These messages are useful in the long run. When a new Labour leader is making his statements about the horrors of skyrocketting poverty and homelessness he can simply use the exact phrase of the deputy prime minister.

It helps paint embarrass one half of the coalition while making actually quite valid points.

Until then it doesn’t achieve much.

@10

That’s partly true – but only statistically. Actually their government programme was never put to the people in a manifesto. Likewise many parts of it were opposed by a large majority (who voted Lib Dem, Labour, SNP, Green, Plaid and others)

Next time though, if they share a platform, they can indeed claim a combined majority that would indeed be fully legitimate.

Even if that is the case, it’s a mandate earned on the back of what we now see as false promises and lies. I’m still yet to meet a Lib Dem voter (or member) happy with what the Cleggite tendancy is doing.

That is the Cleggite narrative that your putting across but it is *far* from the truth, Brown was even prepared to be abjectly humiliated to get a Lib-Lab deal. Clegg is, in reality, a right wing Libertarian who could happily join the tory party if it wasn’t for his pro-EU stance.

How does he expect to get away with his total abject renunciation of everything he said during the general election campaign? Is he a political genius with more cunning than Machiavelli or a political chancer who is going to ride his party into electoral annihilation?

Alternatively, wait until the Labour leadership election is settled. But even then the LibDems + Labour don't have a working majority in the House of Commons. And it's 5 years till the next general election.