Nick clegg

This morning Danny Alexander is scheduled to reveal the Liberal Democrats’ proposed alternative budget. Alas, Vince Cable appears to have missed the memo. Speaking about the budget on LBC yesterday, Cable claimed he would be leading the Lib Dem budget: Presenter: Is it difficult to sit through a Budget like that and be barely mentioned? As a party, not personally. Vince Cable: If it’s the response to the Budget tomorrow, I will be leading and I will be setting the tone of the debate. Cable was demoted as Liberal Democrat economy spokesman in January in favour of Alexander. Happily, Mr S hears Cable will still have a role in the Lib Dem budget later in the day after Alexander

Nick Clegg is turning up to the Budget today, which is an improvement on the Autumn Statement, which he bunked off in order to hang out in Cornwall with Lib Dems trying to get re-elected. He’s even got his own Lib Dem alternative Budget tomorrow. This may mean his party doesn’t get much of a hearing until 24 hours after the main event, though inevitably various Cabinet ministers will be out and about trying to take credit for various measures. The Lib Dems want to persuade people to vote for them on the basis that they would stop either party indulging in its worst excesses: the Tories wouldn’t create a fair

There is some fuss around the publication delay on the government’s review into the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK.  But why the fuss?  After all, if other news today is anything to go by, nobody reads government inquiries anyway – let alone bothers to act on them. On the Muslim Brotherhood review and the possibility it will include negative facts about the group, the Financial Times quotes one ‘senior government figure’ saying last year: ‘This cuts against what the FCO has already been doing in this area… It risks turning supporters of a moderate, non-violent organisation that campaigns for democracy into radicals.’ So there are actually senior

The Liberal Democrats sense an opportunity in all this speculation about who the Tories and Labour would do deals with in the event of a hung parliament. They believe that they can position themselves as the responsible party that will keep the country in the centre ground in contrast to the other smaller parties. Today, in his speech to the party’s spring conference, Clegg ruled out joining any coalition that involved the SNP or Ukip. He also tried to use the moment to reinforce voters’ worries about either main party governing on their own. He argued that the Tories would cut needlessly—‘Cows moo. Dogs bark. And Tories cut. It’s in

Miriam Clegg said in a recent interview that she had banned her husband Nick Clegg from the kitchen on ‘health and safety grounds’. But happily, the leader of the Liberal Democrats can now have at least one dish to his name after spending a day making Cornish pasties as part of the St Piran’s Day festivities with pupils at the St Merryn school in Cornwall. The new skill may come in useful in May should Clegg have to consider a new career path after the general election.

Tonight Norman Baker leads the Commons adjournment debate on international endangered species. Speaking ahead of the event, the Liberal Democrat MP explained to Politics Home why the subject is so close to his heart: ‘I normally try to keep my day job, my role as MP, separate from my music, but this week I made an exception. I released a CD called Animal Countdown, and introduced a debate in the House of Commons, to highlight the threat of extinction hanging over so many wonderful species – rhinos, tigers, lions and even elephants, to name just a handful.’ Surely Baker forgot to include the Liberal Democrats in his list of endangered species?

Following my earlier story about the Tories deciding they can only rely on Lib Dems who are ministers to form a coalition majority after the election, I have learned that the rebellious backbench problem is worse than it first appears. The party has run out of MPs suitable to work as Parliamentary Private Secretaries. For those who don’t know, PPSs are the ‘bag carriers’ of government, junior ministerial posts that largely involve an MP being forced to be loyal to their party whip at all times while briefing their minister on important matters, working as their minister’s eyes and ears in the rest of the party, and encouraging the rest

With every week that goes by, the more likely it is that the next election could result in a stalemate with neither Labour nor the Tories able to put together a deal that gives them a majority in the Commons. One Downing Street source, who has crunched the numbers, predicted to me last week that, because of what is going on in Scotland, the Tories will be the largest party on 280-odd seats. But if the Tories have only 280-odd seats, even deals with both the Liberal Democrats and the Democratic Unionists wouldn’t give them a majority. But Labour wouldn’t be able to stich one together either. For, as I