Clegg sets his alarm clock

My prediction for this week: we’re going to see a whole lot of defiant frontage from Nick Clegg. The last parliamentary session closed with him under attack over tuition fees; this one begins with the possibility of heavy defeat in Oldham East – and he’s got to respond accordingly. Hence his interview on Today this morning, in which he dismissed the idea of a Lib Dem drubbing in May’s local elections as “total nonsense,” and stressed that the coalition is “setting in motion a number of very liberal reforms”. There was also a warning over bonuses, along the usual lines, for state-owned banks.

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Patrick West

Sam Fender is right about white privilege

But the most intriguing news in Lib Dem Land is much more sedate than all that – revealed, as it was, in an unassuming paragraph at the bottom of a Sunday Times story (£) yesterday.