Vince Cable's New Statesman Diary (Twickenham & Richmond Liberal Democrats)

Vince Cable's New Statesman Diary

July 7, 2009 4:14 PM

• Vince Cable writes [New Statesman, Mar 26]: ' . . NOTHING - not performing at PMQs, not interviews with Jeremy Paxman - is quite as emotionally draining as the weekly surgery.'

Friday is set aside for constituency duties. I have to get my head around a set of alternative proposals for a derelict site on the Twickenham riverside, one of those neuralgic planning issues which, in this case, has led to paralysis for more than a quarter of a century.

Then I was trying to help resolve a parking issue which has created bitterness between a world-beating, hi-tech small company and local residents whose cars are trapped in narrow streets when deliveries are made. And then, a very long weekly advice surgery with around 20, mainly complex, problems: asylum-seekers from Palestine, Kosovo and the Congo; a Child Support Agency case; a cowboy-builder problem; a man who thinks I am a free tax accountant; a disputed house benefit claim; a homeless man who lives in a garage; a couple driven mad by a wild young man next door, when he is not in prison; a neighbouring borough's cemetery charges; an equity release "rip-off"; an elderly, disabled man fined for parking in a bus lane while collecting medication. Nothing - not performing at PMQs, not interviews with Jeremy Paxman - is quite as emotionally draining as the weekly surgery.

The weekend is a tour of mid-Wales: a 400-mile round trip in support of three of my parliamentary colleagues. Each has assembled large groups of activists and meetings with local business people who tell me about the fight against recession as seen from the front line. There are some positive stories, but the basic message is the same - from Brecon to Cardigan and Aberystwyth to Newtown: shops closing; bloody-minded banks; the burden of business rates; bring back the lost manufacturing. Somewhat punch-drunk after my sixth speech and Q&A, I recover thanks to a long walk in the spring sun with my wife Rachel among the daffodils in a park in Montgomeryshire; and get ready to face the motorway again . . '

Richmond upon Thames Liberal Democrats: