• [Oct 31]: SOUTH West London campaigner, Munira Wilson, has welcomed news that the 110 bus route will now serve West Middlesex Hospital, but the wish of over 2000 residents, that the bus be re-routed via Whitton High Street, continues to be ignored.

The news is a victory for local Lib Dem councillors who have long campaigned for a direct bus from Whitton to the West Mid, to prevent residents having to change buses at Hounslow. However, residents' calls for the 110 to serve Whitton High Street are falling on deaf ears.

• [Jan 22] South West London GLA candidate Munira Wilson has called for a focus on protecting runway alternation instead of re-opening the debate over a third runway at Heathrow. Local residents were shocked to hear Tory MP for neighbouring Spelthorne constituency this week suggest that a new runway be built at one of the airports in the South East - potentially even at Heathrow.

• [Jan 22] SOUTH West London GLA candidate Munira Wilson and Brian Paddick, Lib Dem candidate for Mayor of London, joined the Richmond Street Pastor patrol of Richmond town centre on Friday night.

The Richmond Street Pastors team was set up six months ago by volunteers from local churches who give up time and sleep on a Friday night to listen to, care for and help all those out and about late on the streets of Richmond. They have built up strong relationships with bouncers at Richmond bars and clubs, as well as the local Police who have just given them a grant of £9,000 because of their valuable work.

• [Jan 22]: BBC Video; starts at 31:20.

• [Jan 21]: LAST week Mike Tuffrey - London Assembly Lib Dem Environment Spokesperson - travelled to Sunderland with the London Assembly Environment Committee for a site visit hosted by Nissan, manufacturer of the world's first mass-market electric car. The Committee is currently investigating the Mayor's plans for electric vehicles and their potential environmental benefits.

• [Jan 21]: THE London Assembly this week supported the establishment of a Mayoral Development Area in and around the Olympic Park. Using new powers contained within the Localism Act (2011), the Mayor's plans would create a unique mayoral development corporation (MDC) to drive regeneration and development in the area over future decades. The Corporation would also assume the full range of planning powers and responsibilities (including setting and collecting the Community Infrastructure Levy) - in effect becoming the local planning authority for the area.

• [Jan 21] KEY failings in the way the London bike hire scheme is performing were exposed this week by Caroline Pidgeon, leading to an extensive report by BBC London television. The failings, which are holding back the success of the scheme, include a widespread problem with the allocation of the bikes across the docking stations, making it difficult for people to either hire a bike, or return a bike at the end of a ride. In November 2011 there were on average 27 docking stations in London that had no bikes available for hire for between 6 to 8 hours every day.

• [Jan 20]: TORY Mayor of London Boris Johnson has this week rejected all the funding bids from Richmond Council to his Outer London Fund in a move which will be seen as a clear 'snub' to local Tory London Assembly Member and Richmond councillor Tony Arbour. Bids for a total of nearly £6.2 million had been submitted for a variety of improvements to Twickenham, Whitton, Richmond and East Sheen. All the surrounding boroughs of Kingston, Hounslow, Wandsworth and Sutton were awarded funding for their bids but not a penny was announced for Richmond, despite the borough having a Tory London Assembly member at City Hall who is also a leading borough councillor.

• [Jan 20]: THE Tory administration has decided to cut the Council's maintenance programme for schools by 20 % from next April. News of the £254,000 budget cut was announced on Wednesday (18th) to representatives of the borough's head teachers and governors. The budget is for the larger cost items which cannot normally be paid for out of school reserves. It is used for providing replacement roofs and boilers, repairing blocked drains and providing new windows.

• [Jan 20]: ALL Richmond Council staff should be paid at least the rate of the 'London Living Wage', according to the Liberal Democrats. The London Living Wage is set annually by the Mayor of London as the minimum basic rate of pay that is needed to live in London (currently £8.30 an hour). Liberal Democrat Leader Stephen Knight has tabled a motion at next week's council meeting calling on the Conservative run Council to ensure that no council staff are, "paid on a spinal point lower than the London Living Wage." Whilst the London Living Wage is increased annually by the Mayor of London to take account of rising living costs, the pay rates in local government have been largely frozen for three years. This means that the lowest paid council staff are now paid about 50p an hour less than the London Living Wage.

• [Jan 20]: RICHMOND Council 'forgot' to ask a developer for a contribution to affordable housing until reminded by a Liberal Democrat councillor at last week's planning committee. The council's policy (DM HO 6), adopted only two months ago, requires developers of small housing developments (less than ten homes) to make a financial contribution to the Council's Affordable Housing Fund. An application (11/2047) for 8 residential units in place of garages adjacent to Railway Cottage, White Hart Lane, Barnes should therefore have led to negotiations for a financial contribution to the Affordable Housing Fund. However, though submitted as recently as 21st June 2011 when the policy was emerging, no such request had been made.

• [Jan 18] Andrew (St Ives, Liberal Democrat): A YEAR ago the Prime Minister told me that the reason for the, at the time, new Health and Social Care Bill was "simply that this country now has European levels of health spending but does not have European levels of success".-[Hansard, 19 January 2011; Vol. 521, c. 831.] Now that we know that that is not the case, will the Prime Minister shelve this disruptive and destructive Bill, which is struggling in another place, go back to the coalition agreement and build from there?

• [Jan 16] Baroness Doocey (Liberal Democrat): MY Lords, I should like also to speak to Amendments 35 and 89. These amendments relate to the ability of claimants, the majority of whom are disabled, to appeal against decisions on their entitlement to welfare benefits. The intention behind these amendments is to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The Bill as it stands would remove social welfare cases from the scope of legal aid, which would have an adverse and disproportionate impact on disabled people in particular, and would leave them unable effectively to challenge decisions when they are let down by the system.

• [Jan 16] NICK Clegg has today announced the participants in the Liberal Democrat Leadership Programme. The Leadership Programme is designed to support future Parliamentary candidates from under-represented backgrounds through training, mentoring, shadowing opportunities and more.

More than two-thirds of participants are female and a third are from BME backgrounds. Furthermore, a significant number of participants are disabled, openly LGBT, under 30 years old and/or from a lower socio-economic background.
Download the Candidate Leadership Programme Participant Profiles document here.

Commenting, Nick Clegg said

• [Jan 18] Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore MP writes a regular column for local newspapers in his constituency. Here's the latest edition, covering his busy week at Westminster and in the Borders:

• Independence Referendum: Deciding on the future of our country and whether it remains in the UK or becomes independent will undoubtedly be the most important decision we Borderers make in our lifetime . . when the referendum does come it is vital that it provides us with a true and fair opportunity to determine the future of our country.

• [Jan 18] Tim Farron writes: ARE 2 Eds better than one? I'm not sure - but the two Eds said something very interesting over the weekend: apparently they don't have a 'Plan B' for the economy after all!

As I drove into the village of Haverthwaite . . Ed Balls popped up. I listened with amazement. In his interview he admitted not only that the programme of cuts being carried out by the Coalition government were right, but that Labour would not over turn them if they were in Government . . In addition, Nick Clegg deserves an apology. Nick has been berated and abused by the Labour leadership over the last 18 months for having the guts to stand up and work as part of the Coalition in the best interest of the country. Now Labour have admitted that their attacks were inaccurate - but there's no hint of apology. They have gone from being in the wrong place, to all over the place.

• [Jan 17] Helen Duffett: THERE'S a great article in today's Times [£] praising the Liberal Democrats and fancying the party's prospects between now and 2015. Rachel Sylvester writes that although the received wisdom says coalition government has ruined the Lib Dems' chances, it's too early to write them off: the Liberal Democrats could end up doing a lot better than most people currently think.

• [Jan 17] Norman Lamb* writes: IN the debate on so-called crony capitalism two things are clear. First there is genuine and widespread anger at corporate greed and irresponsible capitalism. Second, politicians from the left have been groping around, without much success, trying to come up with convincing responses.

• [Jan 17] Caroline Pidgeon* writes: LAST week Brian Paddick and I launched a fairer fares package ahead of this year's London Mayoral and Assembly elections.

Boris Johnson has been Mayor of London since 2008. In just four years he has increased the cheapest bus fare from 90p to £1.35 - and he had planned to raise fares even further until the Coalition Government stepped in and helped limit the rise. As well as bus fares, the cost of travelling on the Tube, the Docklands Light Railway, the Croydon Tramlink and the London Overground have all soared under Mr Johnson's mayoralty.

• [Jan 16] Andrew George* writes: THE Iron Lady cast a steely shadow over the Westminster village last week. Memories of Baroness Thatcher's reign of heavy metal terror still strike fear in those who inhabited the place in the days when she would mercilessly handbag anyone who dared to cross her path.

• [Jan 13] THIS week saw the last full meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority. Dee Doocey, who has been a long standing member of the MPA, has produced a short briefing on the new arrangements which start from Monday:

The Government's legislation to reform the accountability of policing (Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill) received Royal Assent in September 2011. Nationally, all police authorities will be replaced with directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners in November next year, but because London already has an elected Mayor and the London Assembly, the new arrangements will be adopted in London on the 16th January 2012.

• [Jan 20] George Eaton writes: . . SO, who rises if Huhne falls? Ed Davey, the employment minister and Vince Cable's deputy, is the name most frequently cited as a possible replacement. He is well regarded by Lib Dem MPs after fending off some of the wilder proposals contained in Adrian Beecroft's report on labour market reform. The Standard also suggests that Jeremy Browne, the Foreign Office minister, is in the running.

• [Jan 20]: LAST year, the Council agreed to buy the Clifden Road site of Richmond Adult Community College and is now considering whether to make the site available to establish:

- a five-form Voluntary Aided Catholic secondary school*; and

- a one-form Voluntary Aided Catholic primary school with some community places.**

• [Jan 17] Rachel Bishop writes: THE Liberal Democrat candidate for London Mayor has claimed incumbent Boris Johnson is not doing enough to inspire Londoners to get active and exploit the Olympics legacy . .

Mr Paddick said: "Legacy is such an important issue, which previous Olympic cities have failed to capitalise on, and sadly it seems Boris Johnson will be adding London to that list. In 2009, the Mayor pledged to spend £15.5m on his Sport Legacy Fund to inspire Londoners to get active, but figures showed there had been no significant shift in sports participation in London since 2007. Only 16 % of Londoners participated in three 30 minute sports activities per week. It is essential that all the Olympic-related benefits that were promised continue to be delivered after the closing ceremony."

• [Jan 16] Nick Clegg: ANOTHER week, another speech about the evils of capitalism. Let me start by asking: who here is in favour of irresponsible capitalism? Because you won't find many people arguing for more recklessness, more short-termism or greater rewards at the top. On the contrary - the growing consensus is that we need the opposite: a more sustainable economy; a more balanced economy, where rewards are proportionate and relate to real success.

• [Jan 10] COMMENTING on today's [Tuesday] speech by Ed Miliband, Liberal Democrat Party President Tim Farron said: "While Ed Miliband talks about delivering fairness in tough times, Liberal Democrats have been doing it. Labour hit the poorest workers by scrapping the 10p tax rate; Liberal Democrats have lifted a million of the poorest workers out of tax altogether and given 23m workers a £200 tax cut.

• [Jan 13] Cllr David Williams* writes: SIR - The disastrous decision of Richmond Council's Conserva­tives to give planning permis­sion to the Solum scheme at Twickenham station on De­cember 19 will haunt them for a long time. Only six days before this planning committee the coun­cil approved a new planning strategy (local development framework development man­agement plan). Two of the key policies in this are strong restrictions on tall buildings and provision of affordable housing in large res­idential developments. Both of these policies were ignored by the Tories on the planning committee.

• [Jan 10] Menzies Campbell (North East Fife, Liberal Democrat): I AM well aware of the convention that Governments do not publish legal advice, but, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out, this is a decision that can almost be described as unique because it would bring to an end hundreds of years of history. May I therefore urge him to reconsider whether the advice received by the Government should be published so as to achieve the clarity that Mr Straw spoke about in relation to statistics?

• [Jan 10] Julian Huppert (Cambridge, Liberal Democrat): THE Liberal Democrats were the first party to push for high-speed rail, back in 2004-[ Interruption. ] I realise that the Opposition may not appreciate the fact. I am delighted that the coalition is going ahead with this, and I congratulate the Transport Secretary on that decision. Phases 1 and 2 will bring great benefits, and the news about phase 2 going to Manchester and Leeds is very welcome. Can she say something about her future aspirations for the connection through to Scotland?

• [Jan 11] John Pugh (Southport, Liberal Democrat): IF the Government are paying for something that is needed, it is logical to assume that some private firms must be dodging their responsibilities. If those firms are not indemnified against the risks of surgery or willing to accept responsibility for its consequences, why on earth do we allow them to practise? Does the remedy not lie in our hands?