Oh Lor!

No wonder you remain anonymous! Or you might be lynched for being so irritating.

If you cannot answer questions, why not just say so?

Well is the answer to my question on the party website, or isn’t it?

Are you deliberately trying to wind me up with all this nonsense, or what?

If you think it would be necessary to read minds to know the answer to the question, why did you post that nonsense about my being “a piffler who can’t be bothered to read the party website”?

You know damn well – and you knew damn well when you posted that – that the answer isn’t on the party website!

There is never one answer to any real-world problem, so it’s a bit rich to go around complaining about your own false expectation that you’ll be spoon-fed from now until eternity.

Or are you seriously suggesting that the most respected parliamentarian has transformed overnight into his mirror-image?

You implied that the answer to my question about the decrease in the “green switch” could easily be found on the party’s website – that I was at fault because I “couldn’t be bothered” to find it.

In fact, you haven’t the slightest clue what the answer is. What you posted was just a bit of rubbish you had invented.

Sorry to be blunt, but why don’t you shut up for a bit and give us a break from your drivel, even if it’s only for a day or two?

CCF,
maybe you could work this out for yourself. Possibly it has something to do with a concern for headlines (something you’re clearly not overly worried about, if I may say), or potentially a concern for coherence in the ever-shifting sands of economic data, or more likely a mixture of the two.

FWIW I think the principle stands, while we should and will stand by this the economic crisis is turning the most concrete sums to dust as we speak, so viewed in light of the circumstances you are expecting immediate answers to an impossible question – which is highly unrealistic, notwithstanding the obvious overriding importance of other matters.

I am sure however, that were you to offer your undoubted abilities to the greater service of the party representatives you would likely have better access to their thinking to resolve your anxiety.

If you’ll accept a humble compliment, I think you’d do exceedingly well if you turned your attentions to the weaknesses of our opponents and use this opportunity as a means to state your own position.

It seems to me that you have a rather startlingly illiberal approach.

Is it really necessary to call someone a piffler while failing to answer her or his awkward question?

Is this a Liberal party – or a Democratic Centralist party in which condescension or scorn is poured from above on any dissent?

All rather of a piece with the EU or the Soviet Union!

Bureaucracy rules, OK!

Anonymously, of course!

Well, of course I wasn’t expecting a personal response from Cable!

And as a matter of fact I spent quite a long time looking at the party website trying to clarify this point. After I had seen the message “Error 404 Page not found” about a dozen times, I gave up and tried to contact Cable.

Anyway, if you know why the figure Cable recently put on the “green switch” was less than half the amount the party originally agreed on, feel free to tell us.

But of course calling people names has always been your preferred method of avoiding tricky questions.

Dane Clouston,
good to see that you’ve got off your hobby horse and are addressing the issues instead of making personal attacks these days – it makes a refreshing change!

Congratulations on your apparently unlimited perceptions as compared with the ‘limited perceptions’ of others!

In what way are the issues of contention based on misinformed conflation of issues (such as Europe and the EU)?

At least some of the disgruntled voices within the party (As you know, I am not a member) have the courage to identify themselves, unlike you with your anonymous pontifications.

If you were to identify yourself you might find that you would gradually have to alter the calibre and tone of your remarks, which do not seem to have changed since I last read your anonymous posts at the time of the Henley By-election.

A little more humility and a little less would-be superior condescension would be good, in my humble opinion, whether or not you are in a position to identify yourself.

Oh yes, that reminds me. I emailed Vince Cable about 2 weeks ago to ask for clarification about the switch to green taxes apparently having shrunk by more than half, according to a report of his press briefing.

No response whatsoever, needless to say.

It’s difficult to “engage” with people when they simply ignore attempts to communicate.

It remains unfortunate that the issues of contention are based on reaction to misinformed conflation of issues (such as Europe and the EU), but we thrive on our disagreements, so if we remember that the only way to get there in the end is to continue talking sense will eventually prevail.

Clegg is a smart guy with good instincts so I was glad to read that he is growing a thicker skin – the mud being thrown around here won’t throw the party off course because it just doesn’t stick.

It is not up to our leaders to lie down and roll over – it is up to us to hold our representatives to account. So I hope all of the disgruntled voices here will engage more actively in the party processes to get their complaints heard rather than sniping idly from the sidelines.

Now, back to writing that new Focus…

Fighting a general election campaign with the tabloid press determined to portray the party leader as a clown would be a very unpleasant experience indeed.

Thanks! Incidentally, while my name may look as if it is made up, it – like yours, I am glad to see – is not! So no need for inverted commas!

More power to your elbow! Keep pushing leftwards and for the UK within the Liberal Democrats, and we will keep pushing within the continuation Liberal Party – http://www.liberal.org.uk. I look forward to the day when the two become one again and we introduce a British Wealth Welfare State that will reduce Income Welfare State dependency. Beveridge Mark II?