Chatting live about David Cameron at Alpha Mummy

Today I'm getting away from the bins and the quarrels over who's going to squash the cartons. Instead there are more exciting plans afoot.

At 1.45 I will be pinning on my British Mummy Bloggers badge and popping up at the Times Online's Alpha Mummy blog to join Lifestyle Editor Jennifer Howze and blogger Susanna aka A Modern Mother as well as Nixdminx and Potty Mummy for real-time analysis of David Cameron's live chat on Mumsnet.

The leader of the Conservative Party has been invited onto the parenting forum to discuss matters that are important to its members. The questions will be posed live but many of the issues to be discussed can already be seen here.

Although I will be unable to address questions to Mr Cameron, I hope that something will come up about the Conservatives' plans for reducing waste. I would love to know more about their "Responsibility Deal on waste", a voluntary scheme encouraging producers to cut back on the production of waste and improve disposal. They also say they would encourage councils to adopt a scheme to incentivise householders to recycle. I assume this would mean a wider roll-out of the RecycleBank scheme already in place at Windsor & Maidenhead.

The Tory leader is not the first politician to be questioned by the Mumsnet members. Only a month ago, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was in the hotseat and look how he fared. I can see it is going to be very interesting indeed.

Well it looks like things are going to get even hotter, the nearer to the election we get, as leaders try to win the family vote.

Perhaps politics isn't so different from watching my children argue over who's going to squash the cartons after all.

So, if you want to see how David Cameron gets on this afternoon, pop over to Alpha Mummy at 1.45pm, where you're invited to join in the discussion too.


*UPDATE*

Well it was interesting to witness how David Cameron engaged with the Mumsnet forum and how his responses were received and I would like to thank Jennifer Howze over at Alpha Mummy for inviting me into the commentary box.

With topics such as childcare vouchers, flexible working opportunities, and educational reform taking priority, it was no surprise that the issue of waste wasn't introduced. The chat only lasted an hour and David Cameron was very slow in his responses.

But in responding to the questions that were asked I am not convinced that the leader of the Conservative Party fared any better than Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who himself received a thumbs-down from many members last month. It was a difficult format for focused political discussion, lacking in opportunities to probe responses further, especially as there were so many different topics to cover - not to mention the issue of technical hitches.

However, what a great opportunity for forum members to pitch their concerns and I hope that David Cameron's office reads the backlog of issues and takes note. With regard to future guests, members have already suggested that questions should be pre-arranged but presented on arrival.

Now, talking of questions. I think it might be time to drop David Cameron a line or two and see what he has to say on the subject of zero waste.

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