It’s been a memorable couple of weeks for all sorts of reasons. On Friday January 30th I celebrated 25 years of public life in Reading with a reception and party at the South Street Arts Centre. It was great to catch up with old friends and colleagues with whom I’ve worked and campaigned over the years.

I want to start off this week by congratulating my Conservative neighbour Richard Benyon - the MP for Newbury - on his promotion from the Opposition Whips’ Office to the post of Shadow Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Fisheries, Wildlife, and Rural Affairs.

The Labour Government has made good its promise to Britain’s 3 million anglers to update and overhaul our fisheries legislation when it announced in the Queen’s Speech that the long awaited Marine Bill was to be included in this years legislative programme.

Parliament returned on Monday to hear a statement from the Foreign Secretary David Miliband on the appalling slaughter in Gaza and the attempts by the Government to secure an immediate ceasefire though a British sponsored resolution of the United Nations Security Council.

The Labour Government has made good its promise to Britain’s 3 million anglers to update and overhaul our fisheries legislation when it announced in the Queen’s Speech that the long awaited Marine Bill was to be included in this years legislative programme.

As this is my last Westminster Diary before the Christmas break, I thought I would look back over the past year.

With the Commons prorogued there are normally a couple of days of relative quiet as we get ready for the State Opening of Parliament but this was shattered on Thursday evening with the extraordinary news of the arrest of ex-Reading school student Damian Green for allegedly ‘grooming’ a mole to breach his contract as a Home Office official and leak confidential and sensitive information to the Conservative Party.

Whilst I am primarily an angler and only an occasional shooter, I am proud to have been asked to be a Centenary Patron of the British Association of Shooting and Conservation (BASC).

Looking back over my diary for the last couple of weeks illustrated just what a hectic period we had just experienced. My Westminster staff had taken annual leave to work on the Obama campaign in America and a week’s study leave for Viki in my constituency office meant that we were a little stretched, so apologies if some of you are still waiting for replies to correspondence.

There is no doubt that the global financial crises put the judgment of our politicians to the test and put the spotlight onto their policies and competence.