Uk politics

It's been a while since the Liberal Democrats commanded quite so much media attention or quite so much space on the front pages. If all publicity were good publicity, the volume of coverage that the party is receiving from the Rennard scandal would do wonders for its poll rating. But that's not how it works, and particularly not when your top brass has spent months trying to tell voters that the Lib Dems are so very grown up, mature and thoughtful that they'd make any government better.

The Tories have always denied rumours that they might give their coalition colleagues an easier ride at constituency level in the 2015 general election. But even though all three parties are very much on an election war footing now, the Conservatives have, strangely, yet to select candidates to fight two of their favourite ministers. The constituencies for Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander currently have no candidates, along with 28 others (including MPs the Tories aren't quite so keen on working with in Coalition, such as Lynne Featherstone), while the other 27 have candidates in place. Alexander is easy to work with in the Treasury (I reported before Christmas that he'd been scolded by Lib Dem high command for using the Tory term 'global race').

Ed Miliband tends to enjoy success when he's either stealing someone else's clothes or offering a possibly unworkable policy that sounds catchy. This morning on the Andrew Marr Show he tried both tactics. Having nicked One Nation from the Tories and repeated the phrase so often that they probably don't want it back, Miliband is now trying to ape a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt. His close colleague Lord Wood sets out why Labour thinks this is a space it can jump into in a piece for Coffee House. listen to ‘Ed Miliband on the Andrew Marr Show’ on Audioboo The catchy line from this Roosevelt-style crusade is that Labour is now the party of competition, with Miliband planning to appoint consumer groups such as Which?

With just 124 days till European election polling day, you’d expect Ukip to be working tirelessly to professionalise the party’s operations and hide away any controversial opinions. They don’t appear to be doing a very good job so far. David Silvester, a Ukip councillor in Henley-on-Thames, has written to his local newspaper explaining how Britain’s recent spates of floods are David Cameron’s fault — because he has angered God with the Same Sex Marriage Bill: ‘The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters such as storms, disease, pestilence and war.

Nick Clegg has in the past few minutes made clear that unless Lord Rennard apologises for his behaviour towards women in the party, he will not regain the Liberal Democrat whip. A party spokesman said: 'Nick Clegg is of the view that as long as Lord Rennard refuses the very reasonable request from Alistair Webster QC to apologise that it is inappropriate for him to rejoin the Liberal Democrat group in the House of Lords. Nick has communicated this to the Chief Whip and Leader of the House of Lords group. 'In addition, a growing number of party members have come forward to make representations to the party that Lord Rennard's refusal to apologise in itself brings the party into disrepute.