Jenny Willott latest

Willott gets an honourable mention in Charles Kennedy's conference speech:

In Jenny Willott, Julia Goldsworthy and Jo Swinson we have the youngest MPs in Wales, England and Scotland - all women elected to parliament as Liberal Democrats

She also gets a very honourable mention in the Guardian, mentioned as one of eight new MPs worth watching in a long and very interesting article, Class of 2005.

Since the general election Jenny Willott, the new Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central, has already become a member of the work and pensions select committee and the British delegation to the Council of Europe. She is 31. How did she get the latter job? "Charles asked me," she says, a certain status and confidence contained in those three words. Before the general election, she had worked in the Commons as a lobbyist for Unicef and ran the Westminster office of another Liberal Democrat MP with a Welsh seat, Lembit Opik.

Lots of new and pictures over at Save Bute Park and Hit it for Six, the planning officer has recommended against the new developments in Sophia Gardens. There was a rally there yesterday and there are plenty of nice pictures at the two blogs.

The opposition comes in the form of the Cardiff Devils website, the Elite League message boards and an online petition.

There is a lot about this debate that doesn't quite make sense. It seems that ideally the hockey people would rather stay where they are, in town, but that their site has already been promised to John Lewis and St Davids II by the council. In any case they have been promised a place in the Bay in a few years time, although they are understandably sceptical as the council has been promising them a new rink for 10 years. The building at Sophia Gardens will then be turned over to public ice skating and indoor facility for the other sports groups. An important part of the new development that seems to be overlooked is the increase in the capacity of the cricket club.

The debate seems to be along two camps: the anti-development local and green protesters and the Cardiff Devils fans, which seems massively oversimplified. I am sure that no-one in the anti-development camp begrudges the hockey a stadium, they just dispute the location. The hockey fans are so determined to build on Sophia Gardens because they are terrified of being left with no stadium anywhere. The really crucial decision involved the council and new developments in the town centre that was made last year. There seems no reason why both the anti-development and new-hockey-stadium-supporters can't have their way, it is with the other players in the game that the real power lies.

Anti deportation demo, Sat 22nd

Bit late in to the news with this one... on Saturday 22nd Oct there's going to be a big demo, 12 o'clock at City Hall. The focus is stop the deportations and repeal section 9 of the Asylum and Immigration Act.

Check Cardiff Social Forum's fora and the Cardiff Alternative News newsletter for all the latest. The Refugee Council has an overview of asylum legislation and loads more goodies.

Bute Park and Sophia Gardens

There was a quiet and civilised gathering at the Glamorgan Cricket club in the park this afternoon. Planning people were looking around the site and locals, councillors, hockey fans and general other people had assembled to make their views known talk amongst themselves. There was probably over 100 people there.

More: Save Bute Park and the new Hit it for Six. Are there any pro-site sites about?