Welcome to today’s numerically challenged Daily View – a bit like a Conservative policy paper.

On this day 51 years ago, Fidel Castro was sworn in as Cuban Prime Minister. Twenty five years ago Clive Ponting resigned from his post at the MoD over the Belgrano affair, despite having been acquitted of breaching the Official Secrets Act a week previously. Just five years ago, the Kyoto Protocol came into force.

Today is of course Shrove Tuesday, so get ready for pancakes tonight. But don’t rely on your opponents giving up campaigning for Lent. I’m off to spend the night setting the budget for the good residents of Three Rivers.

4 blog posts about hung parliaments and coalitions

After the Guardian’s story today that the LibDems are ruling out coalition government, there are numerous LibDem blog posts on the subject. At Split Horizons, Duncan Stott discusses the elephant in the room policy that Nick missed off the shopping list, Over at his eponymous blog, Stephen Tall comments on influence you can believe in.

Lynne Featherstone MP thinks it’s the Guardian that’s changing, not the LibDems, whilst Peter Black AM thinks it’s all a question of confidence and supply.

2 Lib Dem news stories

Banks still failing to back small businesses with finance
The Independent is one of many papers to comment on a survey by the Institute of Directors, which shows  that the majority of its members who sought financing from their banks during the last year have been turned down. Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable said:

There is a huge gap between what the banks tell us and the experience of companies on the ground. This evidence confirms that large numbers of small and medium sized businesses are still having difficulty in getting credit on reasonable terms. The nationalised and semi nationalised banks owe their existence to us, the taxpayer and they must make good on their commitments to increase lending at reasonable rates. Instead of paying themselves large bonuses, the money should instead be used to strengthen balance sheets and to provide commercial lending to sound and solvent British companies who have a vital role to play in our economic recovery.

Husky Cameron silent on the environment
Yesterday the Conservatives published a list of ‘Ten reasons to vote Conservative’. Despite David Cameron’s claim that he has ‘sought to push the environment up to the top of the political agenda’, and the Shadow Climate Change Secretary Greg Clark  asserting that Cameron ‘wanted the environment to be a very important part of the proposition we put to the public at the General Election’, the list does not include any reference to the environment or climate change

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Climate Change Secretary, Simon Hughes said:

For those of us who really care about the environment and the future of our planet the Tories have demonstrated once again that there is no reason to vote for them. Cameron the PR man likes having his picture taken with huskies, but when it comes to governing this country the Tories have never made the climate one of their priorities.

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