I have been musing on the doldrums the Lib Dems are in at the moment. Reading much of the interweb (and the Guardian) you may be forgiven for believing the party is responsible for every sort of calumny to hit the nation in the last 11 months since it went into government with Cameron's Conservatives.
I'm sure it will become apparent that the coalition government will over the next few years deliver a significant number of Lib Dem manifesto pledges. But I'm not sure that will do - and it will mean significant numbers of Lib Dem councillors will be sacrificed on this alter of 'wait and see' on the way.
But it doesn't have to be like this. People don't have to wait and see. What the party has to do is to be clear - in about four simple and populist sentences - about what they are doing and working to achieve in government. And why these things are those that a Tory government would never do. Yesterday was a good start - it being the first day that 900,000 poorly paid people stopped paying tax.
But it has to be clear that there is more to come and this is only as a result of the Lib Dems.
Sadly - given Clegg's disasterously whining interview in the Staggers yesterday - some frightfully clever people advising him are saying he needs to be softening his image even further.
However when a substantial chunk of the people think you have lost your backbone, softening your image is the last thing you need to do...
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