My Today programme debut talking about Jo Swinson and saying we should all look out for each other.

At 8:20 this morning I made my first ever foray into the world of the Today programme, talking about something that should never really have been a story - the fuss over Jo Swinson's lack of a seat at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday.

If you look at who did most of the kicking up of fuss, the Daily Mail, then their track record on women is not the best, as I wrote on Liberal Democrat Voice last night.

What was getting quite worrying is that Jo Swinson's views were not being properly represented. She does not think that offering a seat to a pregnant woman is sexist and she tweeted so last night.

About to get on the tube - seat offers welcome & definitely not sexist :o) But I was happier standing at pmqs yesterday
— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) October 17, 2013

The way Twitter was going on, you'd think she'd said quite the opposite. I could just imagine playing Trivial Pursuit in 10 years' time and finding a question "Which Equalities Minister said it was sexist to offer a seat to a pregnant woman?" and then getting all enraged like Ross did over his sandwich in Friends.

Even today, when there was no possible excuse to do so, Cristina Odone published a highly uncharitable piece in the Telegraph entitled "Does Jo Swinson hate women?" in which she repeated the false assertion. Two tweets from me just to make things clear:

What @joswinson said, for benefit of @CristinaOhq About to get on the tube - seat offers welcome & definitely not sexist :o)
— Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) October 18, 2013

What @CristinaOhq said @joswinson said: Jo Swinson, a Lib Dem, says that men who stand up for a pregnant woman are sexist. #untrue #wrong
— Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) October 18, 2013

But back to the point. I'd gone to bed last night when I noticed a tweet from the Today programme asking me to ring them. After a bit of going back and forth with midnight phone calls and me sneaking downstairs and firing up my laptop because I couldn't remember my Skype name, it was arranged that I'd take part in a discussion with James Forsyth, the Political Editor of the Spectator.

It was actually quite a good natured discussion. James and I were not far away from each other. The only difference I could see was that I didn't think our lot were being deliberately rude because I reckoned they were all looking away from Jo towards the pantomime at the other end of the Chamber. I didn't, by the way, get to slip in that in Scotland and Wales we have modern parliaments where every member has their own desk, and we don't have the antiquated voting system that involves standing in a lobby for much longer than Jo was standing at Question Time.

I also said that it was a pity that, out of all the things Jo had done this week, this fleeting moment was what we were all talking about. I mean, she's done stuff about getting more women into science and technology, to penalise rogue employers who lose at tribunals, to speaking at a conference on shared parental leave to working on consumer rights. She also fitted in a campaign trip to Dunfermline where the only sign of her pregnancy was that people were actually sometimes able to keep up with her as she knocked on doors.

I was asked people were worried about offering seats to women for fear of being branded sexist. I said that the world would be a better place if we all showed each other a bit of empathy and looked to see if others needed our seat more. I also said that when I was pregnant, the time I most needed a seat was during the first 3 months when I was hit by nausea and exhaustion when I didn't have a bump. I open doors for anybody and I give up my seat if there is someone around us who needs it more.

Anyway, you can listen to the whole thing here.

BBC publishes new MPs' Diaries

Some of the new intake of MPs have been talking to the BBC about their first weeks at Westminster.

It's interesting to read about their different experiences of the place.

Rory Stewart takes over from David MacLean in Penrith and the Borders. Mr MacLean was one of the prime movers in trying to keep MPs' expenses secret. He also stood in 1983 in Inverness against Russell Johnston which is when I first heard of him. Anyway, his successor will I hope be prepared to be more open and transparent than his predecessor.

He described the first meeting of the 1922 Committee. I don't get the need to bang on tables when your leader comes into the room - but then I'm a Lib Dem and we tend not to show too much reverence to our leaders. Respect, if they earn it, but we just don't do deference and forelock tugging.

One of the most interesting things he had to say was his experience when trying to chat to some Labour MPs. He's made some friends on the other side of the House but others wore their tribalism on their sleeve:

I actually had a very good conversation with some of them though I must confess there was a moment I thought, when I was talking to Luciana Berger (MP for Liverpool Wavertree), that when I told her I was a Tory she didn't seem so keen on talking to me anymore.

It felt a little bit like I had turned up at a dance and somehow was wearing the wrong kind of shoes.

Whatever happened to taking people as you find them? I don't think I'd ever voluntarily have a conversation with a member of the BNP - and even under coeercion I'd find it difficult, but most people, from all parties, are good people who are there because they want to improve people's lives.

The Liberal Democrat contributor is David Ward, the new Liberal Democrat MP for Bradford East. He writes about how he missed his son's birthday:

I've got to check my rail ticket for getting back home - it's my son's birthday on Thursday and I'm actually taking a later train because it's £40 cheaper so I'll get home at 11pm on his birthday.

I'm saving the taxpayer £40 but is this really what I want to be doing to my son on his birthday and missing the meal I would be having with the family?

What I get from him is that he just wants to get on with work and he's a bit fed up with the pomp and ceremony.

What a difference a week makes for former NUM president Ian Lavery. On week 2, he was fed up with the lack of a proper desk, describing himself as an "industrial gypsy." It's amazing what a few diamonds and a bit of a show can make to a left wing trade unionist:

It's been quite a lively day today, the day of the Queen's Speech. For me it was a very, very extraordinary day, all from the way in which the Queen arrived to the House of Lords this morning, the pageantry, the cavalry, the horses. It was absolutely fantastic.

I'm not a great Royalist but to see this display was quite fascinating and I must say really, really enjoyable.

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Maybe he should have a chat with Luciana Berger about open-mindedness. He's on the Labour benches, so she'll talk to him.

Tory MP for Totnes Sarah Wollaston, the former GP who was selected by open primary, has a realistic sense of the precariousness of her position. I like her attitude:

It's quite a strange experience being a new MP. You swing from really special moments like that backwards and forwards to times when it's going horribly wrong.

You can never quite decide whether you're an important person or really, right down there at the bottom of the food chain.

Finally, Chi Onwurah, Labour MP for Newcastle Central didn't like the Tories' triumphalism:

All the Tories in the dining room banged and shouted, and yeah, it did feel like a public school canteen, not that I've ever been in a public school canteen. That's when I decided to leave.

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This is just a taster of the programme that's on Radio 4 at 4 pm today. I'm looking forward to listening to it.