Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems swear to get attention – but what about their policies?

The Lib Dems are in an amusingly sweary mood this weekend at their conference, with Danny Alexander telling the Sun on Sunday that he’s p****d off with the Tories for stealing his tax policy, and Lord Ashdown talking about shits and bastards last night. Vince Cable today promised ‘more colourful language’ about his coalition partners in the speech that he will give later in the conference.

Perhaps Nick Clegg is planning to develop his ‘No, no, no’ speech from last year to tell delegates about all the times he’s had to tell the Tories to eff off in the past four years, though he seems oddly delicate about return fire, with an official complaint about a Home Office source calling the Deputy Prime Minister a ‘wanker’.

The strategy behind all this blue language from the yellows is that it gets a bit more attention than Danny Alexander telling a newspaper he’s a bit miffed would, just as David Cameron’s ‘effing Tories’ line got more attention in the Scottish referendum.

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