Liberal democrats

I spotted the Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Tim Farron in a pub on Whitehall, enjoying half a pint of lager and nachos with fellow party activists after marching in defence of the Human Rights Act. He kindly agreed to speak to The Spectator and you can watch above what we discussed. As part of his leadership campaign, Farron, who remains the bookies’ favourite, has suggested the party must focus on particular campaigns and causes instead of acting like a traditional small political party. Human rights is one topic in particular he feels will motivate activists and believes that the party’s efforts so far helped to keep a British Bill of Rights out of the Queen’s Speech: ‘I think

Could there be a sadder sight today than Nick Clegg, intervening on behalf of his now tiny ‘minor party’ in the Queen’s Speech debate? The Lib Dem leader is responding to this afternoon, his first intervention since the general election, and plans to use his slot to complain that the Tories are already turning their backs on the ‘clear thread of liberalism’ that his party installed in the government. He will say: ‘So it is dispiriting – if pretty unsurprising – to see how quickly, instead of building on those achievements, the new Conservative Government is turning its back on that liberal stance.’ The ex-Lib Dem leader will add that

Pressure is growing on Alistair Carmichael, the former Scotland Secretary and only Lib Dem north of the border, to resign his seat after an official investigation proved he lied about leaking a confidential memo during the election campaign. The SNP are aiming for him in today’s Observer, with deputy leader Stewart Hosie saying ‘Mr Carmichael has no credibility in continuing as an MP and in my opinion he should stand down’. Arguably, this shouldn’t be a matter for his party or the Commons to decide any more. We now have parliamentary recall, a bill passed at the end of the last parliament to allow ordinary constituents to trigger a by-election.

During the election campaign the Telegraph reported that Nicola Sturgeon wanted David Cameron to remain Prime Minister, after a memo was leaked to them which included an account of a private conversation between Sturgeon and the French Ambassador. Naturally, the SNP leader was furious and demanded an inquiry. The Cabinet Office has now finished their investigation and concluded that the former Scotland Secretary Alistair Carmichael and his spad Euan Roddin were responsible for the leak. When asked about the leak at the time, Carmichael said that ‘The first I heard of this was when I received a phone call from a journalist’: Interestingly, the Cabinet Office has confirmed that the memo did exist and the civil servant believes it was an accurate representation of Sturgeon’s conversation:

The Tories are already putting some clear blue water between the coalition and the present majority government. Firstly, the new Business Secretary Sajid Javid has promised new tougher strike laws — ensuring that a minimum turn out of 50 per cent turnout is required for all strikes, while 40 per cent of all members will need to back a strike affecting essential public services. The TUC’s Frances O’Grady has already hit back, arguing the new rules will make ‘legal strikes close to impossible’. Secondly, Theresa May and David Cameron are promising to tackle our ‘passively tolerant society’. In the Queen’s Speech, due on May 27, the Tories will introduce a new counter extremism

Oh dear. Not only have the Liberal Democrats only won eight seats so far compared to the 56 taken in 2010, many candidates face losing their deposit. If a candidate fails to win five per cent of the vote in their desired constituency then they are subject to a £500 fine. Unfortunately the Liberal Democrats have had many candidates do exactly that. So much so that the Twitter account LibDem Deposits has been set up just to keep a tally of their fines: It started off modestly: Then spiralled: The account is now reporting that the current total of fines is an enormous £157,000. This would mean that out of the 631 Liberal Democrat candidates that

How will Ed Miliband manage tomorrow if Labour does end up the second largest party but with a viable ‘anti-Tory alliance’ in the House of Commons? The Tories are trying to craft a narrative that such a government would be illegitimate, and David Cameron will give a statement early on Friday. But there is a theory developing among some Tories who rate Miliband’s strategic skills that he could be about to produce his own clever game-changer too. He could be about to offer a significant devolution of powers to the regions, a huge transfer of power to Scotland and Wales, the elected Senate of the Nations and Regions that was

It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for Nick Clegg. He’s a decent man who took a tough decision to put his party into coalition with the Conservatives, and lost half of his support as a result. Tomorrow, his party will be hammered. His great miscalculation was imagining that in England the Lib Dems would emerge with a list of achievements voters would applaud – as they did in the 2003 Holyrood elections when, after four years of coalition, the Lib Dems overtook the Scottish Conservatives to become the third-largest party. On the radio the other day Clegg vainly paraded his boast list, his own version of Kelly Clarkson’s Because