I had an email from the chair of the Citizens Advice Bureau the other day. She was worried that at a recent meeting about how to celebrate its 50th anniversary I might have though she was impinging on my fundraising portfolio.

I have to admit that I didn’t feel anyone was muscling in on my area, because until I got the email I didn’t know that I had a portfolio! I think this is symptomatic of the confusion that touched everything about the CAB in June/July. First of all the council put forward two people as their representatives who were no longer councillors, and they did that without telling the people concerned. I had said to the CAB that I was happy to help with fundraising – but I meant that when they were doing a collection at the supermarket or town centre I would turn up and rattle a tin with them. They obviously took that as an offer to hold a portfolio for fundraising and accepted without me even being aware.

This is like how I got involved in politics: I thought I was being asked to be on an interviewing panel for prospective election candidates and accepted, but it turned out I was being asked to be a prospective candidate. Somehow I didn’t know quite how to get out of it politely and decided to stick with it and try to do my best. I’ll do the same with this I think.