It’s Monday morning. It’s the 1st March, and the question everyone’s asking is, “Where the hell did January and February go?”. For our Welsh readers, meanwhile, may we wish you a very happy St David’s Day. On with the day’s main news …

Result of LDV poll on Tories’ evaporating lead

Yesterday LDV ran an insta-poll asking our Twitter followers and site readers what you thought was the main reason why the Tories’ opinion poll lead has shrunk so fast. Here’s what the 147 of you who voted told us:

The three top reasons according to you:

• 29% – Over-reliance on Brand Cameron
• 22% – Confusion over Tory economic policies
• 18% – Failed to give positive message

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

• Find out which Labour cabinet minister has put Malcolm Gladwell in mind of a Monty Python sketch here;
• And click here to find out what made James Graham expostulate, “Good God, they might just do it!”

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Muted reaction to Cameron’s Tory spring conference speech
Here are my three favourite stories:

The speech unspun: clichés are irksome (The Times);
Poll slump casts pall over conference (FT);
Cameron struggles to make the running (Indy).

And here’s what Chris Huhne had to say about it:

Once again the speech was short on specifics and on the key assurance of fairness that is essential if we are to tackle our economic problems. We need fair taxation, new green jobs, a fair start for our children and a fair political system that gives voters real choice to sack miscreant MPs.”

Lib Dems to vote against decrease in pension payments for almost 9m pensioners

The Lib Dems’ 63 MPs will tomorrow vote in Parliament against the decision to freeze state pension top-up payments this April, which will leave almost nine million pensioners worse off.

Last December Ministers set out plans to freeze payments of the State Earnings Related Pension and the Second State Pension, effectively cutting state pension payments by £515million next year.

Steve Webb, the party’s shadow work and pensions secretary, said:

Labour has betrayed pensioners by promising to increase their pensions when millions are actually set to receive a real-term cut this year. Freezing pension top-up payments will leave almost nine million older people worse off at a time when they are already struggling to make ends meet.

“Older people are already facing high fuel bills following this cold winter and rising inflation eroding their savings. The Liberal Democrats will vote against this latest example of the Government failing to give a fair deal to pensioners.”