Jo Hayes

I wonder why the Kremlin is so vocal on the question whether Mr Lugovoi may be extradited to London. The Russian Federation’s Constitution (adopted in 1993), Article 10, provides (unless this translation is inaccurate): “State power in the Russian Federation is exercised on the basis of the separation of the legislative, executive and judiciary branches. The bodies of legislative, executive and judiciary powers are independent.” So the extradition decision ought to be up to the courts, not the Kremlin. As for the substantive question, Article 61(1) of the Russian Federation's Constitution provides: “The citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported out of Russia or extradited to another state.” But it does not end there because Article 15(4) provides: "The commonly recognized principles and norms of the international law and the international treaties of the Russian Federation are a component part of its legal system. If an international treaty of the Russian Fede...

I am greatly troubled by information from a trusted grassroots source that voters were unenthusiastic about turning out in support earlier this month because they were unenthusiastic about Ming. Whatever was intended by those who forced Charles Kennedy to resign, this is the result. In March 2006 the membership made what they thought was, on the limited information available to them, the safe choice, but I thought then and have thought ever since - a period of nearly 15 months now - that it was not the best choice. Now what? We are waiting, but what for? From every quarter we are getting signals that environmental catastrophe is approaching. Valuable time is being lost while the two main parties, with their half-baked responses, hog the stage. We need to influence decisions - on energy, transport and the rest. We need leadership that will inspire, and we need it now.

Channel 4's list of the 50 films to see before you die was pretty idiosyncratic so here are a few they missed: Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray); L'Enfant Sauvage (Truffaut); Solaris, Mirror, Andrei Rublev and Stalker (Tarkovsky); Rashomon and Ikiru (Kurosawa); Fargo (Coen Brothers); Manon des Sources (Berri); La Grande Illusion and Le Regle du Jeu (Renoir); Three Colours Red (Kieslowski); Blade Runner (Scott); with an honourable mention for Groundhog Day, American Beauty, Fitzcarraldo, All or Nothing, Night of the Hunter, Once Upon a Time in the West (not in America, which was same director, later film, correction!) and Un Homme Echappe. Forgot to mention La Dolce Vita. No Eisenstein - some great moments but his grandiosity toppled into absurdity. I agree with C4 about including The Searchers and Erin Brockovich. Happy viewing!

Was it really fortnightly rubbish collecting that led to the defeat of a number of Lib Dems in Godalming, Surrey on 3rd May? Do improvements in recycling rates and savings in council expenditure count for nothing in comparison with the horror of foxes ripping open rubbish bags? Apparently so if Radio 4's Today has reported accurately. Good grief! Things have come to a pretty pass if the people of Godalming do not have the wit to go out and buy a metal dustbin.

In November 2006 the Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales and the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation signed a Memorandum of Understanding on co-operation between their respective Offices. Article 3 states: “The Participants will co-operate in the sphere of extradition and in other issues of mutual legal assistance.” This makes a nonsense of a report today that a spokesman for the Kremlin claimed Russia's constitution did not allow its nationals to be extradited. The reported Kremlin response was to today’s announcement that the Crown Prosecution Service is to seek the early extradition of a suspect from Russia, so that he may be charged with the murder of Alexander Litvinenko and prosecuted in a court in London. The Director of Public Prosecutions called the murder “this extraordinarily grave crime." Indeed it was: a more premeditated case could not be imagined, and it was also a reckless environmental crime against the people of and beyon...

I detest a stitch-up, so I was angry at the attempt to stitch up the leadership contest by getting other MPs not to stand, thus depriving the ordinary membership of a say. Profoundly undemocratic. I refer of course to the Lib Dem leadership contest last year. The attempt succeeded only partially, in that it kept some contenders out of the ring but not all. Fortunately there are robust, independent-minded MPs in the Lib Dem ranks: just the sort of people this country needs in Parliament. Not so the Parliamentary Labour Party. The current Labour MPs must be seriously lacking in spines, as not even 45 were prepared to nominate a leadership challenger to Gordon Brown. Pathetic.

A nagging question in my mind is: why was the late swing in Scotland earlier this month to the SNP and not to the Lib Dems? Following yesterday's FPC meeting I am none the wiser. But I vividly recall the speaker from Scotland in the Trident debate in March who told the Federal Conference that the Scottish Lib Dems really, really did not want to retain Trident. And I have been told that a balloon shaped like a Trident missile was being towed round Edinburgh's streets during the election. A very effective campaigning tool, I am sure: if someone installed a nuclear missile facility near my home, I would have pretty strong feelings about it. I suspect that the Scottish Lib Dems' disappointed hopes are a first instalment of the price we will pay for that narrow majority to sit on the fence on whether to replace Trident.

This lamentable commentator cannot even master the electoral system to which he has hitched his comments. Surely it's time to fold up his tent. What is Simon Jenkins for? He is the flotsam of 20th-century journalism drifting on into the 21st, coagulated from ancient clubs, cabals, splits and defections from other newspapers. Not since the 20th century has he cohered round any great interest. He represents no mass movement, no breaking of the political mould. Ask Simon Jenkins what he is for and you get only a susurration of platitudes. Yet thanks to the newspaper industry this commentator gets to influence the ruling classes. It is Grima for a day. Westminster commentators have always given each other a free pass, as over cash for articles, because they are both hopeless and nice. Most commentators that have been writing for what feels like a century and are a political subsidiary of the two-party system would stop writing. But Britain's patronage media industry keeps Simon ...

What bliss - no leaflets to deliver! I celebrated by constructing a mini-greenhouse on my allotment (a triumph of recycling, and the price was right - nothing so far) with room for nine tomato plants. In case you thought tomatoes only come in one colour, namely tomato red, I have news. They range from white through all the warm colours to black. And stripy. This season I'm trying Black Russian (black, obviously), Yellow Pear and Golden Sunrise (yellow, obviously), Sungold (orange), plus some red ones: St. Pierre, and a beefsteak type whose name I forget, and the glorious Gardener's Delight.

Yesterday St John's Wood tube station was littered with Good Morning leaflets resembling the Lib Dem design but produced by Labour: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. They featured a "doorstep survey" stating that the by-election "is a straight fight between Labour and the Conservatives", with a bar graph showing Labour just behind the Tories, with support for the Lib Dems as minuscule. The actual result in both of yesterday's City of Westminster by-elections was that the Tories held the seats (not a surprise on past figures), the Lib Dems were second and Labour were a clear third. The Lib Dem share of the vote increased: the Labour and Tory shares fell. The Labour Good Morning leaflets also repeated that Lib Dems propose to "get rid of free travel for over 60s", which is, as is well documented, rubbish. This story is deliberately targeted at pensioners on low incomes - among society's most vulnerable members. To cause them anxie...