A Lewis Hamilton moment

I suppose you could say Labour has just had its Lewis Hamilton moment. Started off in pole position, didn't pit quickly enough, hit the gravel, but still on course to win the World Championship. Unless of course he loses in Brazil, in which case I will drop the analogy faster than you can say Kimi Raikkonen.

I'm just about mastering all the technology involved in having a new website and a new blogspot and finally joining the Facebook generation. My very first 'friend' request came from someone who then declared on Facebook only a few days later that he's going to be standing against me at the General Election. Can't help thinking this is rather ill-mannered of him!

Arrived back in Westminster yesterday and spent nearly 5 hours in the Chamber for the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. Was eventually called to speak at gone 9.30pm, which meant I had to jettison most of my prepared speech, as it was almost time for front-bench wind-ups. I spoke about on-street prostitution, which is a big problem in east Bristol. The local police are actually far more proactive than many other forces, but need more powers to deal with it. The Bill allows for courts to impose drug rehabilitation orders, with mandatory counselling - 95% or so of street prostitutes have a drugs problem, and this might just be a way of getting more of them to face up to it.

Today is another big day - Comprehensive Spending Review and Pre-Budget Report this afternoon. DfID is going to do well out of it, I'm told, putting us on target to spend 0.7% of GDP on aid by 2012/13. I'm also hoping to hear some good news on child poverty, as I'm hosting a breakfast for Save the Children in Parliament tomorrow morning.