Interesting to note that both Tom Watson and Boris Johnson have blogged remarkedly similar posts on the divided LibDems. Also remarkable that so little has been said about this in the National Press.
I discovered years ago that the Liberal Democrats in Lambeth were irredeemably divided. They had different Deputy Leaders for the North and South of the borough (they cared,and still care, nothing for the Centre). They fought elections in the North on a right-wing agenda, there is some hearsay that they were overtly racist. In the South, they fought on a sandal-wearing lentil-eating agenda. I recall my final council budget meeting, which was boycotted by some of their - retiring - Lib Dem councillors on the basis that their budget was opportunistic and unworkable.
In the General Election, the Lib Dems picked up a great number of votes from disaffected Labour supporters. Indeed, the Libs played the Iraq card well, so people who can't be bothered actually to inform themselves about policy but had a vague feeling that the Iraq war was bad and the Liberal Democrats opposed it, made themselves feel good by casting their votes in that direction - regardless of the fact that fewer LibDem MPs opposed the Iraq war than did either Labour or Conservative MPs.
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