Its a beautiful morning in rural Northumberland - crisp and clear - and the autumn changing of the leaves makes it even better. Off to Great Whittington, where the Angus family have thrown open their home to the village / locals for coffee, and a chance to meet and grill me. These events have been very successful and we do roughly one a fortnight throughout the constituency: given that the patch is over 1,100 square miles there are plenty of villages to cover!
However, the mind cannot forget that next weekend 30+ of us are going to Glasgow North East to give Ruth Davidson a hand in the battle for Michael Martin's old seat. The area is one of the most deprived in the UK,with some of the worst poverty rates and health problems. For those who think everything is rosy in the state of the UK in 2009, they should see what we will see next weekend.
We are taking 10 or so keen as mustard students - I am not sure who should be more scared - NE Glasgow or the students...
For full details of the by election, and why a Labour loss would be the mother of all disasters see The Times.
