The old adage “all politics is local” is coming back to haunt the Liberal Democrat leadership of Exeter City Council. Their plan to close the city’s best used public loos has provoked a storm of protest and a great campaign by the local paper, the Express and Echo.

The new construction skills academy at Exeter University will create 70 new apprenticeships and is a big boost to the city.

Today’s independent report by Nuffield showing the NHS in England performing much better than in Scotland or Wales is a clear vindication for Labour’s health reforms in England.

How telling that the lawyer of Munir Hussain, jailed for an attack on a burglar but now freed by theAppeal Court in a sensible decision, says the existing law is right and strongly opposes Conservative proposals to relax the law on self defence.

Recent criticisms of the Exeter based Met Office by the Conservatives and some of the media are unjustified.

The latest fall in unemployment is encouraging and means the jobless total is nearly half a million lower than was predicted a year ago.

It was encouraging to see Goldman Sachs predicting the UK economy would grow faster than any other major country next year.

I hope the Government continues to resist the clamour from some quarters to introduce a minimum price for alcohol.

We had a good meeting yesterday between the local government minister, Rosie Winterton and Exeter councillors and business community on Exeter’s bid for unitary status.