Here is a real plan of action for a Liberal mayor:

• Widen the four main roads into the city
• Create a new outer ring road
• Build a new rail link from the centre to the main airport
• Extend the underground system to the south western suburbs
• Build a new airport to the south of the city
• Construct new port facilities in the city

OK, so it’s not a plan for London.  They are (just some of) the key pledges from Ludovic Orban, Liberal candidate for mayor of Bucharest.  You cant say he lacks ambition (though goodness knows how he plans to pay for it).

You turn your back for 10 minutes and a whole bunch of new parties appear in Romania.

Arrived in Bucharest in the middle of the local elections to discover the Popular Christian Social Union (they almost got all the bases covered there with the name and the Civic Force Party as the newest kids on the block.  The former seems to be vaguely left of centre (their leader is a former Social Democrat, their Bucharest mayoral candidate is ex National Salvation Front and ex Democrat party), the latter a splinter from the Greater Romania Party. 

Also surprised to see Adrian Mutu (a footballer, for the uninitiated) endorsing Cosmin Gusa of the National Initiative Party (amused that Gusa flew out to Italy for the meeting rather than the other way round though) and to see Sorin Oprescu running as an independent - last I heard, Oprescu was a senior Social Democrat. 

Everyone is running ‘against the government’ - cohabitation helps because everyone has someone else to blame.  The National Liberal campaign in Bucharest seems to be well funded but they bought lots of advertising space last November and still got trampled on by the Democrats.

Anyway, if you are interested and if you can read Romanian (or Latin or Italian - you’ll work it out), I recommend:  www.alegeri.tv which I have just discovered.

Everyone in Lib Dem Land has been falling over themselves with excitement at the positive coverage generated by Vince’s comic depiction of the Prime Minister.

Yet no one seems to have stated the obvious conclusion.

Earnest Lib Dems spend hours torturing themselves to come up with a narrative that reconciles the conflicts between liberty and equality.  Or they work themselves into a frenzy convincing others that their detailed analysis of their favourite policy is the Holy Grail of election winners.

And the party gets the best coverage it has had for years as a result of a cracking one-liner.

You’re smart - you figure it out…

I have been selected in second place on the East Midlands Lib Dems’ list of candidates for the European Parliament elections.

If you helped or supported me, ‘thank you’.  If you didn’t, well, there’s still time because (in the first of many cliches to come) the hard work starts here.  You can visit www.edmaxfield.org.uk and click on the handy ‘make a donation’ button.  Any donations received will be passed straight to the party’s election fund in the region.  You do not need to set up a Paypal account even though their web site tries to make it look like you do.

As expected, Bill Newton Dunn topped the list with three quarters of the first preference votes - a measure of the respect and affection in which he is held.  Veena Hudson was selected in third place with Denise Hawksworth fourth and Deborah Newton-Cooke in fifth.

I was very pleased to finish a clear second in first preference votes and to receive more of Bill’s transfers than any other candidate.  If you are keen, you can see the full results here. 
I am really looking forward to the next 19 months - the first challenge will be making sure we re-elect Bill.  It wont be easy as the region loses a seat at the next set of elections.

Do let me know if can help in any way.

Surprised this didnt seem to attract more blog comment so I thought I would redress the balance a bit.  I knocked together the attached in an idle moment…

 Are you thinking what we are thinking?

Different club, different manager (although Gary Megson worked his magic at City too in the past), same story.  This article says it all. 

 Is there a pithy phrase for the way waste spirals down the toilet bowl - it might be more appropriate than ‘managerial merry-go-round’.

Still, ticket prices might be cheaper in League One…

I’m backing Sherwood Forest’s bid to win £50m of lottery funding.

I’m always suspicious of big-money Government projects but the money will go to one of the four projects and I am backing Sherwood Forest because of its commitment to:

• Community access and involvement
• Environmental sustainability
• Expansion of the forest itself
• Promotion of a sense of pride in the locality and the values it represents

You can find out more at www.robinhood.co.uk and I have also joined the group supporting Sherwood’s bid over at www.facebook.com

I’ll be voting for Sherwood Forest when the vote is launched (the companies running the vote say they will not make a profit from the calls and texts.)

Smiling and purposefully bashing large purple caterpillars - what more is there to life? 

Norwich City have won once in the league and scored twice since my son Noah was born.  The only controlled physical co-ordination he is currently showing is the (very entertaining) ability to spit out a dummy.  But it looks as though he would do a better job in the team than some of the players.

A change is needed.  Not since the Championship winning season have we looked like a team who were committed to playing for the shirt.  Nigel Worthington made the mistake of dumping most of those (Mackay, Roberts etc) and replacing them with 3rd rate foreign players and loan signings.

Can we have our team back please?

I’m off to Bucaharest for a few days next month for the climax of their European Parliament elections.

 But, in the meantime, the European Parties, Elections and Referendums Network has published my report on the impeachment referendum held earlier this year.  If you like that sort of thing you can find it here.