Welcome to my first blogpost. I have just completed a hectic week after being re-elected to Camden Council on 6th May for West Hampstead ward. It was with some relief that the campaign finished as I had suffered badly from the physical exertions involved. Both of my knees are affected by arthritis and so the regular leafleting to addresses involving steps to basement flats had been particularly painful.

Sadly not all of my Liberal Democrat colleagues were returned. The Labour surge in London impacted on Camden, as it did in Brent and Islington too, and so the next four years will be spent on the opposition benches. This might not be such a bad place to be. The expected cut-backs in local government spending now likely to help clear the national deficit will mean there will be real cuts in services in Camden which the Labour Party will have to impose. There is some justice to this state of affairs because it was Labour's carefree relationship with the financial services industry while in power which created the mess in the first place.

We still await the outcome of the Labour Group's machinations at the end of the induction session yesterday afternoon. Will Nash Ali remain it's leader? Or will Theo Blackwell take the crown?

But I have more important things to concern myself with. I need to travel to Birmingham for the Liberal Democrat Special Conference to debate the national coalition.

We live in interesting times.