James wrote at the weekend, Nick Clegg’s Orange Book allies fear Tim Farron, the Lib Dem President and standard bearer of the social democrat wing of the party. Yesterday, Farron said that the coalition would “end in divorce” in the months running up to the next general election. That provocative comment followed the barnstorming speech that Farron gave on Saturday, in which he labelled Nick Clegg as the “Leader of the Opposition”. Quentin Letts has echoed the views of many party foot soldiers by saying that this was a leadership pitch for the future by the Party President.
Unsurprisingly, the leadership has moved to quash Farron. The Times reports (£):
Mr Farron was ordered to appear before colleagues at this morning’s meeting of MPs, having failed to show up yesterday to justify his suggestion which stopped just short of advocating a break-up. His
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