Lynne Featherstone

Bumped off London Radio by the offensive cartoons! So many callers apparently that they want to take me later in the morning. However, I am otherwise engaged on a campaign team meeting. It’s all go in Haringey for the local elections. Labour know we are in a position to take the council off of them – and for months have been plastering Haringey with posters saying how wonderful the council is! I think they might be able to fool some of the people some of the time, but…

Some of the activists there who had been supporting Ming Campbell originally – said how impressed they were with Chris Huhne on Question Time. Way to go. Ming and Chris had sent leaflets to the HQ for activists to pick up – but none from Simon. Haven’t heard much about his campaign at all.

Spend a good part of the day reading the police grant report – I know – just lucky I guess. It is coming to the Commons tomorrow and I am leading for the Liberal Democrats, so want to be well-informed for the debate. Make some speech notes, do my emails (only about 8 left in inbox – it’s a miracle) and pay bills.

The cartoon issue has gripped every paper and news outlet today – not surprisingly. There is clearly something stirring in the world beyond our shores. My sense is that there is a desire from some quarters for Jihad – and this is just grist to their mill. I sometimes think it is a bit like the days of communism. With communism – ordinary working people were exploited in the name of a wider cause that was supposedly in their interest, but in fact wasn’t – and sacrificed huge numbers of them in the name of the cause.

Same with Muslim extremists – trying to claim that their own extreme beliefs are really on behalf of – and in the interests of – the much wider and larger Muslim community, when in fact – its nothing of the sort, and the extremists are instead trying to exploit the (very different) bulk of Muslim faithful. With communism it was a case of perverse ideology, in this case it’s a case of perverse theology.