Two unavoidable distractions from the campaign - Firstly I had to be at Hadleigh Country Park this morning for filming of a promotional video for the mountain biking event in 2012. Having brought the event to South Essex we now need to ensure that mountain biking enthusiasts understand what a great facility is going to be left behind after the Games in 2012.

Secondly I had a meeting in Tendering with the regional director of the homes and community agency. This government Quango now controls billions of pounds of government expenditure for regenerating local communities. We were particularly discussing Jaywick - officially the third most deprived community in the UK. People are still living in beach huts some without mains services - completely unacceptable in the 21st Century. They have been failed by local Lib Dem and Independent Councillors and for the past twelve months I have taken responsibility for trying to solve the problems of the local community - at last we seem to be making progress.

I was also struck this evening by two posts on the Lib Dem web site. Firstly one that promotes the Blog of a journalism student in Rochford - clearly the Lib Dems seem pretty excited because there is some implied criticism of the local Tories but the language on the site (http://shanecroucher.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/use-your-box-when-voting-locally/) is completely  unacceptable and I am surprised that the Rayleigh Lib Dems need to stoop so low as to promote it. Also they have pretty much conceded that they have given up campaigning in Rayleigh South today because of lack of support - They are still struggling to get deliveries out in Rayleigh North.