Extracts from our Borough and Constituency Newsletters [in reverse date order]

• TWICKENHAM constituency newsletter, January 2008:

* * * 2007 & earlier * * * 2007 & earlier * * * 2007 & earlier * * *

Summer 2007

• NEWS FROM VINCE: With Gordon Brown taking up the job of Prime Minister this month. we are settling down to an expected two year campaign before a General Election in spring 2009 (although a snap election this autumn cannot be ruled out entirely). I have expressed a wish to stand again in Twickenham and very much hope I can count on your continued support. I am very conscious of the fact that. while I have a high profile role nationally these days. it is essential to hold Twickenham with a good majority. Our members and supporters are crucial to our getting out the messages to the local electorate. There will of course also be London elections next May and it is important that the SW London campaign of Stephen Knight succeeds against Mr Tony Arbour and that we maximise support for our Assembly candidates. especially our local serving members Dee Doocey and Geoff Pope. on the party list.

• There will be a natural tendency in the media to concentrate on Cameron v Brown in the coming months and it is vital that we are not squeezed out of the national debate. One way is by emphasising issues we have a distinctive and progressive position - Iraq. the environment. civil liberties - and in the next few weeks I will be rolling out an updated version of our tax policies which will " involve income tax cuts for those on low and middle incomes and increases for the very wealthy and on polluting activities. I have also been leading our campaign to expose the murky. unethical practices involved in Britain's arms exports to Saudi Arabia which the government and the Conservatives (because r:'!!" . of their own involvement) want to sweep under the carpet. Having shadowed Gordon Brown. now. for approaching four years I will miss our regular exchanges which have been characterised. I think. by hard-hitting but constructive and good natured intentions. This spirit was I think captured by the last Treasury questions:

• Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham) (LD): It is obvious that employment growth. low claimant unemployment and general economic stability are among the Chancellor's successes. In the same spirit of generosity. and since this is his last outing aJ Chancellor. will he acknowledge that there have been some mistakes in the past 10 years? They include. among other things! the London Transport public-private partnership. individual learning accounts. U-turns on film tax credits. company incorporation. operating financial reviews. the Treasury's treatment of Railtrack. dividend tax credits. tax credit overpayments. rampant inflation in the housing market. widening inequalities in wealth.

Mr Brown: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) for his customary generosity. If there have been mistakes. it is usually when we have listened to the Liberals.

Whoever his successor is will, I suspect be an altogether lesser and duller figure.

• CLLR SERGE LOURIE leader of Richmond upon Thames Council and Kew ward councillor writes about the first year of Liberal Democrat control of the Council. It is a year since Lib Dems won back control of Richmond upon Thames Council. In our manifesto, we promised to:

1 . put the environment at the heart of decision making;

2. improve secondary schools;

3. invest in youth;

4. improve the Council's finances.

On environment, we have;

I. introduced radical differential C02 charging in controlled parking zones;

2. reorganised refuse collection to introduce doorstep recycling of cardboard and plastic bottles;

3. appointed an energy team to reduce energy use;

4. set aside £ 1.25m to invest in energy efficiency; and

5. replaced the mayoral Daimler with a hybrid Prius.

• In recognition of our success, we became LD Green Group of the year at Harrogate and received a coveted London Award for our C02 policy. Secondary schools' results are improving; we are investing £24m to rebuild Teddington School and will invest £20m in other secondaries. We have set up a £ 1m fund to finance improvements to youth premises - to be controlled by young people - and £2S0,OOO per annum for running costs. The finances are coming under control and we had a council tax increase of under 5% compared with the Tories' 15.6%. We will reduce the reserves of £54m over the next three years. We expect to have a general reserve of around 5% of total expenditure in 2010. Richmond upon Thames will become the most cost­effective borough and will provide first-rate services, which currently have the sixth highest satisfaction level in the country.

• Geoff Pope AM [Chair London Assembly Transport Committee] writes: In June I launched at the London University Union a new Liberal Democrat half fares policy for students. London is the high fares capital of the world .. On average the cost of living for a university student is £5000 a year more than the maximum student loan, and 90% are in debt. All students following full time university and college courses should travel half price on buses tube DLR and tram. This could easily be funded from the Mayor's exorbitant advertising and publicity budget. It has been calculated that an undergraduate loses £5000 per year. This will be one step towards reducing that burden. • I met with Ian Dobbs the Chief Executive of Stagecoach Rail who run South West Trains, to protest at their fares hike for off peak fares. Cheap Day Return tickets are now only available after midday instead of 9.30 am. He told me that Stagecoach do not intend to introduce further. Increases of this kind with the possible exception of first class fares. We will see! You can contact me at geoff.pope@london.gov.uk

• [In June the International Olympic Committee visited London to assess London's progress, and gave a very positive report, saying that preparations were "on time and on track"; they also said that London was more advanced in their preparations than any host city in Olympic history]. Dee Doocey AM writes: Whilst I clearly welcome the reports from the IOC that London is progressing well, I still have reservations about certain aspects of the legacy from the Olympic and Paralympic Games. There is a real issue over the cycling legacy that will be left after 2012, and for some time now I have been working closely with various cycling bodies in London, and the Olympic Delivery Authority, to ensure that the cycling facilities London was promised after 2012 are actually delivered. And it is all very well having an Olympic roadshow to encourage people to 'join in', but the fact is that an extra £60 million is being diverted from grass roots sports as a result of the increase in the Olympics budget. How are local sports clubs expected to thrive if their funding is being cut? But my main concern is that the employment and skills we have been promised will not actually reach the people who need them most - those in the hardest to reach, most deprived communities in London. You can contact me at Dee.Doocey@london.gov.uk

Winter 2007

Vince Cable MP writes: After Christmas and new year I returned to hundreds of emails and questionnaires protesting about the proposed police custody unit in Teddington; others arguing against the council's environmental charge for car parking zones; yet others incensed by higher rail fares. In short: business as usual. There is some concern that our public opinion ratings have sagged at the year end to an average of 18% as against 20% a year earlier. I am more philosophical. We have gone through a very difficult year. I arrived back from a family holiday last new year to find the British news media in my front garden when the Charles Kennedy story broke. We survived that drama and a difficult leadership election. We have re-established internal discipline and are modernising the campaigning side of the party. It was inevitable, with the Tories (at least at national leadership level) behaving more sensibly and moderately, that there would be tougher competition. The media's love affair with Cameron continues and we are finding it difficult to get into the story nationally.

The May elections (outside London) will also be tough since, while we shall make gains in the big cities, we have large numbers of councillors defending small rural seats where the Tories are recovering. There is still every reason to be positive. Where we have come up with good, well researched, policies, as we did on taxation and the environment, they are well received. Despite the hopes of the Tory and Labour leadership that the Iraq war would disappear as an issue, the poisonous legacy remains and the Lib Dems' judgement in opposing the war continues to reflect well on us. The continued erosion of civil liberties gives us a distinctive platform. We were the only party to speak out against the appalling cynicism in dropping the investigation into large scale corruption in Saudi arms contracts. There will be an opportunity at spring conference to attack the government's (and the Tory's) decision to press ahead with Trident replacement. And on the electoral battlefield we have demonstrated locally through our councillors, that we can beat Cameron's Tories.

We continue to have some impressive victories over Labour and the Conservatives in local by-elections (as those of you who read Lib Dem News will have noticed). And for those who didn't notice it, my opponent in the 2005 election, Mr Maynard, has give up and taken on a seat in Blackpool. I always remind colleagues who are inclined to lapse into pessimism that when I competed for the Twickenham nomination in 1989 the new Lib Dem party had just over 3% in the opinion polls; a leader (Paddy Ashdown) who had yet to make a mark and was largely unknown; a tendency in the media always to treat us with ridicule or ignorance; and there was a Tory MP with a solid majority of over 7,000. I am always touched by those members and activists who have stayed throughout the long march and are helping still. Today's difficulties are very minor compared to those we have overcome.

Geoff Pope AM [Chair London Assembly Transport Committee] writes: The wrong plan in the wrong place : This February London' s congestion charge zone will double in size. It is being extended westwards through Kensington and Chelsea to Earls Court. Liberal Democrats did back the original Central London conngestion charge zone in 2003. The charge has successfully reduced congestion and the use of private cars, whilst bus use, cycling and walking have increased. We are the only party that supported the scheme and we oppose this ill thought out extension.

It's the wrong place -Traffic congestion is growing much faster in outer London and a scheme is needed to tackle congestion hot spots across the capital. It's the wrong plan - Residents will receive a 90% discount in blocks of a week thus motivating them to drive throughout the whole zone throughout the week. And it's the wrong technology - The 'clunky' old camera technology is inflexible, expensive to run and prone to error. Lib Dems believe Road Pricing using 'tag and beacon' technology is the way forward. It's easier to operate and provides options to vary the charge by time of day, to facilitate shopping in off peak hours for example. We believe Mayor Ken has been told to go slow on road pricing because 10 Downing Street does not want it to become an issue before the next General Election.

Dee Doocey AM writes: Teddington victory over custody suite: The proposal by the Metropolitan Police to build a 30 cell custody suite in Teddington as part of their London wide Estate Strategy has resulted in the largest increase in my postbag since I was elected to the London Assembly. The purpose of the strategy is to move the police out of older, multi-functional buildings and into new 'fit-for purpose' facilities. However because the boroughs of Richmond and Kingston are two of the smallest in London, it is proposed to have a joint custody suite to serve both boroughs. The police had decided that this should be located on the site of the current Teddington police station.

As a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority I have been working closely with Vince Cable MP, local Teddington councillors, and residents to stop this controversial plan on the grounds that the location is totally unsuitable. A public meeting to discuss the plans on 22 January was attended by 600 plus residents - up to 100 more were turned away and the police were left in no doubt about the strength of opposition from local people. The police listened to the concerns that were raised and this was subsequently discussed at a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority on 25th January. The meeting heard an excellent presentation from Teddington Action Group and I argued that the consultation was seriously flawed and that this ill-thought out proposal should go back to the drawing board. In addition, I asked the Met to publish the criteria on which sites for new custody centres are assessed, the location of each and every site considered and how they stack up against the criteria for building these new facilities. The MPA were very supportive and agreed that there would be fundamental re-think on the entire proposal. This is a victory for the residents of Teddington, but the war is not yet won.