Lynne Featherstone

Went to a hanging! Well – not quite. As Shadow Minister for Women I went to celebrate the ‘hanging’ of the portraits of women MPs in our party groups at the National Portrait Gallery.

This project to celebrate women in the House as well as all the anniversaries this year of womens’ suffrage was driven forward by Boni Somes of Women’s Parliamentary Radio amongst other projects.

Boni had managed to get us all together in our party groups and be photographed on the steps opposite Westminster Hall entrance – albeit on the Liberal Democrat one Julia Goldsworthy and I had to be photo-shopped in. It was an impossible task – but Boni managed it.

Anyway Angela Eagle for the Government, Teresa May for the Tories and myself all spoke and championed the need for more images of women and celebrations thereof – to encourage more women to come and join us. To support the cause – Lib Dem MPs Jo Swinson, Susan Kramer and Sandra Gidley rallied to the cause.

There was a view that the portraits would be better hung at Parliament – so in fact I believe that is what will happen.

You just never know what’s around the corner.

The day started normally – emails and paperwork and writing a speech for my lunchtime engagement at an Eid celebratory lunch at a local mosque.

The event at the mosque was really well done. First there was a series of speeches, poems and songs from children and prayers and translations. All the faiths were invited to take part – alongside the Mayor, Council leader and myself and David Lammy – as the two local MPs.

It was a model example of how active faith communities can cross the barriers of suspicion of the unknown and work the good that religion was intended for rather than the evil perversions practised by the very few.

I spoke about how London (and Haringey) is actually a real example of where the commonality of us all overrides our differences. I truly believe that what we have in common is far stronger than what divides us.

As this celebration is to mark the sacrifice that the Prophet Ibrahim was prepared to make to Allah of his son Ishmail (which is as far as I can see the same story as that in the Old Testament which is celebrated by Jewish faith) – and then God spares them the human sacrifice and a lamb is used instead. This was God’s test to see how strong Ibrahim’s faith was. When he demonstrated his faith – God spared them.

Struck as ever by the similarities between Muslim and Jew – we then were given a really delicious lunch. Food in both those religions is very, very important.

Went home to try and clear backlog of emails etc and to begin to phone around key London Lib Dems for Chris Huhne’s leadership campaign. As ever – most people were out! However, spoke to people in Ealing, Islington, Redbridge, Barnet and Westminster. What I picked up was a surprisingly strong amount of support for Chris and where people knew him they seemed to be voting for him.

It was also quite clear that there was a desire to vote for him – but a hesitation because people don’t know him as well as Ming or Simon. Ming did not seem to have that much support from those I spoke to except in one place and Simon was popular in London and well-liked – but activists had some nervousness about how well the party would fare under his guidance.

Our challenge is to get Chris known. It’s like the Sky debate – once you’ve seen him perform and heard what he has to say – he can convert very easily. But how do we get him ‘known’ in such a short contest – especially as the party’s rules don’t give us access to the membership list?

We will just do our best. He is certainly gaining on the others as far as I can tell – but it was London I was speaking to – so don’t know if replicated across the country. Will find out Tuesday.

As for the end of the day – well all hell broke loose! For a party that struggles to get even one column inch – recent events have put us wall to wall across the media.

A pager message – followed two seconds later by breaking news on Sky – announced that Mark Oaten had resigned as Shadow Home Secretary over allegations about himself and a rent-boy about to be broken in the News of the World. The paper had showed him the evidence and he immediately stepped down.

And then what happens is that everyone texts everyone else to check if they have seen the news and there is shock. This wasn’t something that had even had a whisper as far as I know. There had been a vague rumour about an affair the weekend Mark was sick with food poisoning (and I had had to front the meeting with Charles Clark) – but I am convinced it was food poisoning, and it was a very, very vague whisper. However, nothing at all along these lines. I just felt extremely sorry for both Mark and his wife. You wonder how someone can risk going for the spotlight that a leadership bid puts on you – but human beings are human. That’s our fault line.

Alistair Carmichael – who was number two in the Home Affairs team – will step up until the leadership contest is finished, and then the new leader will decide what is what and who is where. Alistair is absolutely wonderful – so I am relieved that an experienced and talented (and really, really, nice) person will be at the helm. I love Home Affairs – and as number three in the team it is a great place to learn how to handle legislation and the issues that interest me so much.

I spoke to Alistair – and he seems very calm about taking over – which is good. Sarah Teather texted me – and we are both on the sorry for Mark and his family side of this. I texted Mark just to say that was thinking of him and to keep strong – his text came back ‘so sorry’. Sandra Gidley – my co-chair on Chris’s campaign – shocked because this came as a ‘bolt out of the blue’. And many other texts and messages flying around our Lib Dem world as we try and assess what this will mean.

I also get emotional – along with everyone I guess – at the death of the Thames River whale. You see – that’s the real good in mankind. In the middle of everything that goes on in our lives – we stop, completely gripped with emotion to hope that this one whale can be saved. I am reaffirmed in my view that human beings are basically good – but life is just a hard, old road.

Virtually no sleep last night. Worked very late to finish everything for Chris Huhne‘s launch today. At the launch a barrage of cameras greeted us as we came down the stairs in pre-arranged grouping. I introduced Chris – but forgot a bit (a Friday 13th moment)! C’est la vie.

Chris was damned impressive. Absolutely spot on, authoritative and driving. Obvious lines of attack in questions like – ‘as a new MP you don’t have the experience’. Chris blew that one out of the water with ‘six years in parliament in Europe – making two more in total than the new Tory Leader’. Personally I think it is a plus if someone hasn’t been completely immersed in the customs and practises of Westminster. Time the real world entered the doors. And there is plenty of experience around him – the launch was liberally sprinkled with members of the other place.

So hopefully we are off to a flying start – with Chris’s betting odds dropping from an original 300-1 to around 7-1 at close of play today.

After stopping for a breather with my co-chair of the Campaign, Sandra Gidley MP, I zoomed back to Haringey Civic Centre for the second of two scrutiny meetings on mobile phone masts. God knows how many hours residents, parents, councillors, officers, government staff and the mobile phone company public relations officers have spent in the last few years running round in circles.

The Government guidelines to councils are not worth the paper they are written on and the ’10 commitments’ by the phone companies deliver nothing as far as I can see but an industry of spin. I hope Haringey Council’s scrutiny recommends proper legislative action from Government. Can’t help but remember though that the Government did get a windfall payment of many billions from licensing. Still suspect they feel that makes it impossible to move into any serious restriction of masts or their sitting.

Grab post as fly past my constituency office as have to get home to a landline to do a 20 minute live radio show – Premier Radio – which is a Christian radio broadcaster. There was me, the show’s host and the Chair of the LibDem Christian forum, Martin. We roamed across all four leadership candidates – and it was a very positive discussion.