Excuse the second personal post in 48 hours, but I have more news and wanted to tell residents as soon as I could! 

I will be standing for parliament in the General Election in the next door constituency of Hornchurch & Upminster - the two places that I grew up.  I lived in Hornchurch until I was 3 and in Upminster until I was 21 when we moved to Brentwood.  Naturally, that makes it the next logical place to stand after Brentwood & Ongar and I would like to thank Havering Lib Dems for inviting me to be their candidate.

It’s exciting stuff!  When I agreed to stand in Brentwood West in 2006, I never thought that it would lead me to this sort of opportunity and I am grateful to those who helped me achieve the status of “prospective parliamentary candidate”, especially as the Liberal Demcocrats continue to prosper (after all, we are now the second biggest party in local government). 

I’m sure I will be accused of many things by my opponents having made this announcement and called a “career politician”, but I’m really not.  I’m just an ordinary person who happened to get into politics to speak up for people and feels that this is the right thing to do.

Where does this leave my residents in Brentwood West?  Well, no change really as I have now given up my job and have all that spare time!  Should I get elected as MP for Hornchurch & Upminster then I would still serve out my term (ends May 2011) as I am bound to do.  (After all, Bob Russell, Colchester’s Lib Dem MP, served as MP and borough councillor for five years concurrently, so there’s no reason why I couldn’t do the same!).

If I’m not an MP by the summer, well then it’s business as usual!  I will continue to do what I love, being ward councillor for Brentwood West and look for re-election in my seat next year.

But have no doubts, I’ll still be knocking on your doors and am happy to assist with any problems that you have and hoping that the good people of this ward elect Nigel Clarke as your second Lib Dem borough councillor on Thursday 6th May!

A little announcement about me!  Tomorrow will be my last day as a civil servant - I will be leaving the Office of Fair Trading and my role as Head of Marketing for Consumer Direct.

I’ve been very fortunate to have been in a job ever since I left school 23 years ago and I have worked at some interesting places (including Selfridges, Tesco Clubcard, Lakeside & Hartswood Hospital).  But, this job has come to a natural end and it is time to depart.  I think I have earned myself a little break, so I’ll be concentrating on politics for now and my role as Campaign Manager for Cllr David Kendall as he bids to oust Eric Pickles as our MP and as agent for Nigel Clarke as we bid to get you a second Lib Dem councillor in Brentwood West to speak up and fight for you.

Although I am allowed to be politically active in my role (not many civil servants are), I’ve also found it difficult to separate the two roles.  So, for a while at least, being a councillor will be my main job, and I am pleased to have this opportunity because I love representing you!

My life has changed quite a bit since I started this job four years ago - I got elected as Lib Dem councillor for Brentwood West a year later and, what started as a hobby, has become fundamentally important to me as I have seen this Tory council drag us down to being the worst council in Essex.  I believe I am doing what I can for residents as a key opposition councillor and I will now get the chance to do more. 

I should just end with a plug for Consumer Direct, as I am proud of what I’ve achieved there.  If you want to know your consumer rights you can follow them on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Consumer_Direct or find CD on Facebook!

It will also be good to see more of my cats, my little dog and lovely nephew Freddie who turns three on Saturday!

It seems that the national press have picked up on the complaint I have made about Cllr Keith Parker’s comments about gay people and victims of domestic violence.  The story was in the News of the World yesterday and a full report has appeared in The Daily Telegraph today.

On Monday, I wrote about my experience at Overview & Scrutiny.  I drew your attention to some homophobic comments made by a Tory councillor. 

Well, having had the opportunity to review the webcast, it wasn’t just a homophobic comment, there was also a poor taste comment made about those who are suffering domestic abuse.  Something which I have very strong views on and have tried to assist people with.

This gave me no choice but to make a formal complaint about the conduct of the councillor concerned.  Why?  Because you elected me to “stand up for you and make your voice heard” and that includes the groups mentioned above.  All councillors have a responsibility to the community they serve and I take mine very seriously indeed.

You can hear the comments at the O&S panel by going to the webcast of the meeting on www.brentwood.gov.uk and watching from 1hr 39m 35s and my attempt to clarify his comment at 1hr 42m 37s.

Very exciting evening on Thursday - Cllr Kendall and I met Vince Cable MP at a fundraiser for our friend Stephen Robinson, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Chelmsford. 

Chelmsford is certainly considered as a very possible Liberal Democrat gain at the general election and Vince confirmed that eyes are on Brentwood & Ongar too - it’s wouldn’t be the first time a Tory Party Chairman would have lost his seat to a Liberal Democrat (see Chris Pattern in 1992 who lost to Lib Dem Don Foster in Bath, who is still the MP there).  David is the PPC for Brentwood & Ongar.

Anyway, we had the opportunity to talk to Vince about small businesses, the economic situation and all our future hopes!

You’ll remember my earlier postings about Darcy the Rescue Dog who had been put in to quarantine after helping her team, Essex Fire & Rescue, in Indonesia.  I’d also highlighted the issue to the Brentwood Gazette and went on Phoenix FM to talk about her with Mike Le Surf and Nigel Clarke.

Good news today - Darcy has been released from quarantine!  She hasn’t been able to go home, but Defra have allowed her to serve out the rest of her time in her workplace in Lexden, in familiar surroundings with the people who know her!  This will allow the service to meet the needs of a search and rescue dog as she can maintain her training and exercise regime.  She’ll certainly be a lot happier there!

It was only today that Colchester’s Lib Dem MP Bob Russell started a T-shirt campaign to highlight the Darcy campaign and had actually brought along one of his campaign T-shirts to the dinner in Chelmsford that Cllr David Kendall and I attended tonight with Vince Cable MP (more later….).  Bob knew that I had also been working hard to highlight Darcy’s plight via my website, Facebook and Twitter so we thought we would celebrate together!

I’ve been busy today at the Essex Liberal Democrat Conference delivering a presentation called “Bouncing Back in Brentwood” which covered our success in the county elections in June this year.

It went down very well with everyone and I did have a bit of fun with the theme - an orange smiley Spacehopper (this was one of my favourite toys growing up in the 70s…kids these days don’t know WHAT they are missing out on!!!)

What’s clear is that the Lib Dems seem to be on the up and up in Essex, after all we are the official opposition, with all local parties increasing in numbers of members and activists.  This “first past the post” system doesn’t tell you the full truth - in Brentwood we got 30% of the vote in June, converted into councillors this would give us 11 (+5) and the Tories 18 (-10) and would really change the way debate pans out in the chamber (for instance, this would mean the planning committee would only have 8 Tory members and we would have 5). 

Meanwhile, we will keep on fighting against a huge democratic deficit!

Apologies there have been no posts since last week, but I’ve been away at the Lib Dem party conference in Bournemouth since Friday morning.  As Chair of the local party, I go to conference as a Voting Member.  As you might expect from a party with the word “democracyâ€� in it’s name, members vote on all party policy at conference after electing a number of voting conference representatives at the local party’s AGM.

Saturday morning started with a discussion about the General Election.  After Eric Pickles disastrous appearance on Question Time in March, there’s everything to play for at this general election especially as Eric spends more and more time as Tory Party Chairman and less time representing you (from www.theyworkforyou.com: Eric has spoken in 6 debates in the last year — well below average amongst MPs and has voted in 53% of votes in parliament with this affiliation — well below average amongst MPs).  Watch out Eric….with the gain of two County Seats in June there’s a chance of an upset in Brentwood & Ongar from our prospective parliamentary candidate, Cllr David Kendall.

I was really looking forward to the opening debate: The Real Women Policy paper, which was duly accepted, plans to ban airbrushing in adverts targeted at children in the policy paper Real Women.  The measures in the paper are part of a wide range of proposals to protect women and girls against body image pressure, encourage healthier lifestyles and tackle pay discrimination.  I voted for the paper, and an important amendment to look to get more coverage for women’s sports and not treat our national football and cricket teams, for example, as second class.

Saturday night’s conference rally, with Baroness Ros Scott, Party President, Charles Kennedy MP with the key note speech from Nick Clegg MP was an amazing event – not least because of the inspirational speech from party member and former “Play School� presenter Floella Benjamin OBE.  Nick made it quite clear that the Liberal Democrats are the only party offering change for real, change for good.  Think about how many times we’ve got it right, even being the lone voice on many occasions, on issues such as Iraq, climate change, Northern Rock (quote from a speaker – George Osborne would be a chancellor on work experience and was so far behind us on Northern Rock that we lapped him), bankers’ bonuses., the Speaker and the Gurkhas.On Sunday, I attended the debate on Civil Liberties which contained radical proposals to reverse the huge erosion of civil liberties that has taken place under the Labour Government.  One important motion was from Liberal Youth who, based on advice, asked for the policy to ban the use of Mosquito Devices (which was overwhelmingly passed). 

In the evening, I attended an event with Nick Clegg where he set out his formula for a successful modern Britain: more pride in who we are, greater power in individuals’ hands and full equality among citizens.

Monday was, sadly, my last day at conference as there is a planning meeting tonight which I am committed to.  There was a lively debate on MPs expenses, reform of which Lib Dems have called for for years which was passed and a debate on the government’s alleged complicity in torture. 

Of course, the highlight of Monday’s conference agenda was Vince Cable’s speech, which was awesome!  It also underpinned our commitment to social justice and outlined the plans Vince would put in place when he’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

The Liberal Democrats’ commitment to the Military Covenant was also re-affirmed. 

Finally, Cllr David Kendall and I attended Nick Clegg’s reception for approved parliamentary candidates before heading home through the night.  So, I return from conference proud to be a Liberal Democrat and looking forward to the future, believing that the future is bright.

It’s that time of the week where you get to see where Nigel and I have been shopping this week!  Are we still supporting local trader?  Yes we are!

This week we’d like to say a big hello to Nails at Studio 4 in Roper’s Yard who specialise in making fingers and toes pretty!  Corinne, Claire, Hubbard and the gang will make you welcome and keep you plied with tea!

I was really chuffed this morning to discover that this site has been selected as “My Councillor Site of the Month” by the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors.

When I started this site, I wanted it to be a mixture of local news and issues, general issues to help people, campaigns and a few funnies too (as well as animal stuff!).  It seems to have hit the spot!

I am particularly pleased to have come across as a “human being” and that the ALDC have noted that I care about my ward - which I do!  But the classic line has to be:

“It also has the unique distinction of being the only MyCouncillor site to have pictures of both dogs and meerkats on the front page!”

 Thanks ALDC!