Nick clegg

Poor Jeremy Browne. Sacked for believing in the government in which he served*. Then again, no-one claims politics, or life, is fair. So it is good to see Mr Browne taking his revenge. He has written a book and been speaking to the papers, telling the Telegraph that: "Our lack of self confidence and our willingness to be defined as being a party of timid centrists rather than bold liberals means people look at us and may be reassured that we will be a brake on the other two, but that's hardly a reason to vote for us. "Nick Clegg took a risk to take us from being party of protest to party of government, but we look like we've turned into a party of protest in government. "We are the diluting agent. The party shows resilience and fortitude given the battering we have had.

David Cameron’s plan to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the European Union has long been regarded as a major obstacle to a second Tory-Lib Dem coalition. But, as I report in the Mail on Sunday, this is no longer the case. The Lib Dem logic is essentially that any deal that other European leaders are prepared to offer Cameron is one that they can accept as well. One Clegg confidant tells me that when it comes to the renegotiation, ‘It is not us David Cameron is going to have a problem with but the Tories.’ Indeed, there are parts of the renegotiation that the Liberal Democrats are already on board with. Clegg is fully supportive of the tightening up of the benefit rules for EU migrants that Employment Minister Esther McVey will announce on Wednesday.

Why did Nick Clegg bother debating Nigel Farage? The Ukip leader bagged two decisive victories in the battles. But that doesn't mean the Lib Dem leader has failed to set out what he wanted to do. Clegg needed these debates to reach out to his base, to motivate them to go out campaigning and vote in May. He didn't need to 'win' in order to do that: he just needed to put the case for EU membership loudly and proudly. He had to remind some of his party's supporters why they joined the Liberal Democrats and he needs to motivate pro-Europeans from other parties to lend their vote to the Lib Dems too in order to prevent a wipeout. During the debate on Wednesday the Lib Dems sent a text message to all their members asking for £5 if Nigel Farage was making them angry.

So, in the second debate between Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg the UKIP leader won by 69% to 31%, according to the post-debate polls. That, you would think, should be the top line of the story, but it was not the way in which the BBC News reported events. The corporation’s “package” of the debate showed Nick Clegg winning four-nil and the spoken introduction, at the top of the programme, simply stated that the debate had taken place. It is true that at the end of the sequence the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, delivered a fair and honest assessment of proceedings. There are plenty of reasons for me, at least, not to vote UKIP.

Tonight’s Clegg Farage debate on Britain's membership of the EU was far more combative than last week’s. Nick Clegg came out swinging from the start. In a sign of how much Ukip have changed politics, it was Clegg who was behaving like the challenger and Farage the incumbent. But despite this change in tactics from Clegg, the result—according to the instant post-debate polls—was the same: a clear Farage win. Indeed, the polls had Farage ahead by an even bigger margin than last week. The Liberal Democrats argue that these debates were not about Clegg ‘winning’, but of him enthusing the Liberal Democrat base and appealing to pro-European voters.

It's no surprise that the Conservatives want to take the credit for the tax cuts in the Budget, or that the Lib Dems are rather peeved about this. The Chancellor will make a speech today in which he describes Britain as 'starting to walk tall in the world' and drive home what he sees as a series of key government achievements on 'reshoring' and the rise in the personal allowance of income tax, which comes into effect this week. Nick Clegg, meanwhile, is giving his monthly press conference where he will argue that the Conservatives are trying to 'steal' his own party's prize ideas. Those two men can tussle about in the Westminster bubble for credit (though to be fair to the Lib Dems, they do seem to be winning the battle).

Well, Peter and David, John and Bernado, Sean and Sinclair are now married and the happy husbands have the further benefit of the unanimous blessing of our political class. David Cameron said the move sent a message that people were now equal 'whether gay or straight. It says we are a country that will continue to honour its proud traditions of respect, tolerance and equal worth.' For good measure, he added that the law change would encourage young people unsure of their sexuality. Really? You mean a few more teenagers hovering between being gay or straight might go for the gay option on the back of the prospect of a wedding? And that’s a good thing?

Two of the writers I most admire have fallen out over the Clegg vs Farage debate. James Kirkup calls it for the Lib Dem leader (his reasons here) and Peter Oborne for Farage – but I’m in the happy position of being able to disagree with both of them. I think they both lost, and I explain why in my Daily Telegraph column today. Clegg has decided to ride the Ukip wave, positioning himself as the patron saint of Europhiles who loathe the sight of Nigel Farage. He will be calculating that there are more of them than LibDem supporters. But I regarded their debate on Wednesday as rather sterile, laden with clichés and extremist positions. I don’t think that the EU is an evil empire with 'blood on its hands' as Farage bizarrely claimed.

Nick Clegg spent the first 20 minutes of Deputy Prime Minister's Questions looking a little miserable. A wan smile did flicker across his lips at about 18 minutes in, but it didn't spread to his eyes or stay very long at all. In fact, he appeared to be doing his best to fit the best ever P.G. Wodehouse description of a man looking like 'a cat which has just been struck by a half-brick and is expecting another shortly'. Fortunately for Clegg, the other half of the brick didn't turn up. In fact, when the time came for Harriet Harman to savage the DPM, he appeared quite happy that she'd chosen tuition fees as her weapon. She asked about the new figures showing that the government's trebling of tuition fees will end up costing the taxpayer more than the current system.

Do we trust our politicians to deal with Britain’s ties with Europe? The polar opposites on the matter, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage, will be making their case for reconfiguring Britain’s relationship this Wednesday, but it appears we have little faith in either of them. Ahead of the debate, YouGov and LBC have commissioned some polling on how each of the party leaders are trusted on Europe. The results aren’t particularly encouraging for any party leader — 31 per cent trust no-one on this matter, and all of the other party leaders rank below that: [datawrapper chart="http://charts.spectator.co.