Is this what they mean by a cheesy political grin?

It's odd, being a politician. Being at ones constituents beck and call day in day out.

Someone phoned me at about 8.30pm on Wednesday night to arrange a meeting and when I suggested that as I was halfway through my dinner we could look at dates some other time, they said that as I was a councillor now I'd better get used to being at their disposal at all times.

Is this right? Is this even proper? Should your elected representatives be available for your wants and needs at all hours and on all days, or should you afford them some time off? At risk of sounding mercenary, would you be prepared to give up your entire life for £9000.- a year?

Even at the price we pay for the prime minister, approximately £150,000.+pa, shouldn't we expect to afford him a little time off? Do you work more efficiently, are you keener and more eager, if you've had a break from your job? Does your free-time give you the opportunity to recharge your batteries and allow you the time to clear your mind and reapproach tasks from a fresh perspective?

Local councillor in reflective mood tonight, as he often gets with too little sleep and the thoughts of local politics muddling through his mind.

One final question. In this day and age, is it more important to you that I do an excellent job, that I stretch every nerve and sinew, that I respond to your wants and mores and explore every possible way to alleviate your problems and find answers to your questions? Or do you care more whether I've shaved that morning?

I think that the job I do for you is more important.

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Back to blog, back to reality...

My it's all getting exciting isn't it? All this party political stuff, what with the various conferences. I went to my first ever conference for a day and a half and sat through an really excellent debate on our new tax proposals. The Green Switch.
I even sat through something that described itself rather hopefully as a debate on nuclear fuel. I say 'rather hopefully', as we were all pretty solid in our opposition to nuclear fuel, or any other sort of nuclear for that matter, so the debate was pretty one sided but I guess that makes it more good natured doesn't it?

I was struck in the following two weeks by the remarkable differences between the LibDem conference and the Labour and Conservative ones. We spend our time debating policy, the Labour Party spends it's time bickering about jobs and skirting round any discussion on policy, and the Con's (once again the shortened version says it all!) made a point of avoiding policy like the plague.

The country tells us time and time again that they want substance, not the politics of spin, yet the two other main parties really can't bring themselves to discuss the way forward, preferring to concentrate on the cult of personality over anything to do with reality.

Now we're all back from the holiday season (conference by another name), we've just announced that we are already rolling out several of our central manifesto pledges. The Labour group, or at least their mouth-piece Theo Blackwell (can any of the others even talk?) has tried to spin even at this point. One would have thought that rather than trying to form a few catchy sound-bites, he and his front bench colleagues would be trying to think up their own manifesto pledges. It works so well for us, maybe it's worth a go by them?

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Fashion is recycling old clothes

So what did you do at the weekend? Personally I spent it cutting up old clothes and creating new things to wear. Another great example of recycling. All you need is a pile of old garments you don't like any more, some ideas, some time and, preferably, a friend or a mum that's a whizz on a sewing machine.