Britain's small and medium-sized businesses are failing disabled customers and employees and missing out on a consumer market comprising 11 million people - with spending power of £212billion.

The majority of companies are not providing basic services to meet the needs of disabled people, such as lifts, easy-access loos and parking facilities.

Did you catch our CEO, Dr Liam O'Toole, on BBC Breakfast this morning? Liam was talking about the impact arthritis has on the lives of millions of people to launch our Be the Difference campaign.

A recent survey of Daily Telegraph readers found that 76% of people with arthritis say that pain prevents them living life to the full. We know that pain affects you in different ways, so we've brought together arthritis experts to give you all the latest information about pain management techniques, treatment options and hopes for the future.

The optimistic take

The very ease with which one can put together a positive version of Thursday's election results shows how welcomingly different they were from previous years. So here's a dose of optimism for you:

• The Lib Dem vote share in council elections was up 4 points on 2015. (This is the BBC's Projected National Share which adjusts for the different rounds of seats up each year.)
• Moreover, the Lib Dems moved back up into third, ahead of Ukip.
• The Lib Dems make net seat gains in council elections for first time since 2008. At +44 gains at time of writing, the Lib Dem result is not only better than the Tories (down 46) and Labour (down 23) but also better than Ukip (up 26) and the Greens (no net change).
• The Liberal Democrats also gained control of an extra council - Watford.

A great Liberal MP, John Bright used to say, "I believe in faith, hope and canvassing. And the greatest of these is canvassing."

Canvassing makes a difference. Being canvassed by a party or cause increases the chance you will support them and increases the chance you will come out to vote. You can canvass on a street stall or on the phone. You can do it online. Still the most effective way, in my view, is going door to door, seeing people in person.

In Southport last Thursday we did something no party has ever done before in Southport's history- won all the council seats by healthy margins. Not everyone knows where Southport is but its on the northern tip of the Merseyside region on the Lancashire coast. On Thursday I was puzzled when contacted by the press department expressing worry about the defection of one of my councillors. It turned out it was a bloke in Stockport who had defected. Easy mistake to make if you are from London.

The argument on trade of those in favour of Britain leaving the European Union appears to be that the United Kingdom is such an important trade partner of the remainder of the EU that it can obtain a trade deal which gives it access to the internal market of the EU but which would not constrain the British government to accept internal market regulation and even allow it to abolish parts of the existing internal market regulation.

After becoming Leader of the Liberal Party in Canada, Justin Trudeau wrote an autobiography "Common Ground". The early chapters cover his life as the son of a Prime Minister, then his career as a bouncer, ski instructor and high school teacher. The book moves on to how he became a non-party political activist, then a Liberal candidate and (by just a few hundred votes) an MP in 2008, then party leader in 2013.

On Thursday 28 April MPs

passed a motion on World Autism Awareness Week. This debate