Category Archives: Op-eds

Caron Lindsay

The attacks on Tim Farron need to stop – Vince Cable should know better

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 24th March 2015 - 11:23 am

Tim Farron Social Liberal Forum conference Jul 19 2014 Photo by Paul WalterNot even a charming account of his Friday dance class as reported by Buzzfeed’s Emily Ashton can assuage my annoyance with Vince Cable this morning. I have to say that he is an unusual candidate for my ire. His work rate of good, decent, liberal stuff in this parliament from stopping the Tories allowing employers to hire and fire people at will to strengthening consumer rights, tackling payday lenders and bringing in shared parental leave has been excellent. His economic wisdom and willingness to call out the Tories on their silly immigration targets has been much appreciated, as has his honesty about the realities of being in coalition with the Tories.

But he’s been the target of enough critical press briefings over the past five years to be aware of how destructive they can be. The fact that he’s prepared to put his name to trashing Tim Farron’s reputation and prospects doesn’t make it that much better. Speaking about the interview in which Farron was reported as saying that he’d give 2/10 for our handling of some aspects of the coalition (which is so totally out of character for Tim that I doubt its accuracy), Vince said:

“It wasn’t at all helpful,” Cable says bluntly. “I mean, he’s a very good campaigning MP, but he’s never been in government and has never had to make difficult decisions and I think his credibility isn’t great. You know, he’s an entertaining speaker and has a bit of a fan club. But I suspect he would not be seen as a very credible leader, at least now. Maybe in five, 10 years’ time, things are different.”

Credible politicians must be more consensual than extreme if they want to get things done, Cable suggests. He says pointedly: “The closer we get to an election and the more uncertain it seems, the more people will want people who are seen to be competent and reliable.”

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Caron Lindsay

The Telegraph puts its own predictable spin on Liberal Democrat election strategy

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 24th March 2015 - 10:49 am

It always amuses me how the newspapers report  what is going on inside the Liberal Democrat campaign machine. I would strongly recommend that you read anything published on the pages of newspapers who hate us with a very large pinch of salt.

A few weeks ago the Mirror painted this picture of “MPs being forced to undergo dragon’s den style grillings” to secure campaign resources. This is kind of right, except it’s a process which has been going on for most of this Parliament and in fact any seat was welcome to apply to be part of the strategic seats programme. I was part of the Dragon’s Den panel in Scotland and I was really heartened to see how the process worked and how campaigning activity in all our seats improved as a result.

Now the Telegraph, which hates us as much as the Mirror if not more, screams “Lib Dems throw weak MPs to the wolves”. There are undoubtedly some people who would far rather be thrown to an actual pack of wolves than face Paddy in full Father Jack mode but the sense I get is that seats which a year ago were thought to be lost are actually being seen as seriously in play. This is down to the massive effort that has been put in on the ground by our highly motivated campaign teams. The party has always targeted its relatively scant resources carefully to put most effort in where the evidence tells us we can win. The only difference between this campaign and previous is that there are fewer seats we are seriously targeting to gain. Oxford West and Abingdon and Watford, where Layla Moran and Dorothy Thornhill respectively are standing, are two prominent examples of that sort of seat.

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Opinion: Liberal Youth’s ambitious liberalism

By Stuart Wheatcroft | Tue 24th March 2015 - 9:45 am

Last weekend I attended Liberal Youth’s excellent Conference in Leeds. This is a regular event that allows members to meet, debate and – this time especially – campaign.

The final item on the agenda was a debate on “Ambitious Liberalism: a Radical, Liberal Voice for the Future”, which I proposed.

Although there are plenty of policy items in the motion, this was not primarily a motion about policy. Most of the individual items were already Liberal Youth policy. As we head into the final weeks of the General Election campaign, it is worth taking a few moment to reflect on what unites us as a party, and that is what this motion set out to do.

In putting together this motion, I took inspiration from the excellent mission statement published by Liberal Reform. In particular, Liberal Reform identifies four key strands of liberal thought, which form the basis of the text Liberal Youth adopted this weekend.

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Mark Argent

Opinion: Will mental health be a vote-winner?

By Mark Argent | Mon 23rd March 2015 - 5:28 pm

Mark Argent 1

I was surprised when I saw the promotion of mental health emerging Liberal Democrat policy. Its effects are far more widespread than people like to admit, but mental health is so stigmatised that it seems a long way from being a vote-winner. Like entering the coalition, championing it seems like something important, but where we might have to pay a price in terms of popularity.

It is a difficult area to write about. Among my own circle of friends there are a number of people whose lives are badly affected by mental health issues. The area is so stigmatised that I feel I can’t tell stories in writing, but the stories I can’t write down would include some real achievements, of people coping with really difficult situations.

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Mark Wright

Opinion: ‘Cultural appropriation’ – a horrible concept from progressives

By Mark Wright | Mon 23rd March 2015 - 3:58 pm

 

A phrase progressives increasingly use in debate about language, behaviour, traditions, is ‘cultural appropriation’. The form is typically: “they shouldn’t do that, it’s cultural appropriation.” The basis is that a culture, race, or nation, can ‘own’ an idea, style, word, or language – and that others shouldn’t ‘appropriate’ it. The implication is that cultural appropriation is bad, and that if something involves cultural appropriation then it, too, is bad.

Let’s start at the beginning: without cultural appropriation most of us would still be living naked in caves. Rewind history and consider how detrimental to humanity it would be without cultural appropriation.

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David Thorpe

Opinion: Liberal Democrat alternative budget is no answer to Osborne’s opaque way with the numbers 

By David Thorpe | Mon 23rd March 2015 - 2:32 pm

 

Several years ago there emerged into public discourse one of those phrases that becomes ubiquitous solely on the basis of its banality – ‘joined up thinking’  – and which could be deployed to allow people with more of an agenda than a plan to escape the scrutiny of the serious observer.

This article’s purpose is not to explore the decision making process behind the alternative budget presentation, except to ponder that those Lib Dems who wanted the coalition to have the impact of us being taken seriously as a potential party of government can hardly be satisfied at how we have been ridiculed in the wake of that particular initiative.

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Caron Lindsay

Is David Steel right about the Liberal Democrat attitude to a future coalition?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 22nd March 2015 - 2:19 pm
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NewsHound

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez meets Miranda Sawyer

By NewsHound | Sun 22nd March 2015 - 10:46 am

There’s an interesting interview between Miranda Sawyer and Miriam Gonzalez Durantez in the Guardian this weekend.

They meet at an Inspiring Women event on sport at the aquatics centre where the Olympics took place and, separately, in Miriam’s office.

Miriam talks about the attitudes in the Spanish village where she was brought up, where people pitied her working mother.

Her mother was the object of some local sympathy. “People felt sorry for her because she had to work,” González Durántez says, “but she wanted to. My mother has taught three generations in the village. I am never going to make so much of a difference.”

Actually, many of the women González Durántez knew had jobs – they just weren’t paid. Both her grandmothers came from rural communities where women laboured in the fields. Her maternal grandmother brought up eight boys (one died) during the Spanish civil war. “She was a tiny, dynamite woman,” González Durántez says. “Always vivacious and positive, a lesson in life.”

Though democracy came to Spain after Franco died in 1975, old-fashioned attitudes took a while to wither. At her school, “when boys did sport, girls did knitting. And boys, when they behaved badly, were sent with the girls.” González Durántez enjoyed reading and music – she played an hour of piano every day (“I say this to my children, who do half an hour a week!”). As the eldest child of the mayor, she was very much part of village life: “I organised things for the little kids, I helped my father in politics, I tried it all. A race or something, there I was. I wasn’t very good at running, but I tried it all.”

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Jonathan Brown

Opinion: Netanyahu’s rejection of peace must mean British recognition of Palestine

By Jonathan Brown | Fri 20th March 2015 - 4:05 pm

On ‘Call Clegg’ this week Nick robustly declared that “if Benjamin Netanyahu now unilaterally has decided to rule out the prospect of a Palestinian state then I think it is inevitable that British parliament, as it voted a few months ago, should rule a Palestinian state in.” The contrast with Cameron’s (is it unthinking or calculated?) support for Netanyahu’s hope-destroying election victory is both massive, and very welcome. It is great to see the Liberal Democrats standing up for the peace process rather than for an obstructionist right-wing government.

It has become a cliché to say that ‘paradoxically Netanyahu’s election victory is a good thing’: that with the emperor’s new clothes exposed for what they are, there can be no more pretending that there is an Israeli partner for peace.

I’m not so sure. There is no evidence that a prime minister who openly exploits prejudice against Israel’s Arab citizens will suddenly show any serious commitment to a negotiated solution to the conflict. And just as those of us who support an end to the illegal and divisive policies of the occupation want a just peace for the Palestinians, we also recognise that such an outcome will be to Israel’s benefit too. We want a safe, decent and prosperous Israel as a genuine partner for Palestine: an Israel which is becoming ever more unequal, racist, militarised and beholden to its extremists cannot be a partner for peace, let alone a decent place for Israelis to live. This election result is a tragedy for both sides.

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Ruth Bright

Opinion: Cyril Smith – Liberal Democrats should allow scrutiny of all party archives

By Ruth Bright | Fri 20th March 2015 - 1:55 pm

As late as last year there were people defending Cyril Smith’s reputation on Liberal Democrat Voice.  Well now we know beyond all reasonable doubt that the old Liberal Party had its own Savilesque character – it is just that none of us knew, in fact none of us even had an inkling. None of us could possibly have known and none of us could possibly have had an inkling. Could we?

I joined the party in 1985 when I was eighteen. Of course three decades on I do not remember every earnest conversation amongst my fellow Liberal students. What I do remember though is that in the entirely peripheral and uninfluential party circles in which I moved, “Hanger Smith” was viewed with contempt and wariness for supporting capital punishment and rejecting a woman’s right to choose. I never heard any rumours about him and sexual abuse, but there was a sense that he was an old local government bruiser who was somehow untouchable despite being totally out of sync with the mainstream of the party. 

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron MP writes…The British people deserve more than Cameron’s weak leadership on EU

By Tim Farron MP | Fri 20th March 2015 - 12:15 pm

European FlagThis week marks David Cameron’s last European Council as Prime Minister before the General Election and let’s hope he avoids one last blunder. It is easy to forget, given the endless Tory arguments on Europe over the past five years, that in opposition David Cameron’s ambition was for the Conservative Party to “stop banging on about Europe”. This summarises Cameron’s position well – he is simply not interested and sees the EU purely as a party management issue. If the issue of Europe is quiet then it’s a good bet that Tory backbenchers will be too.

But this abdication of leadership has caused repeated humiliations for the Prime Minister and allowed the ranks of Tory backbenchers to drive the agenda, leaving their leader looking weak, lacking in ideas and clueless.

Constantly bullied from the back benches, Cameron has time and again stirred from his self-imposed slumber, woken up too late and then mistakenly “taken a stand” before being humiliated. Famously he “vetoed” a new EU treaty in December 2011 but the result was not the triumph he portrayed – the rest of the EU went ahead anyway and concluded the treaty without the UK, leaving a legacy of bitterness in its wake and representing a low point in British diplomacy.

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Miranda Pinch

Opinion: Freedom of speech?

By Miranda Pinch | Fri 20th March 2015 - 11:17 am

Southampton University is under attack: it is planning a conference on ‘International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism’  in April.  Paris University has been forced to cancel a conference entitled: ‘Israel Apartheid is real’.

I have recently attended two conferences on Islam, one of which also came under threat.

So when is free speech permissible and when not?

At my local university I have been shocked at the racist and Islamophobic comments made in talks and seminars by those who support Israel unreservedly.  Had I made similar comments about Jews and Judaism, I would have been thrown out.  Islam is no more homogenous than Judaism or Christianity  and the way it is practised is as much cultural, political and historical as any other. When I condemn Saudi Arabia or ISIS I am not condemning Islam as a whole, nor do I delegitimize Saudi as a State. On the contrary I am often defending Islam. When I criticise Israel, as a Jew myself, I am not attacking Judaism, I am criticising a regime that gives Judaism a bad name and when I criticise the USA, I am often criticising those who give Christianity a bad name.

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Paul Walter

The Liberal Democrats could well be on course to improve our vote share to seats “bangs for the buck”

By Paul Walter | Fri 20th March 2015 - 9:54 am

In the 2010 election, the Liberal Democrats were 14%, or a seventh, less effective at harnessing our vote share to win seats than we were in 2001. If you look at my table below you’ll see that, since 1983, 2001 was our best year for converting vote share into seats.

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Kirsten Johnson

Opinion: Could you save a life?

By Kirsten Johnson | Fri 20th March 2015 - 8:55 am

As a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate I have received emails from St John Ambulance and from the British Red Cross, both wishing to promote First Aid. But what about mental health first aid? With equal parity now being given to mental and physical health, shouldn’t First Aid include Mental Health First Aid?

I think so. And I am pleased that Lib Dems at conference thought so too, for we approved new mental health policy which included a clause I submitted with the support of Oxford East:

To consult with external bodies on the content of, and how best to include training in, Mental Health First Aid, with a view to incorporating elements of Mental Health First Aid into existing First Aid at Work courses.

Imagine the world before First Aid classes, before people were taught the recovery position and CPR. Before such training, if someone was ill people would flap and call for help. They would not get involved.

The same thing happens when people are in mental health crisis. People feel inadequate, have no idea how to help, and do not get involved.

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Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb writes…A blueprint for a fairer society

By Norman Lamb MP | Thu 19th March 2015 - 1:55 pm
1 in 4 of us will develop a mental health problem at some point in our lives – and 75% of these conditions develop by the age of 18. If people don’t get the support they need in childhood and adolescence it can have an impact on the rest of their lives.  
 
And in yesterday’s budget, Liberal Democrats acted decisively to make sure the best possible support is available, with £1.25bn of new investment in young people’s mental health services, and a clear blue print for delivering the transformation needed.
 
If we want to build a fairer society, where everyone has the opportunity to realise their full potential in life, we must ensure that young people with mental health problems get the help and support they need.
 
There are some really good mental health services for young people around the country. But too often these services are fragmented and under-resourced, and young people are simply not getting help when they need it.  A complete overhaul is long overdue.
 
Last year, I set up a Task Force to look at how we can link up mental health services with other advice services in the community, making it easier – and less daunting – for young people to seek help, and making sure they get the right support when they ask for it.
 
The task force brought together clinicians, counsellors, and mental health experts – but also, crucially, young people themselves with experience of mental health problems.  The charity Young Minds helped us work with young people to understand the problems they have faced getting help, and their priorities for change.
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Robin Teverson

Robin Teverson writes … Doing cold smarter

By Robin Teverson | Thu 19th March 2015 - 9:36 am

 

In the world of politics, energy is all too often around building shiny new power stations – whether gas or nuclear.  Rather more positively it is about renewables – erecting wind or solar farms, and wind arrays off-shore.

Just recently, with Lib Dems in Government and in charge of DECC, we’ve got rather more sophisticated. Nowadays we also think about the demand side of the equation. Why not spread demand more evenly and avoid having to build all that expensive excess capacity?  Or even better, increase energy efficiency to such a degree that we don’t need to generate so much power and heat in the first place.

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Matt Hemsley

Opinion: Welsh Liberal Democrats need to be bolder in considering a coalition without Labour

By Matt Hemsley | Wed 18th March 2015 - 5:21 pm

 

This past week in Wales, political ears pricked up after Stephen Crabb (the Conservative Secretary of State for Wales) gave support to the idea of a Conservative, Plaid Cymru, Liberal Democrat coalition in the Senedd after the May 2016 elections.

The ‘rainbow coalition’ almost happened in 2007 – but has more recently seen to be off the table, so backing (as it were) from such a prominent politician has sparked off some debate.

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Paul Walter

Thanks Liverpool!

By Paul Walter | Tue 17th March 2015 - 1:00 pm

image

My photo of the stage at the replica Cavern Club, The Beatles Story, Liverpool.

When we visit a city for a conference, it has a significant positive impact on the local economy of that area. Our arrival is very well flagged up in advance with posters and publicity. Then when we arrive everyone knows we’re there due to the extra security presence and hordes of…..well let’s just say unusual looking people with yellow badges and bundles of papers wandering around.

Much of the time during the conferencee, the representatives are charging around like blue-bottomed flies chasing to the next debate or meeting.

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Paul Walter

“Source close to Nick Clegg” needs to stop – now

By Paul Walter | Mon 16th March 2015 - 9:35 pm

Paddy Ashdown gave Tim Farron both barrels yesterday. I think it was justified, but there it stops. I believe Tim has now probably learnt his lesson regarding media interviews. There is no need for any more public chastening of Tim. Despite this episode, Tim has provided crucial cover for the party and been an excellent President.

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John Kelly

Opinion: Ethical Foreign Policy

By John Kelly | Mon 16th March 2015 - 2:26 pm

 

At a dinner in London last week to celebrate David Steel’s 50 years in Parliament Nick Clegg congratulated David on his internationalism and talked at length about the importance of our Party being the champion of internationalism and human rights.

In his final conference speech Nick said “we will stand up for tolerance, decency and fairness” but this was put in a domestic context.  Hopefully we will soon hear an election speech from Nick offering a Lib Dem foreign policy that will clearly differentiate us from the Tories and from the policies of the Blair/Brown years.

This is the speech I would like to see Nick deliver about ethical foreign policy:

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Tad Jones

Opinion: A lack of leadership on public R&D spending

By Tad Jones | Mon 16th March 2015 - 11:22 am

 

Analysis from the Science is Vital campaign has been released with the worrying news that UK public sector spending on research and development has dropped to less than 0.5% of GDP.

“Not only does the decline in investment put us at the bottom of the G8 group of countries, but it’s less than any G8 country has invested in R&D in the last 20 years.”

This is also less than the EU average, and the OECD average for public R&D spending. Science is Vital argue that this is a result of a flat cash settlement in 2010, cuts in capital expenditure, and significant reductions in departmental spending on research. The campaign for science and engineering (CaSE) have echoed this with an estimate that “The cumulative erosion of the ringfenced science budget will be over £1.1bn from the beginning of 2010 spending review period up to 2015/16.”

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Paul Walter

Tim tries too hard, and ends up singed

By Paul Walter | Mon 16th March 2015 - 8:15 am

I looked down at the assembled members during Nick Clegg’s speech yesterday. I was “up in the gods”. It was noticeable that Tim Farron was seated right at the end of the front row. The opposite end to the leader and his coterie, that is. There may have been nothing significant in that seating arrangement. We had got used to Tim being part of the leader “doughnut” in conference speech coverage, while he was an excellent President of our party. He is no longer holder of the official copy of “On Liberty”, which is part of the trappings of the office of President. But the chair positioning was emblematic of what happened on Sunday. Dear Tim was cast out into outer darkness.

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Denis Mollison

Opinion: STV for elections in England and Wales

By Denis Mollison | Fri 13th March 2015 - 9:56 am

In the words of the Electoral Reform Society’s current petition:
“It’s time to change the voting system for local elections in England and Wales. In 21st century democracies, election results should be determined by how people vote. Instead, Labour won 100% of seats in Manchester on 58% of the vote. The Conservatives won 62% of seats in Kingston on 35% of the vote. And the Liberal Democrats won 83% of seats in Sutton on 38% of the vote.”

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Katie Ghose

The Independent View: Let’s make 2015 the last ever lottery election

By Katie Ghose | Fri 13th March 2015 - 8:55 am

Who could have predicted it? Who would have thought that four years after the Alternative Vote was firmly rejected by voters in a national referendum, we would be approaching the 2015 general election with First Past the Post at Westminster under serious scrutiny? Or that local electoral reform could be a realistic outcome of power-sharing talks between Liberal Democrats and one or other of the major parties (provided Lib Dems make it a ‘red-line’ issue)?

What are the game-changers? Firstly, FPTP’s supposed ability to deliver clear majority government was justification enough for many to put up with the obvious lack of proportionality.  That no longer applies. As The Economist says: “Unaccustomed and ill-adapted to multi-party politics, Britain is more likely to get weak, unstable governments. That will only fuel the dissatisfaction with career politicians in the main parties. And if the parliamentary system comes to be seen as both unfair and ineffectual, then it is in for a crisis of legitimacy.”

With FPTP stripped of its main justification, other arguments are also coming to the fore. In The Lottery Election, published last month by the Electoral Reform Society, Professor John Curtice argues that relatively small shifts in opinion could have massive effects at the Westminster level. Meanwhile, UKIP could come 6th in seats but 3rd in votes, and SNP could come 6th in votes but 3rd in seats. So far, so unfair.

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Nick Harvey

Sir Nick Harvey writes…Difficult questions for all parties on defence spending

By Nick Harvey | Thu 12th March 2015 - 7:15 pm

Today in the Commons I sat through impressive speeches from across the benches echoing concerns about the UK’s expenditure on defence – principally, our predicted failure to meet NATO’s 2 per cent of GDP target on defence spending in the approaching financial year.

There was little expectation that defence would become a big election issue, but less than two months ahead of polling day all the parties share the headache that a commitment to maintaining the 2 per cent target looks frankly impossible. With the assumption that further cuts will have to be made across the board, there are serious implications for the kind of role the UK wants to play in the world and how we are going to defend our global interests.

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Judy Abel

Opinion: Why don’t we throw out the spending plans and start again?

By Judy Abel | Thu 12th March 2015 - 4:04 pm

When parties come up with their public spending plans, one gets a sense of deckchairs being rearranged on the Titanic, with a bit more spending on something one year and then a little bit less the next, parties micromanaging (and re-announcing!) their spending plans, making compromises and trying to spread the ‘jam’ ever more thinly.

Of course no one is really fooled. We all know that the number of district nurses has almost halved in a decade, that libraries have closed all over the country, that adult education services have been cut to the bone and that those on benefits such as Jobseekers Allowance are having to jump through ever more hoops to get their money. There have been serious cuts in social care services for the most vulnerable too. This may sound harsh, but it is the reality of living in Britain today.

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Tony Greaves

Tony Greaves writes…Can’t poll, won’t poll?

By Tony Greaves | Thu 12th March 2015 - 2:16 pm

I wrote about prospects for a minority government if no party gets an overall majority at the General Election, and some of the things that might need to change at Westminster if it’s to work. Moves away from its majoritarian and adversarial culture to one based much more on negotiation and mediation, compromises and trade-offs, and an acceptance of a more dominant role for Parliament as against the government. But will it last?

Traditionally the Prime Minister asked the Sovereign for a dissolution. In the modern era such requests were always granted. Sometimes the government had lost the confidence of the Commons (1924 and 1979), run out of steam (1951), or politics had been turned upside down and the new arrangements needed popular endorsement (1931).

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Tom Papworth

Opinion: Fiscal consolidation and the Liberal Democrats

By Tom Papworth | Thu 12th March 2015 - 11:23 am

Newly minted coins by James Cridland james.cridland.net
Over the past few days, questions have emerged about the Liberal Democrats’ proposals for fiscal consolidation. Liberal Reform felt it would therefore be helpful to clarify what the challenges are, to explain how some of the figures are derived and to help people understand what the scale of the problem is.

Which deficit are we cutting and how much does it cost?

All three political parties have committed to eliminating the budget deficit over the next parliament. There are two things that divide the parties, however:

  • The speed of the consolidation – in what year will the budget be balanced
  • The definition of the “budget deficit.”

The Liberal Democrats have committed to eliminate the budget deficit by 2018-19. The Labour Party have postponed consolidation to 2020 and the Conservatives are being vague about when in the next parliament the budget will balance. The Lib Dems position reflects current government plans.

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Iain Sharpe

Opinion: The myth of the council war on motorists

By Iain Sharpe | Thu 12th March 2015 - 8:58 am

Despite being nominally committed to localism, this government, with Eric Pickles as secretary of state, has been unable to resist trying to micromanage councils’ local policies, whether on bin collections, or imminent legislation on car parking enforcement.

Even leaving aside the argument that such things are better decided locally, is there any truth to Pickles’ belief that councils are ‘waging war on the motorist’? In my experience, no. Councillors of all parties and council officers alike are all too aware of people’s frustration about finding parking spaces or receiving parking tickets.

If there has been any kind of war it has come from central government. From the 1990s, when John Gummer was secretary of state, governments reversed their previous policies that had encouraged out of town shopping, while making it unviable to regenerate town centres. Instead they introduced new planning rules to restrict out-of-town development and enhance town centres.

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Caron Lindsay

Does Cameron think he’s been in Nick Clegg’s pocket these last five years?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 11th March 2015 - 1:10 pm

The third last Prime Minister’s Questions of this Parliament was just as ridiculous as we’ve come to expect. I lost patience with it at the moment when David Cameron got away with describing Ed Miliband as despicable.

Now, I have many, many disagreements with the Labour leader. I’m also furious with Ed for countenancing some horrible personal attacks on Nick Clegg, not least that appalling Party Political Broadcast during the European elections last year. However, that was an ad hominem too far. Whatever his policy deficiencies, I think Ed is a decent enough bloke who does not deserve that sort of …

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