I was on the radio today …

… talking about independent MPs obviously.

It was all a bit strange but I was on the 5 live phone-in with Nicky Campbell this morning for a few minutes to promote the cause of independent MPs.

You can listen to the programme until Thursday 11^th Feb. I’m the first caller on (Patrick from Southwell), at about 6 minutes into the programme.

You can listen here

The programme was about whether we, as a nation, had forgiven our MPs for the expenses scandal, linked of course to the news that some MPs have been told to pay back just over £1m in total.

I only heard about the subject a few minutes before 9am, but I decided to phone in with the point that we shouldn’t be talking about forgiveness for the current crop of MPs, but with an election looming we should be looking at how to make the system better for the future. So I phoned up and spoke to a researcher, who listened politely, and that was that.

Then about five minutes later a different researcher (or possibly the producer) phoned me back and asked me to repeat my views. After I’d done that he said, great, we’ll put you on and then the phone was put through to the studio and I could hear Nicky Campbell introducing the phone-in programme.

So I didn’t have time to make any notes, or even prepare myself properly. But I think I came across okay and I said what I wanted to about the need for independent candidates and hopefully independent MPs.