Jo Swinson had the hardest job out of all the leaders on the BBC Question Time special last night.

First of all, the audience was stacked against her:

BBC confirm that the #bbcqt #LeadershipDebate audience was stacked based on current party representation in the commons ie numbers of MPs. So there were effectively 2 Lib Dem’s in that room. @joswinson handled it with grace& passion. Sustained pressure but she didn’t buckle once.

— Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP🔶🇺🇦 (@agcolehamilton) November 23, 2019

While all the leaders took some tough questioning, at least Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn had somewhere in the vicinity of a third of the audience backing them. For some reason UK audiences seem to like Nicola Sturgeon, but they don’t have to live with her chaotic government’s neglect of pubic services. Trust me, the grass is not greener up here.

“Do you regret voting consistently with the Conservatives in favour of harsh and uncaring benefit cuts?”

“We got stuff wrong and we in the future, going forward, are determined to get it right”

Jo Swinson answers an audience question on her voting record. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/u1hPGok7Sa

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) November 22, 2019

The audience was never going to back Jo – but people watching would have seen a leader who was absolutely crystal clear about her position. And, uniquely, she was also prepared to admit where we and she had got it wrong in the past. Compare that to Corbyn’s failure to acknowledge that he had failed to tackle anti-semitism in his own party and Johnson’s failure to accept the consequences of the casual racism with which he peppers so much of his writing.

So it’s hardly surprising that much of the right and left wing press are using up their column inches attacking Jo instead of promoting their own candidate.

Jo was very clear that she was the Remain candidate on the ballot paper.

“People have the chance to vote for a Remain party, for a candidate that wants to stop Brexit”@joswinson says the general election may be ‘the last chance’ to stop Brexit. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/7TEUwKmHR7

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) November 22, 2019

"If we remain in the EU we will have more money to invest in our communities." @joswinson on #BBCQT
Vote Liberal Democrat on 12 December and invest the £50 billion Remain bonus to our economy back into public services and communities across Britain pic.twitter.com/cocDrutpej

— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) November 22, 2019

The first thing we learned last night, if we didn’t know it already, is that Labour is not a remain party. Jeremy Corbyn announced he would stay neutral on this deal that he’s going to negotiate. That is an astounding failure of leadership. By refusing to take a position, he lets everybody down.

The second thing we learned is that Jo Swinson shows grace, candour and passion under pressure. She has the hardest job last night and answered with kindness, empathy and clarity.  She made sure that she is the unequivocal voice of remain in this election.

Her performance will go down very well in the seats we hope to gain to deprive Boris Johnson of a majority. Don’t just take my word for it:

https://twitter.com/mattforde/status/1197993709272489984?s=20

Diamonds are formed under pressure. Our Lib Dem diamond did us proud by going into that fire pit and handling the tough questioning much better than anyone else.