TOUGH ARGUMENTS OF OUR TIME: WHY I STILL THINK NICK'S THE RIGHT LEADER

My thoughts on the thorny issue of the leadership are fairly simple.  I still think Nick's doing okay and should continue to be supported.  Before they come for me, here's why.

Nick should still be leader of the Lib Dems in 2015 and the increasing calls for him to resign just miss the point entirely.  Seriously, if Lembit says something you've got to be reassured if you disagree.  The phrase 'lost the plot' just doesn't do his present state of mind justice.  However, others with greater control of their faculties have said this, so it needs to be considered.

Nick should be supported because he gets it.  The Tories are working with us but it is rather like sharing a pit with a python.  You might help each other to get out but never take your eyes off it.  They will attack us as soon as they think the time is right and it seems to me that Nick recognises this.  He appears to know that this is a long game and he is playing it cool.

Come 2015, those vipers (I know, different snake) will strike and we need to react and hit them back hard.  If we can show that we tamed them for 5 years and did the good stuff like cutting taxes we might just do well.  If.

What could a Tim Farron or Simon Hughes bring to the party beyond further antagonising the Tory right.  Great guys both but not right for the job at the moment.  And any calls for the Blessed Vince to step up to the plate are likely to fall on deaf ears as Vince is clearly unhappy in the coalition and he just doesn't seem to want the leader's job.

All those calling for Nick's head need to answer two simple questions: who would replace him and where would they take us?

I've been on the doorsteps in the past few weeks and I've had the arguments.  The strange thing was that most people were willing to listen. They may not agree but I got a good impression that we can still connect.  We won two seats here and we held and achieved good results in many areas around the south.  That is small comfort for other areas but it shows that our arguments still work.

We should not ditch the pilot before we are sure he's the problem and that there is a replacement pilot eating peanuts in business class.  At the moment I'm not sure there is.

THE TROUBLE WITH SIMON HUGHES

Simon Hughes is a Lib Dem party stalwart and 'Treasure'. He won one of the most contentious by-elections of the modern period, one in which no party covered itself in glory, despite what the preening Labour Party might wish to declare. He has worked Southwark and Bermondsey - a difficult seat with many local issues just a few of which would tax politicians of lesser mettle - for decades now. He remains an important conscience for the party and a persuasive force for what might in less enlightened times have been referred to as the 'left'. Great guy.

The trouble is that he says things like the Lib Dems need a veto in the coalition government and that we could work with Labour. Well, yes, sort of but actually no, Simon.

Don't get me wrong, I am very uncomfortable with the coalition and I still dislike the Tories with a majority of my being (99% of my soul) but I accept that Nick Clegg has delivered us real power and influence for the first time in decades and that a large dollop of the Lib Dem agenda is actually being delivered in government which, if you are sensible about your politics, you will accept is worth paying the price of adopting a fixed grin for when faced with Michael Gove across a table or sitting with Michael Howard in Parliament. (No, Michael, I'm not thinking what you're thinking but I'll bite my tongue for now.)

To ask for a veto in a coalition is to ask for the self-destruct button to be put in the middle of the table during disarmament talks. Some blithering idiot will eventually leap up and press it in the name of 'common sense', the interests of their party or some overweening principle. The simple fact is that in the coalition - in any coalition - everyone knows they can take this course but you don't want to encourage them to do so. You need compromise, you need general agreement, you need to hold your proverbial noses. Holding out the prospect of a 'veto' does not encourage the necessary collegiate thinking. The Lib Dems do not need a veto, we simply need to engage fully with the coalition - as we have done so far - and make sure our voice is heard loud and clear - as we have done.

Now, just like a good Lib Dem, let me immediately defend Simon Hughes by stating that he does not appear to have ever used the term 'veto' but this is how it is being reported in the meejah so this is the charge which must be answered, rightly or wrongly.

On the second point, Simon has commented that a coalition deal with Labour may be possible in the future. Er, just hold on, Simon. The Labour Party has driven this country into the ground in recent years [dissenters please note: PFI, Iraq, outlandish spending pledges in 2010, Tony Blair and our devastated international reputation] and it is now embarked upon an extended period of what will inevitably be vicious infighting as memoirs come out and their leadership race chunters on. Add to that the fact that if the thoroughly duplicitous Ed Balls wins that leadership battle through some mysterious alchemy (a stitch up) I doubt that many Lib Dems would consider any kind of accommodation. I have choked on a deal with the Tories but accepted it as the right thing to do. I would have to seriously consider reaching for the party card and scissors if a deal with Balls were proposed.

There is no doubt that we could make a deal in the future with a much reformed Labour Party which had an entirely new leadership and a much revised set of policies but at the moment that is very far from happening so our Deputy Leader might best consider avoiding comment on it at the moment. Labour has far to go and I don't want my party tarnished by any association with them while they are on this difficult and potentially destructive journey.

What I have always sought from the Lib Dem upper echelons is a clear, unequivocal desire to win elections, not just to carp from the sidelines or seek accommodations with others. Nick and the team are doing great things in Parliament - and getting no thanks for doing so at the moment. In 2015 I'd like to be a candidate again and I'd like to fight for power, not just with Labour or the Tories but on our own terms.

And there is the trouble with Simon in a nutshell, because he did just that the other day when he said that we would fight every seat without making any accommodation with the Tories. Well bingo, I couldn't agree more! The two thirds of voters in Henley who didn't vote for their Tory MP this year need a choice and I want to give them that choice in 2015. Shout, Simon, for all of us but choose your target better.