Another Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions and another set of traded attacks. Harriet Harman has a go about the 50p tax rate and tax credit cuts. Nick Clegg lobs back this salvo:

Next month, this Government will take more than 1 million people on low pay out of paying income tax altogether. Next month, we will deliver the largest cash increase in the state pension ever. There will be no more of Labour’s 75p pension insults. Next month, thousands of children from disadvantaged backgrounds will receive an uplift in the pupil premium to give them the head start in life that they never got under Labour. That is a record that I am proud of.

And the attacks don’t only come from the Labour side. We have the Tory fifth columnists. David Ruffley (Con) talked about the forthcoming House of Lords reform bill as “this rather squalid Bill” which will “undermine the primacy of this Chamber”. Why? Well, because second chamber members elected by proportional representation will be tempted to claim an “equal..mandate” of course. Perish the thought!

But my favourite bit of invective came from Labour’s Steve Rotherham:

Deputy Prime Minister, in 2008, when you used to visit Liverpool, you categorically said:

“Will I ever join a Conservative Government? No. I will never allow the Liberal Democrats to be a mere annex to another party’s agenda.”

What do you regret the most: your betrayal on the 3,000 extra police you promised, your broken tuition fees pledge, your party’s support for the destruction of the NHS, or becoming a Tory?

This brought forward Nick Clegg at his most passionate in response:

I am proud of the fact that we have stepped up to the plate to clean up the mess the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and his party colleagues left behind after 13 years in office. It is convenient for him to airbrush out of history the fact that when his party was in government it went on bended knee to Rupert Murdoch, yet now it will not even talk to his newspapers. It also let the banks get away with blue murder, but it now wants to tax them to the hilt. The country will not forget the mess it left the rest of us to clear up.

During the session we heard the new name for the “Long Grass Commission”. I refer to the commission which will look at the West Lothian Question. It’s a bit like the Common Cold Unit. After years grappling with the problem, they will probably finally give up in about 2089. Anyway, it’s now called the “McKay Commission“. So, now you know.

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.