When friends and reality intervene...

It is with some surprise that I concluded yesterday that I have a job to do, and that there is a debt to be repaid. And so, gentle reader, it is with some puzzlement that I announce that I am a candidate to be Regional Secretary of the London Liberal Democrats for 2006.

A number of people far wiser than I have counselled reflection and been far nicer about my actions than I perhaps deserved. Their support and advice has been very welcome and, in the midst of an approval interview yesterday, it dawned on me that if I have the skills attributed to me, I should use them for a wider good (heavens, that sounds pompous but what the hell...). This is of course presuming that a better candidate doesn't emerge... I have advised my friends, including the Regional Chair, that I am to throw my hat (it's from Ecuador and is black with a black and white band) into the ring.

It has come as something of a relief, if truth be told. I've always believed that whilst you shouldn't dwell on regret, a degree of honest doubt cannot be a bad thing. Yet when honest doubt becomes a distraction, then it is time to revert to principle. My principles are founded on the liberal concept of an informed, participatory democracy and so I must, in my slightly eccentric and perplexed manner, fight for them with my weapons of choice - a set of coloured pens, a notepad and a hunger for knowledge.

And so we await the verdict of the London jury...