to be rejected.

The petition is now on line and is on the site I set up on Thursday evening. The site went live on Friday afternoon and I sent an email to about 800 constituents about it shortly afterwards. Though I was hoping for a good response, I wasn't quite expecting the storm surge of responses. Within 2 minutes of sending out the email, I got an email to tell me the first person had signed it. Within half an hour, I had received another 100 emails!

I sent out a press release about the petition shortly after sending out the email to constituents. It was picked up my Radio Newcastle who phoned me when I was waiting to go into the Kyle concert! They seemed quite amused by this but said they would phone back this morning.

When they did, the journalist spent quite a bit of the time talking about Kylie Minogue and I am wondering if they will carry that in the interview when it is broadcast tomorrow!

It was fantastic

The Kylie concert last night was fantastic. Had a great time even if I did have to get the night bus back to the flat.

I should be so lucky, lucky. lucky, lucky.....

Kylie Minogue started her concert tour in the UK on New Year's Eve in London. She is appearing at Wembly again tonight. Alas, yes I am going!

Had the decision been left to me I probably would have returned home this weekend. However, in July last year I made the mistake of letting Richard use my debit card to buy one ticket over the phone. "They cost only £20," I was assured. Two tickets and £110 later and I decided to rescue some of this conspicuous consumption for myself.

So one of the tickets became his Christmas present and the other is for me.

I have to confess I did see Kylie back in 2000 when she was in Hammersmith (and a much smaller location). I enjoyed it then and I guess I'll enjoy it tonight!

Cowley St feels deserted

My train into London yesterday was half empty, a pleasant change from the sardine tin mode of travel I normally endure. The same today. Seems as though many are not starting back at work immediately after New Year. The same seems to have happened in Cowley St. Where is everyone? Yesterday, I was the only person in our office to be in work. Today, Laura from Policy is here. But otherwise, HQ feels a bit deserted.

I couldn't even work late last night. Cowley St is usually open til 9pm when Lib Dem Calling leave. However, LDC seem to be enjoying an extended break so I left the office at 6.30pm instead. I used the additional time at home to phone constituents instead. That was quite enjoyable.

And once it became too late to phone people, I sorted the December press cuttings instead. It was interesting following the war between Tyne Bridge Labour MP Dave Clelland and Gateshead East Labour MP Sharon Hodgson over the selection for the new Gateshead constituency. The victor was Dave Clelland. I'm not a fan of blood sports but on this occasion I was prepared to make an exception! Both had, for the past 2 months, been producing press releases as if their lives depended on it (as indeed their political lives partially did!) And now we are back to silence from both of them. Press cuttings about either have now dried up.

Frankly, I won't be sorry to see the back of Sharon Hodgson, a talentless, shallow union hack. Presumably she'll now inflict herself on some other constituency.

A few pics from the the past week

Usual habit. I've taken a bucket load of photos over the past week. And only got round to sorting them now. Fortunately, I've only put 5 on the blog!

Richard sings "The Hills are alive to the sound of music" to my sister Esther and her boyfriend Ian on Seaton Sluice beach on Boxing Day.

Me and Richard at the Albert pub for New Year. At that point I was brewing up quite a cold. I now feel pretty rotten!

3 Brothers (Matthew, Andrew and me), sister Esther and my niece Lily at Esther's birthday party at her house in Newcastle.

Xmas day: Ian and David hog Lily's new lego for themselves - Lily didn't get a look in!

Esther walks into a surprise birthday dinner with boyfriend Ian.

Esther turns up at a restaurant with Ian to celebrate her birthday only to find another 20 surprise guests there as well.

My ten highlights of 2006

So with 2006 about to close, here are my top 10 highlights of the year, in reverse order:

10. Running the local election campaign in Gateshead that saw us grab one seat from Labour, slash Labour's hold on another ward by 90% and trebble our majority in our most marginal ward.

9. Changing jobs from Lib Dem Policy Officer to "Intelligence Officer"! (It's a good ice breaker at parties!)

8. Being in the photographers' scrum around Ming Campbell after the declaration of the leadership result.

7. Catching Francis Maude on his off moment at Tory conference on video and making sure it went on YouTube.

6. Discovering Blogger.

5. Getting the Royal Mail proposals through conference.

4. Photographing old American cars in Havana, Cuba.

3. Seeing the tax proposals go through conference.

2. Visiting the former secret Soviet submarine base in the Crimea.

1. Discovering YouTube (which has revolutionised my video output for constituents!)

If anyone has any highlights - or lowlights - that involve me and are not included above, I'd love to know about them!

This is why trains are much better

We have been caught in a traffic jam for the last hour on the A1. We have now been diverted off the road near Peterborough by the police who have closed off a whole section of the A1. So goodness knows when we will get to London.

It simply briings home the message that travelling by train is so much easier than car for long distances. Though people like to make jokes about trains, on the East Coast we have a reasonable service through GNER. There is plenty of room for improvement but that will have to come about through investing in the infrastructure which is far from perfect.

Mind you, what happens on the East Coast line in the near future is a sore point. GNER's parent company has gone belly up and the rail franchise is up for grabs again. Basically the system is designed so that the government can milk as much cash from the East Coast line as possible.

Anyway, we are lost somewhere in Peterborough now!
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Heading back to London

It is Saturday afternoon and we are in the car heading to London after a week at home for Xmas. I rarely take the car to London but David is coming down for new year as well. And with Richard also having been up in Gateshead with us, it was easier to use the car.

It is of course chucking it down so if it is like this tomorrow evening, my plan for a garden party can kiss itself goodbye. We'll probably end up in a pub instead.

We are however running later. The plan was to set off at about 10am but I had a constituent call at the house to pick up some papers for a case I am handling and I also needed to sort some files on the pc and back up a large number of photos and video. So it was midday when we hit the road.

It wasnt just Xmas we have just celebrated. Esther, my sister, celebrated her 40th birthday yesterday. She just thought she was going out for a romantic meal for 2 with her boyfriend Ian. When she arrived at the restaurant last night, she found it was a romantic meal for 22! Strangely we had kept it secret given the propensity of our family to talk!

And it had remained secret on Thursday as well for on that day was Esther's proper birthday party at her house. Somehow 30 people were packed in to her house in Newcastle. And somehow the belt bursting quantity of food and drink was consumed as well. I wonder how many people have set weight loss as their New Year resolution!?

The rain outside the car is getting even heavier.

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Seaton Sluice, December 2006

On Boxing Day, the family (minus Mam and Dad) went over to Seaton Sluice on the Northumberland Coast, near Blyth. Refreshing is the only word I can think of to describe the weather!

Blyth harbour was fitted out with wind turbines in the 1990s. You get a good view of them on this video.

Swans at Watergate Park, Gateshead

On Christmas Eve, we decided to burn off some of the Christmas calories in advance of Christmas dinner by going for a walk to Watergate Park in my council ward in Gateshead. This also gave us the opportunity to check out the family of swans living on the lake in the park.

The park was, until the mid 1990s a colliery wasteland. But in the late 1980s, the pit heaps caught fire and the whole area had to be cleared and restored. I feel a bit of pride in having been involved at the start - I was the person who first brought the fire to the attention of Gateshead Council and press for restoration of the site.

The loves and hates of Xmas shopping

Well, I did the Xmas shopping last night. I survived to tell the tale! I have a bit left to do tomorrow but here are my loves and hates of Xmas shopping.

The hates

1. Hamleys toy shop
2. Queues for tills
3. Couples joined at the hip walking aimlessly along the pavement
4. Groups of men (normal 4 men together) walking side by side along the pavement
5. Spending money
6. People who walk into you because they are concentrating on sending text messages
7. People standing in busy doorways having conversations
8. Leaving the shopping list at work!
9. staff with bubble guns at Hamleys
10. Knowing what you buy will be cheaper in a few days' time.

The loves

1. Hamleys toy shop
2. Bringing Richard along (he can carry everything)
3. Bringing happiness to my 3 year old niece. She'll love the wrapping paper and packaging even if she thinks the presents are a waste of time
4. finishing by 8pm
5. realizing my memory is still up to it after forgetting to bring the shopping list
6. Kitchen department of John Lewis - an easy and quick source for present for family members for whom you haven't a clue what to get
7. err - that's it!

I'm back in the flat now after a very productive day at Cowley St. Got 2 email newsletters out to residents of Gateshead today so a few thousand people will be enjoying my words over the next few days. I'm not returning to Gateshead tonight. As it's Christmas, I'm taking it at a leisurely pace. I'm going up tomorrow afternoon. Thank goodness I'm environmentally sensible and opt for rail rather than air travel. Had I gone for the latter, I think I would have been spending a bleak Xmas in London!

I can't hold off any longer.....

Sitting here in Cowley Street with the dreaded task awaiting me. Yes, Christmas shopping. Avoid it though I try, in the end it has to be done. I always cheat. Most of it is done by David. But he can't do all of it. So things like getting his presents, and a few others, have to be done by me.

So shortly I will be venturing into the Xmas jungle of central London, prepared to fight to the death for that last minute bargain and when all else fails, you buy them vouchers. Helpfully, some of the presents family have asked for are vouchers. Do they really not trust me to get them the right things?

The clock is ticking.....deep breathe..... head towards the door armed with debit card. Thankfully this is only once a year.

Post Office Campaign Pack

I have seen a number of people using the press releases in the Post Office Campaign pack I produced last week and which the Political Communications Unit sent out whilst I was in Gateshead.

We have now added to it a draft council motion which I know one Lib Dem council group in Scotland has submitted for debate already.

Any Lib Dem member wanting a copy of the campaign pack who is not on the Daily Bulletin circulation list (the pack includes a briefing on the closures and the Lib Dem policy, press releases and the motion) should email me on j.wallace@libdems.org.uk to ask for a copy. Make sure you include the name of the local party you are in.

Gateshead East Labour MP dumped

Gateshead's parliamentary constituencies' boundaries have undergone considerable changes under the latest review. Previously the boundaries were something of a dog's breakfast - we had only one constituency wholly within the borough and bits of 3 others within Gateshead as well. The swanky new boundaries put an end to all that and, in the process, appears to have put an end to the career of a Labour MP.

The reason for this is that overall Tyne and Wear is being cut from 13 to 12 constituencies and the greatest effect of this has been felt in Gateshead where the MP for Tyne Bridge, the devastatingly unknown Dave Clelland went head to head with the MP for Gateshead East and Washington West Sharon Rent-a-Quote Hodgson for the new constituency of Gateshead. David (my David that is!) has just texted me the result of this Jurassic Park punch up and the anomoly of a female Labour MP on Tyneside has just been cleared up. A devastated Sharon, 30 years or so the junior of Dave Clelland, is on the outlook for a new parliamentary seat.

All I can say is thank goodness Labour have rid us of this turbulent MP. The last two months have seen a tropical downpour of press releases from her about anything she could think of. We have had calls for the renationalisation of the railways (I put my boot in on that when I spoke at council on Thursday last week), calls for people to put videos on YouTube and worries over disappearing public toilets (after all she needed somewhere to flush away her no-go career.)

Mind you, Clelland has kept up the war for column inches as well though to give him his due, he stuck largely to issues of substance, even though he was spending a large amount of time whining about how terrible his government is (though frankly ever since he was sacked as a whip in 2001 he has sought his revenge on the government through his caustic whit and advanced wisdom. Not that anyone has noticed.)

So Labour, who hold all 13 of the current seats in Tyne and Wear, have just dumped their only female MP here in favour of a guy the same age as Ming. Remind them of this when the spin doctors of Labour try to make out Ming is too old.

Pity the people of Sunderland however. Super high profile MP Bill Etherington, who made it his lifetime achievement never to get off the backbenches or indeed achieve anything of note in Parliament has announced his intention to retire. An all female shortlist is to be imposed. Those public toilets in Sunderland had better watch out. They may be needed again shortly.

I wonder what Sunderland newspapers do for column inches?
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Bacon butties on the way to Newcastle

What better way to travel to Newcastle than breakfast in the car? David made me a couple of bacon butties to eat on the way in. I have polished them off before we got to the next village. Yum!

This is my last trip to London before xmas. I'm on the platform at Newcastle now. Pity I didn't get to bed til 2am this morning. And then had to get up at 6.30am. But with a three hour rail journey ahead, I have plenty of time to sleep!
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War rooms, babies and the Cowley St xmas party

I wrote the following blog entry on the train from London to Newcastle last night. When I got to my house at 1am this morning my blackberry buzzed to tell me I had a message. It turned out for some reason the post to the blog had bounced back. So here it is again. Pretend it's yesterday when you read it!

In the office in which I work in Cowley Street, my end is occupied by the Political Communications Unit and the other end by the Policy Unit. They are due to be moved out to a new office in Abbey Gardens, a stone's throw from Cowley Street. The Political Communications Unit proper will move in soon once we have evicted the Policy Unit.

This arrangement doesn't stop us joining in with Policy Unit events. One of these was today - the official thank you to Sarah the intern who is heading back to the USA shortly. The thank you party took the form of a tour of the Cabinet War Rooms which I attended as well, though I left early as, with the announcement of yet more Post Office closures due tomorrow, I needed to produce some political warfare material for use by our troops on the ground.

Producing this all had to be crammed in to one afternoon as at 5.30pm I headed down to the press office for a short thank you party for Fred Carver who produces 'Red Eye, the overnight media briefing (on which I base some of the Issues of the Month briefing which goes out at the end of each month.) Fred is leaving soon so this was his thank you party.. Fred is a councillor in Camden so he is smiling at the moment - Labour just got screwed there last week after losing a byelection to the Lib Dems.

I had fifteen minutes between leaving Fred's do and going to the Cowley St xmas party in the Lords to try to finish the Post Office warfare paper. I didn't quite complete it. So tomorow morning, I will do the final changes to the document in Gateshead before emailing it back to London.

The reason I didn't finish it was because Helen Banks, former senior researcher int eh policy Unit turned up to show off her new baby, 2 month old Rosie. I'll put the photos on the blog soon.
I didn't realise we had so many people working either for the party in Parliament or for Cowley Street. They all seemed to be there when I turned up for the staff do. Wall to wall people. Think back a decade and you can see how the party has moved on in terms of its professional organisation.

Alas I couldn't stay too long. I had a train to catch to Newcastle at 9pm. I'm on it now. Tomorrow I have a council meeting in Gateshead, hence the early return.. My group have put me down to second a motion on high speed rail. I can't complain! I was one of the members who said a motion on this was a good idea!

By the way, just to follow up my blog posting about YouTube and ITV from last week, Endemol, the company that is making the programme for broadcast on NY eve that asked for one of my videos, has got back in touch and asked for another six videos from my YouTube channel! I love YouTube, the best invention since the wheel!

Tory Tynemouth candidate anger

The anger within the ranks of Tynemouth’s Tories appears to be growing over the imposition of an A-List candidate who was rejected by the membership in favour of the candidate who stood at the last election.

It turns out that though the membership can vote on who they want to be as their candidate, that is not the final say in the matter. In the Tory World of Democracy, the local executive gets the final say and in Tynemouth they’ve just plumped for outsider Wendy Morton over the choice of the members, Michael McIntyre.

Tynemouth is the only seat the Conservatives can realistically hope to win at the general election in the North East. Labour are sitting on a majority of 5532 in a seat the Tories held continuously from 1950 to 1997.

Helpfully the Tory MEP for the North East Martin Callanan has waded into the controversy with useful comments such as Wendy Morton has been left with a "Herculean challenge" after her selection left the local party "deeply divided".

This is of course the 2nd time on a matter of weeks in which the local Conservative executive has overturned a membership of public participation decision on the choice of a Parliamentary candidate. The other was in Plymouth Sutton.

To read more about the happy Tories in the seaside town of Tynemouth, visit The Journal

Get out and do the Post Office petition

There is no better time than now to do the Post Office petition launched by Norman Lamb last year (and in which I had a hand when I was working in the Policy Unit in Cowley St before switching over to Political Communications). Whatever the government announces (probably Monday) there will be largescale branch closures.

In Gateshead we have been running the petition for the past five months. We have collected over 4000 signatures. And I have just been out this Sunday morning delivering 200 more petition forms and Focus leaflets. I'll be back tonight to collect replies.

If any Lib Dem wants a copy of the petition form, email me on j.wallace@libdems.org.uk. State whether you want it as a pdf (for use on Pageplus - just getting the plug in before Duncan Borrowman reminds me!) or Pagemaker 7.

And now I am off to Fiona Hall MEP's xmas party which is being held near Darlington, a horribly long way down the A1 from Gateshead!

Another Conservative Councillor joins the Lib Dems

Crawley is about to spoil Cameron's week. When he should be celebrating a year of achievement as head of the Conservatives (well I say achievement but it was tongue in cheek) I can reveal that the Conservatives have lost control of Crawley Council following the decision of Councillor Marcella Head to defect from the Conservatives. I have from the train (I'm heading to Newcastle now) just spoken to her to welcome her as a member.

With the Conservatives losing overall control of Crawley, that brings to two lost councils in 2 weeks. To lose one is careless, to lose 2 is........

The other one was Dover if you haven't seen the story already.

You can get more news at www.crawleylibdems.org.uk

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From YouTube to ITV

I was contacted by ITV this afternoon. They are putting together a programme about 2006 to go out on New Year's Eve, made up entirely of amateur film clips. They had seen my August Video Focus on YouTube and want to include the clip of Ming signing the Post Office petition I filmed in the summer. Not being of a shy or retiring disposition, I was very happy to send them the original video files, though I had to get David to email them to me from Gateshead. Seems a good way to end the year!

I have added up the number of emails of constituents we have on our circulation list and conveniently found it has now hit 1000. Convenient because I had half a page to fill in the North East Democrat to complete it and reaching the 1000 target made a nice story. So the Democrat was finished tonight and emailed out to recipients mainly in the North East though with a scattring from outside the region.

With communication being the name of the game today, I also sent out the eFocus for the northern part of Blaydon constituency, about 300 email addresses. I decided to slip in one seriously political story, about how the Labour MP for Blaydon Dave Anderson has come out in favour of the government line on the Iraqi occupation. Conveniently, figures for the daily cost of the war in Iraq were published yesterday, a mere 2.35 million pounds (yes the daily amount). Anderson had before the election postured as a left wing rebel against new Labour. Once elected he very rapidly turned into a Blairite loyalist bag carrier. And he got his reward for sucking up to the government a month ago when he was made a PPS.

Anyway, my next blog entry will bring a smile to the faces of all Lib Dems. I have advance notice of a defection from the Conservative of a councillor meaning the Ories lose control of another council!

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That looks familiar

When I came down to London on Monday from the North East, I got started on a new product I had suggested the Political Communications Unit should produce. This is a monthly analysis of the council by-elections with ready made news releases and articles for members' newsletters. All you have to do is slot in your name and local party and where appropriate, a paragraph about your local circumstances.

The rather simple idea behind it is to give Lib Dem campaigners some off the peg material that can be quickly turned into something that can be used on the ground. The fewer hurdles to producing this stuff, the better.

So I was rather pleased this evening to have found that members have already started to use the material. It was only sent out on Tuesday evening (to the Daily Bulletin circulation list). I spotted it in someone's publication whilst doing some work on the internet and thought, "That looks familiar!" Keep using it please!

I have also just finished the draft of the next Parliamentary Campaigner. I have increased the amount of ready to use content of that as well.

My next publication is my Blaydon email newsletter eFocus - this is the version for the northern half of the constituency. I'll work on it in the flat tonight. The guy from Lib Dem Calling has just walked into my office here in Cowley Street to tell me he's locking up the building in a few minutes. So I will have to leave shortly!

November's by-election results analysed

November 2006 saw the Liberal Democrats make the most gains in local council by-elections, ahead of the Conservatives. Labour had a net loss though the Independents were the biggest losers. The Liberal Democrats made gains in widely differing areas of the country, from inner city Newcastle upon Tyne to rural Wiltshire to urban Redbridge in North London. Meanwhile, the Conservatives failed to pick up any seats from Labour, all of whose losses were to the Liberal Democrats.

Election results net changes

Liberal Democrats 6
Conservatives 4
Labour -3
Independent/others -7

The fly in the ointment was the two Lib Dem losses to the Conservatives, though we gained one from them as well. Ironically the gain from the Conservatives was in Havant at the start of the month and one of the losses was in the same Council on Thursday 30th. The other loss to the Conservatives was in Stratford.

Is the Tory collapse total on Tyneside?

The Lib Dem victory in the Lemington by-election in Newcastle on Thursday has sparked some interesting responses from the other parties. The Newcastle Evening Chronicle carried an article entitled "The rise and rise of the Lib Dems" yesterday. It included quotes from a leading Labour member in Newcastle, and a leading local Tory. I guess that with both these people, their respective parties put them forward to the media to give comments because of a complete and utter lack of credible, sensible, level headed alternatives.

Labour Deputy Leader on Newcastle Council, Nick Forbes, in response to the loss of Lemington, said, "I think we will win seats in May...People are already showing disillusionment [with the Lib Dems]....."! (In which case I'd love to see what the people do to Labour when they are not "showing disillusionment" with us!!!

Nick Forbes is of course on Newcastle Council for his entertainment value. I famously dubbed him "Newcastle's Comical Ali" in the press in May after he said that the local election results in Newcastle were a disaster for the Lib Dems as we had only managed to pick up two more seats from Labour following their collapse in 2004.

But what of the Tories? Their response to 4th place and a not very appetising 6% of the vote came from Brian Moore, a member of their Newcastle executive. He said, "The Conservatives are doing well in local government across the country, including parts of Tyneside." Quite which part of Tyneside he is referring to is not explained.

Across the Tyne here in Gateshead we had a by-election in September and the Conservatives were again in 4th place on 6%. Whilst the collapse of the Conservatives is not absolute, in Newcastle and Gateshead, as with many other large cities, they barely register even as a fringe party.