It's not much fun being a backbench MP, but you can use the Commons to raise constituents' concerns. It gets you a few minutes in the sun and a minister will make soothing noises in reply. So most weeks there are short debates on crime in Cropwell Bishop or the lack of a wet fish shop in Bungay.
Last Friday we had Andrew Love on social exclusion in Edmonton. Social exclusion? As Love knows, it's what we used to call poverty. Weekly incomes in his constituency, he said, average £294 against a London figure of £492. The area's decline comes from unemployment caused by industries moving away.
But he also strayed into New Labour territory. Edmonton residents, he said, suffer from low self-esteem. Self-esteem? A few years ago this was a fashionable concept. Low self-esteem explained why children did badly at school or drifted into crime.
This theory took a knock when research showed American teenagers were bottom at maths and English but led the world in self-esteem. But it tells you something about New Labour. A concept from therapeutic work with children is the answer to helping adults.
When Roche replied, it was clear that Edmonton's problem is not lack of intervention. It has a local strategic partnership and a draft neighbourhood renewal strategy. Neighbourhood renewal funding is contributing to a fit for life programme at the healthy living centre, and Enfield Voluntary Action is co-ordinating the development of a community empowerment network. It is getting money from the community empowerment fund, the neighbourhood renewal community chest and the Scarman Trust.
Edmonton failed to become a neighbourhood management pathfinder. But it does have the Edmonton partnership initiative, employment zones, a New Direction training centre, the Sure Start initiative, Objective 2 European funding and an Education Action Zone. And don't forget the regional development agency and regional co-ordination unit.
How anyone is meant to make sense of this morass, Roche did not say. Perhaps the answer is to place all the powers under one democratic body. You could call it a "local council".
She did say that Edmonton's New Direction training centre is offering training in road safety. So that's why they are poor! It's not just low self-esteem: they don't know how to cross the road either.
I do not like to use this column for self-promotion or to settle old scores. (That said, if by any chance Miss Starmer is reading this I should like to point out that it was not me talking in RE in 1972.) But we live in strange times and I want to help.
Strange times? Item: Lord Janner invites Michael Jackson to Westminster to sing Happy Birthday to Paul Boateng. Uri Geller turns up too.
Item: The Commons is overrun with mice. Eight Liberal Democrat MPs put down a motion calling for a cat to be employed. Robin Cook suggests a terrier instead. Uncertain temper, a bright eye, head cocked, hair ruffled... enough about the Leader of the House. But shouldn't he know that terriers are better with rats?
Item: Alastair Campbell loses it, taking several publications to the Press Complaints and then backing down. The Spectator prints a cover showing Campbell and Tony Blair being whacked on the bare bottom by Black Rod. Boris Johnson knows his readers' tastes.
So British politics is going mad. Fortunately there is now a guide for the perplexed: my new website. Since you ask, it's at www.bonkers.hall.btinternet.co.uk. The site is dedicated to the adventures of Lord Bonkers, whose diaries have appeared in Liberator for the past 12 years. Some of you may have seen me dressed as his lordship at the Eastbourne Conference in 1997.
Reader's voice: How does dressing up in a false moustache help the Liberal Democrats win votes? House Points replies: Enough of such trivia. Politics is a serious business. We must move on.
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Monday saw defence questions. The biggest comedians here are those who present themselves as experts on the merits of different missile systems when you know they have trouble rewiring a plug.
But for the most part the humour is more subtle. A tax-cutting Tory will get up and say what a wonderful thing the SF1/MCC24 missile is and how important it is that billions are spent on it – in his constituency.
Then a pacifist Labour woman will rise to praise the Royal Naval School of Bagpiping and say the report which recommends its closure is badly flawed. We all know where the School is.
We have a new hero: Lord Mackie of Benshie. The other day he asked if a minister was "aware that a great deal of pleasure is being gained by a great number of people out of well-conducted bonfires and firework displays".
It may not sound much, but when politicians talk about fireworks it is usually to demand more controls. Julia Drown and Tony "Becontree" Banks were both at it in the adjournment debate before the Jubilee holiday.
These debates can be revealing. Alistair Carmichael and Richard Younger-Ross were concerned about EU policy or its interpretation. True they were talking about fish, which is always a sexy issue in their parts of the world. But it did remind you that many Lib Dem voters are less enthusiastic about Europe than the grandees who make party policy on the subject.
The most significant speech came from John Hayes, the Tory whose constituency sounds like a vocal group. Give it up for South Holland and the Deepings!
The average backwoods Conservative is sure of two things. That low taxes and the free market are a great idea. And that the farmers in his constituency (and particularly on his constituency committee) deserve large subsidies.
There was an element of this to Hayes contribution, but he was more thoughtful than most. He talked about the power of supermarkets. They have no loyalty, he said, and have done more than anyone to damage local suppliers. They have "distorted the relationship between producer, retailer and consumer", and produced a situation "where people know neither the price nor the value of goods".
It's not often you hear a Tory sound like George Monbiot after he has been shortchanged at the checkout. But Hayes put his finger on the fundamental problem with modern Conservatism. What exactly is it they want to conserve? They love the market because it makes them and their neighbors rich. But they have not grasped how destructive and merciless it can be. You may admire family farms and the virtues they embody, but if they cannot compete the market will sweep them away.
That is why Thatcherism destroyed the traditional Conservative coalition. The question is whether she will keep the party out of power for a generation or for good.
Liberal Democrat News was not published because of the Golden Jubilee holiday.