At the time of writing I have not seen his individual “report card” for Hertfordshire because it has not yet been posted on the HMIC website.  But I am constantly told of people’s frustration with the way that a small minority of young people make life miserable for others.

Last night I went with Catherine Barron, our dynamic candidate for Verulam ward, to a meeting at the British Legion in Verulam Road organised by residents of New England Street.  It had been called to discuss constant problems of vandalism, low level abuse and sometimes quite threatening behaviour by young people who congregate at “The Brickie”, the apparently pleasant sunken bowl of green space which lies between Mount Pleasant and Verulam Road.

Children and parents are sometimes put off from using the playspace, the language used by some of the offending young people is apparently appalling, and there is occasional disgusting graffiti.

It’s a story which is repeated across the UK on the basis of this morning’s Report.  Certainly I can vouch for similar problems in my own village.

There is a role here for parents and for schools.  But chiefly we need more police on the ground.  The local beat bobby and PCSO were both present last night – but they have a huge area to cover and they cannot work 24/7.

The Liberal Democrats are the only party to have costed plans for more police back on the beat – sadly the current public expenditure crisis means we have had to scale back our ambitions, but we still want to put a flag in the ground, that the public pays for the right to occupy their homes and streets and play areas without feeling vulnerable and threatened.

The mechanism exists for rail franchises to be handed back if franchisees fail to deliver the promised service.  FCC seems to have had a charmed life in hanging on to its lucrative monopoly, it is time that passengers had their say.

So we are calling a public meeting for next Tuesday 16 March to discuss whether FCC should now lose their franchise.  The main speaker will be my friend Norman Baker MP, Liberal Democrat Transport Spokesman in the House of Commons.  The meeting will take place at Marlborough Road Methodist Church in the centre of the city (see directions here) and starts at 7.00 pm with doors opening at 6.30 pm – so do put the date in your diary!

When I successfully proposed my motion on rail franchises at last autumn’s Liberal Democrat conference, Norman summed up the debate.  The Daily Mail has described him as having ‘consistently been a thorn in the Government’s side’. In 2001 he was named “Inquisitor of the Year” in the Zurich/Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards and, in February 2002, he won the Channel 4 Opposition MP of the Year Award.

It’s going to be a lively meeting, I hope to see you there.

So today I was pleased to make a special visit to St Albans-based CAMRA (The Campaign for Real Ale) in Hatfield Road to sign the  Beer Drinkers’ and Pub Goers’ Charter.  The picture shows me with Emily Ryans and Jenni Hollis of CAMRA.

The CAMRA Charter champions well-run community pubs, the rebalancing of alcohol taxation to support beer and pubs, the reform of the beer tie to deliver a fair deal for consumers, and the role of well-run pubs as part of the solution to alcohol misuse.

Well-run pubs can be a bedrock of community life – they are part of the solution to the problem of alcohol misuse and not part of the problem.  They deserve our support.

We all know that whoever wins the election will have to put up taxes and cut expenditure in order to bring the UK economy back into balance.  The only questions are timing; how much comes from cuts and where they fall; and then how and on whom tax rises are levied.

A voter in Colney Heath asked me earlier this week what I was promising to her, and I said that in all honesty whoever wins will be asking for blood, sweat, toil and tears until we turn round the catastrophic state of the economy. We’ve just got to make sure that the pain is shared on the fairest possible basis.  People need to know that we are all in it together.  That especially means politicians, the people who helped create this mess.

The revelation by Lord Ashcroft, the largest Conservative donor, that he is a “non-dom” for tax purposes and so will largely not share the pain leaves a pretty sour taste in the mouth.  The subsequent admission by William Hague that he knew about this for some months is truly breath-taking, since he and other Conservative front-benchers continued to spin the line that Lord Ashcroft had met all his tax obligations.

As Lib Dem MP Chris Huhne has said, “Anyone who wants to pass laws in this country should pay this country’s full taxes and not hide behind the special offshore status of non-doms. Non-doms have to tell the taxman that their first allegiance is to another country. No-one should be a British lawmaker whose first allegiance is not to Britain.

It is hard to know how much tax Lord Ashcroft has managed to dodge.  But it clearly must be many millions of pounds over the ten year period given what we know about the extent of his wealth.

This is the man who has poured money into Britain’s most marginal seats in a blatant attempt to buy votes.  Banana republics and the Conservative Party seem to have a lot in common.

His great parliamentary speeches preceded televising of Commons proceedings and although I worked in the House in the late 1970s, I never heard him speak in the Chamber.

But many years later I was a guest at the Fabian Society 100th Anniversary Dinner where then opposition leader Tony Blair and Peter Hain were supporting acts to Foot and Barbara Castle.  Blair and Hain made the staccato, verbless, soundbite speeches demanded by modern media.

Foot and Castle were a revelation to me.  Their oratory swooped and soared, great cadences, building sentence upon sentence.  It was like listening to great poets or medieval storytellers.  It was inspiring.

The only person I have heard come close in current times is Barack Obama – and even now the oratory is being crushed out of him by the weight of office.

We are going to need good narrative to take us through the blood, sweat, toil and tears of the next decade.  Perhaps we could relearn a thing or two from Michael Foot and his generation.

Partners in the exercise are Ashridge Business School and the Tellus Mater Foundation.

The session opened with Professor Sir Brian Hoskins of Reading University and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) bringing us up to speed on the latest science.  Quite simply the fact of global warming and the contribution of man-made carbon emissions is incontrovertible, whatever the climate change deniers try to say.

And then a very stimulating session with Simon Hughes MP (the Lib Dem spokesman on these matters), Stephen Hale (Director of the Green Alliance), and Bryony Worthington (Director of Sandbag, a campaigning organisation focused on emissions trading).

Two nuggets really hit me.

First, that “decarbonisation” of power generation not only deals with the largest single source of carbon emissions but also helps tackle emissions from domestic transport (by substituting electric cars and electric trains) and from domestic heating too – respectively the second and fourth largest sources of carbon emissions in the UK.

Second, that China is beginning to get it and if it starts to invest in green technologies and threaten to get a lead in the new industrial revolution which is needed, this should galvanise both our own government and more importantly the USA.  A “space race” in pioneering and marketing renewable technologies could be just what we need.

We are going to need to see local, bottom-up initiatives such as St Albans Transition.  And top-down legislative action.

The new Parliament to be elected this year is being described as “The Last Parliament” in terms of taking the necessary measures to tackle carbon emissions.  That is if we are to see a peak in global carbon emissions in 2020 and then a decline, the path recommended by the IPCC.  I hope I will be able to play a role in promoting the necessary measures to deliver this.

I always enjoy visiting the magnificent new pavilion at Woollams for lunches or dinners.  Recently I was a guest of Geraint John at the annual lunch to celebrate the Mini and Junior rugby programme of the club, held before the OA’s dished out a 34-15 thumping of great Hertfordshire rivals Bishops Stortford.

The St Albans forwards are pretty fearsome – you only need to see the team photo to realise that!  My own snatched picture from the pavilion balcony captures one of the moments when the visitors’ backs seized the initiative and are on the verge of scoring their first try, before the OAs asserted their dominance over the rest of the game.

The statistics for the Juniors and Minis are truly impressive.  500 local families are involved, parents and children.  I am told by Brian Clark of the club that there are about 450 “minis” – ie under-12, and 300 juniors – ie under 17.  Between 80 and 90 percent of them turn out each week, supported by 150 volunteers.

It is truly local and of course captures enthusiastic children from all the local schools, even if the roots of the club are in St Albans School itself.  More information can be found on the www.oajrfc.com website here.

At a time when there is so much concern about growing obesity rates and diminution of sports opportunities in schools, it’s great to see this centre of excellence right here in our own community.

It must be true – it’s in the bible.  Isaiah chapter 32, verse 8 to be exact.

The New English Bible has a different translation from the original Hebrew  – “The man of noble mind forms noble designs and stands firm in his nobility.”

I am of course very happy to have theological affirmation that it is indeed a noble undertaking to be a Liberal.

I have scoured the bible from end to end and find no reference to Conservatives.  As for Labour, we know that the lilies of the field were praised for not going there, “neither should they spin.”

It certainly makes you think.

Why am I writing this?  Because yesterday I went to St Albans Abbey to speak at the men’s breakfast organised by Dean Jeffrey John.  The verse from Isaiah seemed a suitable introductory text!

I have heard a sermon preached on this verse.  It was given by former Archbishop Michael Ramsey at the great Westminster Abbey service to celebrate the centenary of the Liberal Party in 1977.

The Liberals were the first modern political party, what is less well known is that Michael Ramsey had himself been a Liberal candidate – for Cambridge, though he never stood for election as his religious vocation came to the fore.  But when he was at Cambridge he was told he was a future Liberal Prime Minister and he became Archbishop of Canterbury.  When Gladstone was at Oxford, he was told he was a future Archbishop of Canterbury and he became Liberal Prime Minister.

As I wrote above, it certainly does make you think.

PS I had the privilege of meeting Michael Ramsey once.  It was after he had retired as Archbishop and he came to preach through Holy Week at Little St Mary’s, the parish church I attended at Cambridge.  Ramsey was staying with the James Owen, the vicar.  I was a young man working temporarily as a letterpress printer in the town, and with a couple of friends cheekily invited myself to dinner.  To our amazement we were indeed invited, I scrubbed up as best I could (printers ink being very stubborn) and we presented ourselves at the vicarage for a meal of irish stew followed by a cheeseboard.

I remember Ramsey was wonderfully vain.  He kept asking his wife Joan if his hair was all right (a wonderful silky white mane, he looked like a biblical prophet).  She would produce a silver comb and all was kept tip-top.

At one stage we asked him what he thought of Enoch Powell as a theologian.  “Ah Enoch.  Enoch has read many books and some of them have been about God…”

Given the soggy and bleak weather conditions, I could only admire the participants as they ran up and down in front of the Old Town Hall.

As well as a “Roman Catholic priest” in full soutane, there were some brightly clad Grove House pancake flippers with the colour pink much in evidence.  Also good to see former mayor Alison Steer.

Perhaps Gordon Brown should have proposed a new voting system based on pancake racing? – crepe flip-flops rather than the policy kind?

So much for David Cameron’s claim that he has ‘sought to push the environment up to the top of the political agenda.’

It follows the recent revelation that reducing Britain’s carbon footprint was at the bottom of Tory parliamentary candidates’ priorities.

Mr Cameron has done his photoshoot with huskies, now it seems to be back to politics as usual.