Lord Bonkers' Diary: "Sir Percy Alleline is a fine upstanding fellow"

I was rather pleased with this entry, and then I realised what a narrow audience it would appeal to. It's people who loved John Le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or the television adaptation of it (but perhaps not the film) and who remember Ming Campbell's leadership of the Liberal Democrats and formed the same view of it I did.

As I explained recently, those letters from Paddy have their origin in The Goat Hotel, Llanfair Caereinion.

Wednesday

Yes, I miss Paddy Ashdown. I miss his correspondence – those envelopes marked ‘Top Secret: Burn Before Reading’ that arrived by every post – and I miss his company. Despite Ashdown’s best efforts, I never could quite get my head around ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.’ “What exactly was Toby Esterhase up to?” I would ask him, and “So did old Smiley do right by Ricki Tarr in the end?” 

Now Paddy is gone there is no one in the party to explain this to me. I tried asking Ming Campbell the other day, but he just told me Sir Percy Alleline was a fine upstanding fellow and that he wouldn’t listen to a word against him.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers Diary...

• He's looking down on us and not saying a word about it
• Jacob Rees-Mogg in the Og

Sir Nicholas Clegg: An apology

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On Saturday 29 August this blog published a post under the headline Former Liberal Democrat leaders reveal themselves in their advice to Ed Davey.

In it we alleged that Sir Nicholas Clegg, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, had "reduced the party from 62 to 8 MPs over two general elections".

It has been pointed out to us that this is incorrect.

We apologise to Sir Nicholas and to our readers for this inaccuracy and have corrected the post. We have made a donation to the Bonkers Home for Well-Behaved Orphans in recognition of our error.

You see, though the party emerged from the 2005 general election with 62 MPs, by the time Nick Clegg became leader Willie Rennie had gained Dunfermline and West Fife in a by-election.

So we should have said Clegg had "reduced the party from 63 to 8 MPs over two general elections".

In that post we also recorded Ming Campbell's advice to Ed Davey that he should choose a couple of advisers and then listen to no one else.

A reader has reminded me that on, becoming Lib Dem leader, Paddy Ashdown assembled a diverse group of people representing all shades of opinion in the party and met them every week - "a good example of open leadership".

Former Liberal Democrat leaders reveal themselves in their advice to Ed Davey

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Friday's Red Box email from The Times carries advice for Ed Davey from former Liberal Democrat leaders - some of it revealing about those former leaders.

So Ming Campbell tells Ed to lock himself away in a bunker from the start:

As I found when I became leader, people who will have never bothered you before will be wearing holes in your carpet attempting to advise you.

Instead, find a couple of people whose advice you really respect and value. Take advice from them. Don’t have an open house on advisers.

And Nick Clegg, who reduced the party from 63 to 8 MPs over two general elections, advises him not to listen to criticism:

Oh, and – you know this - the better you do, the more they will yell at you from left and right. So listen to the voters – you’re dead right on that – but put your political ear muffs on when the carping starts!

The other former leaders are more helpful.

Tim Farron says:

Clarity is king. You need be clear with yourself what your strategy is and what it is that you want to achieve. Be clear with the party members on the direction and what you need from them in order to achieve that, and be clear with the public about what it is you and the Liberal Democrats stand for.

And Vince Cable says:

The Liberal Democrats will have to craft a narrative which embodies economic competence combined with environmentalism and a message of social justice, which Ed Davey can very plausibly do by rebuilding the grass-roots and re-establishing our reputation for good community-level politics.

The most concise contribution comes from Jo Swinson - I quote it in full:

Make time to think. Whether it's diarising time for exercise, reading, or stimulating conversation with friends, it's important to step back from the immediacy of 24/7 news cycles to see the bigger picture.

Ed Davey and Layla Moran: It's déjà vu all over again

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Calder's Sixth Law of Politics holds that all Lib Dem leadership elections are reruns of the Liberal Party leadership contest between David Steel and John Pardoe in 1976.

As I once blogged:

You could argue that the 1976 contest set a pattern for later Liberal and Liberal Democrat leadership elections.

One candidate (Steel) was orthodox, sensible and just a little dull. The other (Pardoe) was more charismatic, more open to new ideas and just a little unreliable in his judgement.

So in later contests Paddy Ashdown was a Pardoe and Alan Beith was a Steel. And Chris Huhne was a Pardoe and Ming Campbell and then Nick Clegg were Steels.

Not all contests have obeyed my law as clearly, but this time it is spot on. It's clear that Ed Davey is the Steel and Layla Moran is the Pardoe.

For me, Ed is being a bit too much of a Steel for his own good, but I shall not be declaring my support for either candidate until I have seen more of the campaign. I have urged the same course of action on other Lib Dem members.

In case you are curious, you can find all seven of my Laws of Politics in a recent post on this blog.

17 May in Liberal England history

I enjoyed doing this for 18 April - whether my readers enjoyed it as much is another question - so here is a survey of what has concerned this blog down the years on 17 May.

2019

Hard times in the Shropshire hills. Stiperstones primary school was to close and Bishop's Castle residents were planning to block the road in a protest against bus cuts.


2018

I previewed A Very British Scandal as the first episode was about to be shown.



2017

"Boris Johnson moos 'like a cow' and devours cakes on bakery visit" ran my Headline of the Day.

You can't say we weren't warned.


2016

Talking of Boris Johnson, I blogged about his failure when mayor to publish a report on air pollution near London' schools.


2015

Included in a Six of the Best, Down at Third Man was worrying about the future of English cricket:

"The players coming in during the next few years come from a generation deprived of free to air cricket. This generation will have come in on the echoes. Soon it will be a privileged generation: in the main sons/daughters of club cricketers and sons of parents able to afford a very expensive education, or sons able to win scholarships to such institutions."

2014

I went to Woodhouse Eaves, which had once been a sort of health resort in Leicestershire's Charnwood Forest:

Today, the first hot day of the year, the countryside was alive with hikers and Scouts, giving it something of the atmosphere of its 1930s heyday.

2013

UKIP supporters, I suggested, were not that keen on the UK. They were English Nationalists.


2012

I quoted Christopher Hitchens and his praise for Karl Popper's insistence on the importance of argument:

It is very seldom, as he noticed, that in debate any one of two evenly matched antagonists will succeed in actually convincing or "converting" the other. But it is equally seldom that in a properly conducted argument either antagonist will end upholding exactly the same position as that with which he began.

2011

Lord Bonkers reacted to the headline "Fox blasts British overseas aid plan":

It was clearly set out in the Coalition agreement. Now clear off down the garden and leave our dustbins alone.

2010

I quoted something I had written for the Guardian website back in 2006 (when it paid much better than it does today):

When [Charles] Kennedy stood for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats in 1999, the West Highland Free Press - a radical newspaper published in his own constituency - remarked that people in London were beginning to ask what it had been asking for 15 years: what exactly does Charles Kennedy stand for? 

Though he won that contest and went on to lead the party for nearly seven years, we never really found out.

2009

Those were the days. I wrote seven posts on 17 May 2009 and most of them were about politics.

In one of them I argued that:

the causes of the anger over MPs' expenses go beyond indignation at what has been done with our money. That anger is so great because this affair has laid bare what an unequal society we now live in.

2008

Michael Gove wanted to tell teachers what they should wear:

No doubt this is meant to appeal to Tory voters who like tradition, but in reality there is little tradition of teachers dressing smartly. The traditional dress for teachers was the academic gown, which was designed precisely to distance education from the world where a good business suit matters. 

Less grand teachers wore a tweed jacket with leather patches and a worried expression.

2007

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I asked why people could not forgive Ming Campbell for being old:

If a comedian or journalist had made similar reference to the fact that a politician was a woman or was gay or was Black, it would have finished that comedian or journalist's career. Yet in our society it is perfectly acceptable to make fun of people for being old.

2006

The idea that the state should decide the speed at which people walk their dogs is ridiculous.

I still hold that view today.

2005

I discussed Siôn Simon Syndrome:

there is a law that people accuse others of the faults they most fear in themselves, much as those who make most fuss about homosexuality are supposed to be repressed homosexuals themselves.

2004

Iraq Body Count estimated the number of civilian deaths in the country since the start of the invasion at somewhere between 9,148 and 11,005

Is Jo Swinson the Steel and Layla Moran the Pardoe?

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A few years ago I floated a theory about Liberal Party and Liberal Democrat leadership elections: the are all reruns of the 1976 contest between David Steel and John Pardoe:

One candidate (Steel) was orthodox, sensible and just a little dull. The other (Pardoe) was more charismatic, more open to new ideas and just a little unreliable in his judgement. 

So in later contests Paddy Ashdown was a Pardoe and Alan Beith was a Steel. And Chris Huhne was a Pardoe and Ming Campbell and then Nick Clegg were Steels.

I even tried to apply this rule to Liberal history, with Asquith being the Steel and Lloyd George the Pardoe.

Andrew Hickey, in a tweet today, kindly suggested this distinction was a more enlightening way of analysing Lib Dem internal debates than the concepts of left and right.

He also said he wouldn't compare anyone to Steel at the moment, for obvious reasons, but I am not so discerning.

So what of the forthcoming Lib Dem leadership contest?

My feeling, looking at the expected front runners  is that Jo Swinson is the Steel and Layla Moran the Pardoe.

For what it is worth, I always vote for the Pardoe and the Steel usually wins.

Did Mark Littlewood start out in the Chard Group?

© Steve Barnes

It looks as though Mark Littlewood will be in the news this week thanks to this Guardian story:

The director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) was secretly recorded telling an undercover reporter that funders could get to know ministers on first-name terms and that his organisation was in “the Brexit influencing game”.

Mark Littlewood claimed the IEA could make introductions to ministers and said the thinktank’s trade expert knew Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Davis and Liam Fox well. 

The IEA chief was also recorded suggesting potential US donors could fund and shape “substantial content” of research commissioned by the thinktank and that its findings would always support the argument for free-trade deals.

The Guardian also quotes Littlewood's response that there is nothing wrong with any of this, though I am not convinced by research whose conclusions you know before you have conducted it.

Sir Karl Popper writes: Neither am I and nor is Caron Lindsay. And is "thinktank" really one word?

As Littlewood is in the news, it seems a good time to quote a 2010 item from Liberator's Radical Bulletin - you can download a pdf of the whole issue yourself.

That story runs:

A fascinating Chard Group document comes our way (and that is not a phrase you will often read in Liberator). Long before its present preoccupation with running conference raffles, the Chard Group was set up and run by Richard Denton-White to support Paddy Ashdown’s objective, set out in his 1992 speech in Chard, of working more closely with Labour. 

The September 1995 issue of the group’s Campaigner newsletter says its new vice-chair is Mark Littlewood, who “is now the youth president of the European Movement”. 

Someone called Mark Littlewood was the Lib Dems’ head of media until his unfortunate spot of bother with Ming Campbell’s inaugural conference speech as leader in March 2006, and later ran the lunatic-fringe libertarian right Liberal Vision, before departing the Lib Dems last year to become director of the Thatcherite Institute of Economic Affairs. 

That Mark Littlewood was, by an extraordinary coincidence, described as a former youth officer of the European Movement in a 2004 interview in PR Week to mark his appointment as Lib Dem press officer. 

So did Littlewood really make the strange political journey from Denton-White’s pro-Labour body to the wilder shores of the libertarian right – and, if so, where might he next be found?

Well, he's still to be found at the IEA. But if he did start our with the Chard Group his journey has been stranger even than that of his employee Darren Grimes.

Ming Campbell remembers Jeremy Thorpe

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Caroline Frost has been speaking to Liberal Democrats about A Very English Scandal, the BBC drama series on Jeremy Thorpe.

The most substantial quotes in the piece come from the party's former leader Ming Campbell, who was leading the Liberal Party in Scotland at the time of Thorpe's trial.

Remembering Thorpe he says:

"He was quick-witted, not always kind, occasionally cruel. But when he looked at you and talked to you – and I’m about to go into Women’s Own language - you felt you were the only person in the world he was interested in. 

You had to parry like a swordsman, because he was not just charismatic but quixotic as well, and you had to try to keep up, otherwise you got flattened by the strength of his personality. 

It would last for half a dozen moments, and then he would do exactly the same with the person after you, and the person after that. He had huge powers of focus."

Ming also pays tribute to Thorpe as a campaigner:

"I was very admiring of him also with radicalism on all sorts of things like apartheid. He certainly encapsulated the feelings of young left wing people like me. And he was among the first to harness the power of communication, both electronic and personal, particularly during the General Election of 1974. 

"I took him along Princes Street in Edinburgh on a walkabout, and watched him engage people and be immediately disarming. He’d say to someone, ‘Gosh, that’s a smart coat.’ Most politicians feel quite anxious about not getting anything wrong, so you end up giving quite banal responses, but Thorpe didn’t know what banal meant."

He means the first general election of 1974, which took place in February. Because of his slim majority Thorpe conducted his morning press conference by closed-circuit television from Barnstaple and somehow turned this to his advantage.

Caroline Frost has also talked to my fellow Lib Dem blogger Mark Pack and refers several times to a Liberal MP called David Steele who is now Lord Steele.

While the Northamptonshire batsman David Steele should certainly have been given a peerage for his efforts for England against Lillee and Thomson in 1975, I think she probably means David Steel.

The Campbell/Clegg pact in the 2006 Lib Dem leadership contest

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Mark Pack's latest Liberal Democrat Newswire (not yet in the newletter's archive) recalls the 2007 leadership election between Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne.

As it reminds us, Huhne might well have won if the pile of postal votes that arrived late had been counted.

Mark describes the two contenders:

The pair had been close friends and fellow MEPs; both were elected to Parliament for the first time in 2005. 

Strains in their friendship had surfaced when Chris Huhne had a tilt at the party leadership in 2006 after Charles Kennedy had stood down; Menzies Campbell had won, while Nick Clegg had sat the contest out. 

A year and a half later, Clegg and Huhne were direct opponents.

Blogging about Sarah Teather, I once recalled the 2006 contest:

At the first hustings ... she and Nick Clegg went everywhere together, apparently both unwilling to let Ming Campbell out of their sight - young cardinals bigging up an elderly candidate for Pope.

As Ming's leadership was not a success and rarely looked like being a success, this showed poor judgement on Nick's part. As I said at the time, he should have stood in that 2006 contest.

That post also reminds us that there was something of a pact between Nick and Ming at the time.

In the midst of the campaign, Ming told the Daily Telegraph that Nick would at some stage be "a very powerful candidate for the leadership".

As I said sternly in that post, "the next-leadership-but-one is not in Ming's gift".

It all seems a long time ago, but history tends to get rewritten if those who were around at the time do not write it down.

Good Liberals were up in arms when the police raided Damian Green's Commons office in 2008

It seems tomorrow's Sunday Times is reporting that police found "extreme pornography" on Damian Green's computer when they raided his Commons office and impounded it in 2008.

When we have finished giggling, it might be a good idea to recall that at the time all good Liberals were up in arms over that raid.

Here is the House Points column I wrote for Liberal Democrat News that week...

MPs Collared

Michael Jabez Foster said just one constituent had raised the search of Damian Green’s office with him. It was "self-indulgence", he argued, for MPs to debate it.

But the people of Hastings and Rye should be more concerned with the health of parliamentary democracy. So this column is devoted to some of Monday’s more enlightened contributions.

Theresa May: "Constituents do not give information to their Member of Parliament on the basis that one day it might be pored over by police officers. Parliamentary privilege is not our privilege; it is the people’s privilege."

Elfyn Llwyd: "It seems rather strange that we should be discussing the whole idea of prejudicing the inquiry, given that the Government tried to force through the 42-day measure on the premise that we were all going to discuss issues to do with individuals."

Simon Hughes: "If the police knocked on the door of one of my constituents in Southwark or Bermondsey, everybody inside would know … they do not have to let the police in unless they have a warrant."

Dominic Grieve: "Since the passage of the Official Secrets Act 1989, the leaking of material not concerning national security has ceased to be a criminal offence. On what basis, therefore, is a civil servant arrested for that, and on what conceivable basis is my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford [Damian Green] arrested?"

Menzies Campbell: "Our responsibilities involve both the scrutiny of Government and the redress of grievance. If we cannot be confident that our communications with our constituents are confidential, there is necessarily an inhibition in our ability to fulfil those responsibilities."

Andrew Mackinlay: "Leaks are food and drink to me as a backbench Member of Parliament, and I do not want to stop them coming to me."

Kenneth Clarke: "I first met the Leader of the House [Harriet Harman] when she was the legal adviser to the National Council for Civil Liberties. She was a pretty feisty, radical lawyer in those days, and … she would not conceivably have made the speech then that she made an hour or two ago. She would have been leading demonstrations outside about the behaviour of the Government."

I am not sure what Simon’s claim tells us about South London, but it was a good debate.

How I foresaw the European referendum campaign (with some help from Stanley Unwin)

There has not been a Liberal Revue at the Liberal Democrat Conference for a while now, but in a couple of its later appearances I did a Stanley Unwin tribute act.

The first of these explained Vince Cable's taxation policy when he was our shadow chancellor.

The second tackled Ming Campbell's call for a referendum.on Britain's membership of the European Union.

I forget why he made it - it's all a long time ago.

Anyway, my explanation went something like this.

I have been asked – all polite and requesty – by Ming the Merciflold to explain to you our new polytito on the European Unibode. 

Though confdentimost, conference, if there’s a mercifold one in that marriage, it’s Elspeth. Indeedy-ho! 

Now historibold, which is of the oldest, we have the European wars. Schlesswig versy Holstein. Alsace versy Lorraine. And all huffalo dowder until the Congress of Viennit with the replay at Villy Park next Tuesday. 

In 1945 there is a new thorcus. All the natiomost of Europe join together in a peacy.
And from this we have the joy of the Eurovision song contest. All boom and bangit with Sandy Shore, Cliff Richibold – there’s a falolloper – and the Bucksy Fizz. 

This, of course, is the home of the Norveige nul points – and sulky up the fijord ever since. 

Fundamold to this new Europe is the swap and trade it. At first we have it all back and forward across the borders with “please have your passy portit open for inspection”. 

And this is of a great waste of time, with estimate have it and 20 billion Euro a year – and that’s without the countit and the declimly point in the wrong place! 

Unfortumost – all shame and sobit – the Britly people are not keen and soldy. What they ask of the Britly passport? What of the pound and perch and of the Queen and reignit herself? 

Hear their cryimost: give me bendy bananas or death and end it! 

For this Ming has a new thorcus – ingenimost though it is. We have the referendium. 

A refererndium – moreover and extramost – not on the Constitutioner but on the whole goddam Euroimost shooting match. 

In or out, matey? That’s the question. We can’t shakeabout any longer, despite the poply song with the knees up and bunting. 

So how is run and work it, this referendium? All puzzlibod, I hear you. 

Here in Britly we have a tradition of the firsty past the post. Or as we say, the cross and stuffit. 

We Libby Dems have a prefer of the PR. And not only that, but the single and transfer it in the multimember too. 

Here we have the long ballot and the placey of the one with the favourite and two and threep – and add 07 if you want Brian to stay in the kitchy, indeedy ho! 

With the referendium the words on the bally paper – the precise and askit of the question – becomes of the importimost. 

And conference I can reveal to you – alone and exclusimost – the verbatim and word for word of it. 

And I quotey: 

“Have you stopped beaty of the wife and stay in Europe. Or do you want to lose your job and employit with the folly of a no?” 

If we don’t mention of the bendy banana we’ll be home and squeakit with that one. 

No questions? Deep joy.

And that was pretty much how the campaign turned out. Except that someone did mention bananas and we lost.

Six of the Best 715

"In 2197 when the aliens invade but allow humanity to have an election on whether they should be enslaved or not. The Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell will implore people to reject enslavement and embrace freedom but the hard left will go, 'well you lied about tuition fees so I can’t trust you, now where do we sign up for a stint at the sulphur mines on Rigel IV?'" Neil Monnery on the rabid inflation of tuition fees as a political issue.

Isaac Chotiner says Venezuela is collapsing and asks if a civil war could be next.

Hazel Gaynor looks at the Cottingley Fairies hoax. "When the photographs subsequently came to the attention of novelist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the story - like all good fairy tales - grew wings."

The service between Sheffield and Cleethorpes via Gainsborough Central and Brigg has been a nominal one operating on Saturdays only since October 1993. Spatialsynergydave takes the train from Brigg to Gainsborough and back.

Inigo Thomas celebrates the art of the peerless cricket photographer Patrick Eagar.

"Today, for the first time in more than thirty years, it became possible to buy a legitimate new copy of one of the greatest, and most important, albums of all time, Bright Phoebus." Andrew Hickey hails he reissue of the Watersons' album.

Hatred of the old is the last respectable prejudice

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Gerontophobia unites Borisites concerned for Davis’s wellbeing and Brexit-minded haters of “senile dinosaur” Michael Heseltine, with progressive young humorists and their below-the-line supporters, for whom ("fat" and "ugly" being trickier to deploy these days) the insult that cannot be improved by the prefix "old" has yet to be invented.

says Catherine Bennett in a rambling defence of the idea that Vince Cable should stand for the Liberal Democrat leadership.

Or as I wrote in Liberal Democrat News after the resignation of Ming Campbell from that post:

It must also be admitted that Ming could sometimes appear a rather elderly 66 - quite understandably, in view of his illness a few years ago. But the way he was ridiculed for his age tells us something unpleasant about modern British society. It suggests we no longer have any respect for age, wisdom or dignity. 

I think in particular of the Mock the Week show that went out in September just after our Conference. This is the BBC2 programme where five leading comedians and Russell Howard improvise comedy based on the week‘s headlines. 

For 10 or 15 minutes they unleashed a tirade against Ming, all of it based on the assumption there is something inherently funny about being old. If they had attacked a woman or someone who was gay or black in the same way they would never have worked for the BBC again.

All of which is a way of saying that I am very happy that Vince is standing for the party leadership.

Could Willie Rennie win North East Fife?

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Early this week the Telegraph looked at the prospects for the Holyrood election in North East Fife, which is the seat Ming Campbell used to represent at Westminster.

The Liberal Democrat candidate is Willie Rennie:

Rennie is not prepared to predict victory in the constituency (he is more likely to get in as a regional list MSP), but says the fact the Lib Dems came second in the general election last year by around 4,000 votes is “not insurmountable”. 

He adds: “It’s the right combination of a good team, the right message and the right circumstances locally plus the best candidate you could possibly ever get.” This last comment is accompanied by a trademark chuckle. 

“Because I am from that part of the world I understand the area, I have got a good network of councillors, a good activist base. I would like to do it, but it’s up to the voters and I never take anything for granted.”

19 October on Liberal England

19 October 2012

Liberal Democrat Voice has chosen five of its own posts from 19 October in different years.

Back in the old days, in the noughties, when the internet was in black and white, on for only three hours in the evening and closed down at 10 sharp with the National Anthem, these memes were the lifeblood of blogging.

In those days we were interested in other bloggers just because they blogged, and we took ourselves a little more seriously.

So join me as I journey back in time to see what Liberal England said on 19 October.

2014. I chose Stranger on the Shore by Acker Bilk as my Sunday music video. Two weeks later he was dead. The police couldn't prove a thing.

2013. Rather like today, I had just been to the Battle of the Ideas. I took the opportunity to photograph the disused platforms at Barbican station.

2012. Down in London for work, I photographed St Pancras in the autumn sun.

2011. The Daily Mail announced that Mike Hancock had resigned from the cabinet. He had, thank goodness, never been in it. What he had resigned from was the Commons defence select committee.

2010. I quoted evidence that A levels had got easier: "No wonder that York, like many other UK universities, now runs remedial classes in basic skills for students who know their stuff on their specialist subject, but don't make the basic grade for numeracy and literacy."

2009. My review of The Liberal Moment by Nick Clegg reached chapter 6. Never accuse me of not being a party loyalist.

2008. I asked if the Shropshire Star had driven Lembit Opik mad.

2007. In my House Points column for Liberal Democrat News I argued that Ming Campbell had been right to resign as Lib Dem leader and had a go at Mock the Week: "For 10 or 15 minutes they unleashed a tirade against Ming, all of it based on the assumption there is something inherently funny about being old. If they had attacked a woman or someone who was gay or black in the same way they would never have worked for the BBC again."

2006. I marked the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising.

2005. An anonymous wit had suggested that David Cameron was "born with a silver spoon up his nose".

2004. I didn't blog on 19 October - I don't recall the world coming to an end. The following day I quoted a tribute to Conrad Russell by Nick Clegg ("former Lib Dem MEP for the East Midlands and PPC for Sheffield Hallam"): "He was a striking, slightly beguiling figure. He walked with an intellectual's stoop, invariably with a cigarette in hand. A shock of white hair was permanently standing to attention above an angular, slightly hawkish face."

So that is Liberal England on 19 October. Music, railways and even a little politics.

Now what about your blog?

Those new Liberal Democrat peers in full

According to Guido Fawkes:

• Sir Alan Beith – former MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed and former Chair of the Justice Select Committee

• Sharon Bowles – former MEP for South East England

• Sir Malcolm Bruce – former MP for Gordon, and former Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats

• Lorley Burt – former MP for Solihull and former Chair of the Liberal Democrats 

• Rt Hon Sir Menzies ‘Ming’ Campbell CH, CBE, QC – former MP for North East Fife and former Leader of the Liberal Democrats 

• Lynne Featherstone – former MP for Hornsey and Wood Green and held several ministerial positions 

• Don Foster – former MP for Bath and former Liberal Democrat Chief Whip 

• Jonny Oates – former Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government 

• Shas Sheehan – former Councillor for Kew and involved in several community groups 

• Sir Andrew Stunell – former MP for Hazel Grove and former Department for Communities and Local Government Minister 

• Dorothy Thornhill MBE – Mayor of Watford; former Councillor and Assistant Headteacher

The Sun names some of the 11 new Liberal Democrat peers

An 'exclusive' from SunNation this evening:

The Sun can reveal they will include at least two ex-MPs thrown out by voters at the general election three months ago, Lorely Burt and Lynn Featherstone. 

Three long-serving Lib Dem grandees who stood down as MPs in May – Sir Alan Beith, Sir Menzies Campbell, and Sir Malcolm Bruce – are also being enobled, alongside defeated ex-MEP Sharon Bowles and Mr Clegg’s former chief of staff Jonny Oates.

The report also says that Danny Alexander and Vince Cable will be knighted.

Later. The full list of Lib Dem peers is here.

Arise Sir Vince and Sir Danny?

Newspaper speculation about forthcoming honours lists is often wide of the mark, but here is the Mirror website this evening:

Ousted Lib Dems Vince Cable and Danny Alexander are due to get knighthoods in a move that will spark a fresh honours row. 

The two former Coalition Cabinet ministers are believed to have rejected offers of ­peerages from ex-Deputy PM Nick Clegg in the ­dissolution honours list. ... 

Two more of Mr Clegg's allies, former MP Annette Brooke and film producer Pippa Harris – a friend since his university days – will be given damehoods. 

Mr Clegg also nominated Lib Dem donor Anthony Ullmann for a knighthood, sources claim. 

Veteran politicians Sir Menzies Campbell and Sir Alan Beith are also tipped to be among up to 10 Lib Dems in line for peerages.

Congratulations to Tim Farron

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For the first time since Paddy Ashdown was elected in 1988, I have voted for the successful candidate in a Liberal Democrat leadership election.

When the contest began I rather expected I would be voting for Norman Lamb, but in the end Tim's eloquence and background (provincial, comprehensive educated, one-parent family) called to me more.

I admired Norman's work on mental health as a minister, though we should not forget the role Paul Burstow played in this field.

But too many of the issues his campaign highlighted were, more than anything, chosen for the discomfort they would cause Tim.

And too many people who once told me I had to vote for Ming Campbell wrote to tell me I now had to vote for Norman.

I am not an admirer of Tim's variety of religion, but I suspect an Evangelist is just what the Liberal Democrats need at this stage in their history.

The first general election with an unpopular Lib Dem leader

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My memory of general election campaigns goes back to February 1974, but the 2015 campaign will be a first.

It will be the first election the Liberal Party or the Liberal Democrats have fought with an unpopular leader.

Jeremy Thorpe, David Steel, Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy were all wildly popular with the voters, even if it was sometimes possible to wonder why.

The one leader who was not popular with the public, Ming Campbell, was defenestrated before he could fight an election

In 2010 Nick Clegg was popular, even if the Cleggmania engendered by the first televised leaders' debate had largely dissipated by the time polling day came.

But in 2015 Nick Clegg is not popular. the latest Ipsos MORI poll to ask about such things found that his approval rating was a lowly -36.

All of which means that Nick Barlow is probably right when he says we should not expect the Liberal Democrats' poll ratings to go up during the election campaign just because they always have.

Perhaps wisely,  the optimists in the party are looking to a strong incumbency factor for our sitting MPs as the key to our defying the national opinion polls, and some constituency polls do give them a rational basis for their optimism.