It was quite a powerful moment, I think, for everybody involved, whether Labour, Tory or Lib Dem.

It will also be my first taste of Opposition, and although I am sure many of my Labour colleagues will be panicking; and indeed with Gordon Brown’s immediate resignation a lot of people are going on and on about a nice big friendly debate. I’ll talk about the leadership election nearer the time.

A few people on Facebook have interpreted my reaction as slightly bitter and angry, as I was quite relentless against the Lib Dems in particular during the campaign and of course after the election.

In fact, I feel somewhat relieved; the bitterness is actually enthusiasm. I’m enthusiastic about laying into the Tories, and I can’t wait to land some body blows on the Libs.

On to more serious political thoughts though: the coalition.

I have to lead off with a big “I told you so.” After all the nonsense about the Liberals replacing Labour as the progressive party and Labour coming third, they still managed to do worse than in 2005.

The Tories didn’t do very well either; we denied them the majority they so took for granted. Of course Labour lost though, I certainly don’t deny that.

You almost (not quite) have to feel sorry for the Lib Dems, after all that hype. It was like the electorate was holding out the football for Charlie Clegg and pulled it away at the last minute.

On to the coalition, I approve of it. I think it was the only viable option apart from a minority Tory government. However, the Lib Dems have been put in the worst possible position (bent over squarely…) as they were almost obliged to prop up a weak Tory result.

You can be sure that when it falls to bits, and fall to bits it most assuredly will, the Libs are the big losers out of all of this. Don’t take my word for it though, take a look at what the BBC things on their coalition agreement page. The Tories are already trying to push a confusing “55% rule” with the goal of being about to kick out the Libs whenever they need to.

Before I get back to regular business, let me say something to Lib Dems voters: you’re right to feel betrayed. You probably voted tactically to keep the Tories out (particularly in Bath, where Foster significantly increased his majority) only for them to go and join up anyway! Vote yellow, get blue.

Friend and colleague Jack Penrose loves to say “Lib Dems are just Tories who haven’t been mugged yet.” and it looks like he’s right; the Libs are about to get mugged… by the Tories.

In conclusion then, it looks like Game, Set and Match to the Tories. Although, Cricket is probably more their game, so I’ll say Labour is out after some very good innings, the Libs have scored a duck and now the Tories are up to bat.

Finally, just to add to my (surprising) sports metaphors:

You’ve only seen me playing defence, so just wait until you see me in an offence position!

The leaflet, presumably financed by Lord Ashcroft, has been addressed individually to every student in town. See below for the scans:

It is despicable yet typical that Bath Tories would try to scaremonger students into thinking something is happening and the Tories are the only ones who can do anything about it. Please note that the Tories are running the council, they could have sent out a memo when there was “more time”.

Of all the problems with this leaflet, perhaps the worst part is the patronising and naked bias. The question posed is:

“Should students be forced to live on campus?”

I would like to know what answer they are expecting, having sent this question exclusively to STUDENTS. The responses are equally ludicrous:

[_] I believe students should be forced to live on campus for the whole of their course
[_] I believe students should not be forced to live on campus, but be free to rent a house in Bath.

The only type of student I can imagine who would even consider the first option would already be an active member of Bath Conservative Future.

In all my political experience, in Britain, in France, in Spain, and of all the many leaflets from all the many parties I’ve encountered, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a ham-handed and clumsy way of data mining to gather targeted voting-intention information. Once they’ve got you, they’re not going to let you go unless you text this, email that, then post the other.

Moving on to substance, students may find that this is the first they have heard of such a debate or decision. There have been a few ideas knocking around on the topic of housing, which got Lib Dem MP Don Foster into hot water in the University Newspaper.

Not only is the “decision” broadly fictitious, it’s also completely infeasible to move 10,000 students onto campus. There is no space. Unless the Tories are planning to build a massive tower block, not that the University would want to waste funds on such a project, while throwing away Bath’s World Heritage Status (which the council uses an excuse not to do anything ever). Bath would probably not enjoy the prospect of becoming the country’s only university with such a silly policy and thus losing however many applicants. It would also wreak havoc on the Oldfield Park economy, which has already suffered the collapse of Woolworths.

Students should be alarmed that such an important debate can take place without them knowing or being informed. Let’s thank these Bath Tories for informing us just in time!

So no, Fabian. No, we will not be terrorised, no, we will not be forced to live on campus and NO, we will not be voting Conservative!

However, I am pleased to report there has been a development.

Lib Dem MP for Bath Don Foster has finally secured a meeting with a DEFRA minister, Huw Irranca-Davies, to have a meeting to discuss things that can be done to combat the feathery plague.

Your days are numbered, villain!

Commenting, Don Foster said:

The fact that they are at last agreeing to have a meeting is at least a starter for 10. I’m delighted.

The Bath Chronicle has also reported that:

B&NES has tried a number of methods of combating the birds, such as oiling eggs and the use of a hawk, while it is considering a trial of hessian rubbish sacks in part of the city centre.

This seems quite reasonable until you imagine a gang of Liberal Democrats running about with bottles of olive oil, being chased around by a swarm of seagulls, in turn being chased around by a loose hawk. Then it just sounds like a Scooby Doo cartoon.

Back to reality; I am particularly reassured to see that there is a Seagull Trauma hotline:

Details of how gulls have affected you or your business will be kept confidential and should be emailed to pete.rock@blueyonder.co.uk

At date has not been set for the meeting, though presumably it will be scheduled to coincide with the next G20 summit to ensure maximum publicity.

Seriously, though the issue of Urban Seagulls is quite quirky, I do agree that it is a problem in Bath and other cities that needs to be investigated.

Less seriously, I’ve decided not to try to shout louder than the Labour Party conference, so I can’t tell you what to expect this week!

The press release from the University of Bath claims:

The ducks will be hurled into the river at Pulteney Bridge with the winner being the first to cross the finish line at North Parade Bridge.

However, this seems not to have been the case.

An innocent bystander present at the finishing line has called fowl play, claiming the winners of the event had their feathers raffled:

The duck they read out was in the hundreds, but the duck I saw win was well into the thousands.

No formal investigations are likely to take place, (the event was for charity), but some competitors might feel angry that their training was apparently for nothing.

Lib Dem Don Foster presumably has no involvement in the duck race ‘lottery’ but was commentating on the proceedings. Nevertheless, doing deals with ducks must have been a welcome change to battling urban gulls in parliament.

I was in the library all day writing about French national sovereignty, so this story might seem a little Daffy to you.

Duck Puns: 4

Students’ Union Policy Resolves:
1. All Students’ Union Meetings, where buffet food is provided, should have a 60% – 40% vegetarian – meat (and fish) offering.

I’m not sure where they got the 60:40 figure from, but even if it’s true that “Meat products have a significantly higher carbon footprint than vegetarian food” you will still have to raise cattle for things like cheese and even the milk that might go into bread, so they’ll still be producing methane. You’ll need eggs as well, and I don’t think they come from eggplants! The initiative is made in the name of the worthy cause of environmentalism, but I would be interested to find out what the ratio was before this vital policy was drafted, consulted, redrafted, debated and passed.

Though it looks like I’ll never know since, in a later meeting, they decided to get rid of sandwiches all together: (my emphasis added)

Student’s Union Council Notes:
That at present a number of internal meetings, including Academic Council and Union Council, are provided with sandwiches.
That these sandwiches have been a point of previous internal discussion regarding reducing costs and green issues.

Student’s Union Council Believes:
That these sandwiches are provided both as an incentive to attend meetings otherwise held over lunch times, and as a reward to those who volunteer their time to participate in these meetings.
That such meetings should not need to be incentivised in such a way.

Student’s Union Council Resolves:
To discontinue providing sandwiches or similar catering at all union meetings.

However, councillors need not fear. If they are REALLY hungry, “under certain circumstances it may be appropriate to provide sandwiches” so all the bases are covered. I can see why MPs’ expenses are so carefully discussed. Although it doesn’t state whether the options will be fairly balanced 60:40 meat:vegetarian, I’m not sure the original policy applies in said circumstances.

This is too funny to be an accident; we really are 40 years away from May 1968.

The reply comes after an article that criticised Foster’s stance on student housing, claiming that he was suggesting that “students should be moved out of privately-rented houses and into purpose-built student accommodation blocks, potentially on the far outreaches of the city’s boundaries.”

The article also implied that Foster believed that students were not as deserving of housing in the private rented sector as other local residents.

In fact, the issue is mainly based around building new affordable housing, rather than where student should or should not be. The Government has created a target of 21,300 new homes, thought Bath and North East Somerset Council believe that there is only room for an extra 15,000.

Foster’s solution has thus far been to lobby the Government to include student accommodation in their housing numbers, as both Bath and Bath Spa Universities are planning to build thousands of new bedrooms on their campuses.

Foster agreed with the Claverton campus expansion, commenting that “Building more accommodation on the University campus makes sense.”

In Issue 5, NUS VP Welfare Ama Uzowuru said she was sceptical of the real motivation behind Don Foster’s desire to move students into purpose built accommodation blocks and out of the private rented sector.

The MP refuted this entirely, saying “I want everyone to have good quality homes which they can afford to live in.”

He also clarified that “Bath needs much more affordable housing for all people; students, young professionals, growing families and the elderly in particular.”

Earlier this month, Dan Norris, the Labour Member of Parliament for North East Somerset (the area surrounding Bath), explained that in the district that he and Don Foster represent, “The 6,000 people on the local housing waiting list is evidence of the urgent need for more affordable housing.”

As Bath students, I certainly hope that by now even first years know that Don is currently the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Bath.

For the most part of my work, I was inside the Constituency Office, located at 31 James Street West, the road just past the larger Sainsbury’s shop. I should mention that I was immediately required to sign a confidentiality agreement, which I am sure you will understand, is to protect the personal information and privacy of those who write to Don.

I think you, as constituents, should know at least a little bit about Don. He was a teacher by profession until in 1992, he was elected for his first term when he famously trounced Tory heavyweight Chris Patten. Ironically, Patten orchestrated the Conservative victory in the general election but lost his own seat! Bath has been a Lib Dem seat ever since, with Don coming to the end of his fourth term at the next general election. He will be contesting the seat once again, having been named the candidate last autumn (ready for the snap election Gordon Brown may have been planning to announce, before deciding there was little justification for it). In 2009 (or 2010 if the Prime Minister wants to push it), Don will be running against Labour’s Harriet Ajderian who also ran in 2005 and Conservative new blood Fabian Richter. At the last election, Don won with 20,101 votes giving him the 461st largest majority out of the 636 MPs.

Of course, while I thoroughly enjoyed researching and resolving the problems of people in Bath, the best part of my time with Don was going to Parliament. It occurred to me during my time in Westminster that only a few weeks before, the Bath Conservative Society had visited Parliament with their candidate to do the normal tourist things, there I was with a sitting MP on official business.

While everyone is familiar with the image of the Houses of Parliament and the clock tower that houses Big Ben, there is another building just across the road: Portcullis House, the modern style structure in which most MPs have an office (although there are offices in the House of Commons and Norman Shaw North). I arrived on Wednesday just after midday, and having gone through the airport-style security check I went into reception just in time to see Prime Minister’s Questions. A member of Don’s staff came down to greet me and we went off to the office.

An MP has three separate roles: constituency, parliamentary and party. Don is the Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and as such, I was able to attend a meeting with a woman representing a dance organisation. It was great to see Don in ‘ministerial mode’ and in addition to being a very articulate MP in comparison to most, he has a special talent of getting to the point and cutting through the waffle – quite useful when dealing with what Sir Alan Sugar might call “airy-fairy arty types”.

I certainly saw Westminster at its best, as President Sarkozy was over for his State Visit, so security was at its highest and everyone was on ceremony. As a staff member, I was able to go through the secret underground tunnel from Portcullis House to Parliament and while MPs listened to Sarkozy, I went into the Commons Chamber and sat on the green benches. Unfortunately, due to working rather than sightseeing, I was not able to see the “placards of British military success” mentioned recently in impact.

The Constituency Office is deceptively large, discreetly removed from the edge of the street with a green door and a small golden sign with the Lib Dem yellow bird. Inside, amusingly, there are several Guardian wall-charts dotted around the place explaining the difference between 20 different types of cat and so on. In Don’s Office, it was great to see hung up on the wall various copies of the local newspaper following election results, with headlines like “Landslide!” “Foster crushes Tories”. On the other wall there are caricatures of Don himself (presumably by local artists) ranging from a picture of Don rising from the depths of the Roman Baths like Neptune and one of him sending a few crates of Foster’s Lager to defeated Patten.

Don has a good sense of humour, as most MPs do. While in Parliament, Don read out a line from his pager to me, noting the irony that “The next unexpected vote will be some time tomorrow”.

Over Easter, I was working for Don Foster, Member of Parliament for Bath, and attended a meeting with local licensees. The pub and club managers all expressed concern over the same thing: people are staying in and not going out.

The smoking ban could well be responsible, although it is not the main issue in this case, as the pro-smoking lobby rest on the weak argument that now pubs smell of people instead of tobacco. Nevertheless, it stands to reason that if smokers go out to a pub and suddenly feel the need to feed their habit, they take to the streets. The pub industry is reeling from the damage done by people being outside smoking instead of inside drinking. Perhaps the other problem is that now the air is clear, patrons can see the other people in the bar, and do not like what they see.

The Chancellor has been a popular hate-figure for pubs. Ever since Alistair Darling raised the taxes on alcohol, there has been a well-publicised campaign from pub landlords, including one or two in Bath, working under the slogan “Sorry Darling, you’re barred!” Starting in his own constituency, pubs across the nation have been working together to show that the Chancellor is not welcome to buy a pint (or whisky, because he’s Scottish) from them. Barring Darling is funny, but it guarantees one fewer customer. However, it is a serious issue portrayed in a cleverly humourous way to maximise coverage, having been featured on the BBC and even mentioned in the Commons.

Before the prosecution rests, it is time to discover the real reason why Bath Pub owners are so irate. The criminal mastermind is Mr. Sainsbury; the real problem pubs and clubs face is BOGOF booze in superstores. The price of Sky Television has increased, and if pubs cannot afford to show sports, there is no way people are going to come out and drink when they could be watching the match at home with a six-pack of cans.

I shall not take the position that adults like to take when it comes to anti-social behaviour or that students ‘drink just to get drunk’ but I am sure that you and/or someone you know has either bought Sainsbury’s Basics Vodka (which is marketed as a drink, but could also be used to clean submarines) or partaken in some “pre-drinking”. Pub owners in Bath estimated that they are losing out on about 2 drinks per person per night as people are coming out later due to 24-hour drinking.

People, particularly students, are just coming out later. Having drunk about 4 pints on average before leaving home, pub staff members are finding it more difficult to monitor customers and unsure when it’s time to say “I think you’ve had enough mate!” A gentleman (having been pre-drinking) getting rowdy and about to start a fight when the licensee says to his bar staff, “How much did you give that guy?” to hear the response “Well, just one drink” is becoming a frequent occurrence.

At the meeting, it was revealed by the police spokesman that, as the law currently stands, it is the licensee that is accountable should a person be drinking in their bar, who then goes on to commit and offence around the premises. However, the same measures do not apply to superstores.

Furthermore, in pubs, if an employee serves an underage person at the bar, it is the proprietor who faces legal action, not the negligent staff member or even the offender. If the same thing happens in Sainsbury’s, it is again not the offender who is in trouble, but the shop assistant who served them, while the manager is not held to accountability.

People need to get out more. Once again, it is up to students to lead by example and head off to the pub. Support the local economy and stay away from Sainsbury’s.