You’re in the news today saying that the “novelty” of Nick Clegg will wear off when his policies come under further scrutiny.

Guess you must have missed last night’s TV debate then, with the two occasions when David Cameron directly put Liberal Democrat policies under scrutiny and said they wouldn’t work.

Only thing is, on both occasions – how to fund taking millions out of income tax and how to have a regionally based immigration system – Nick Clegg straight away responded with a detailed answer covering all of Cameron’s points.

And in both cases that response silenced Cameron on the point – he picked no holes in the explanations.

So if that’s what happens when Lib Dem policies come under scrutiny, I’m not sure it’ll have the effect you are quite hoping for.

Yours,

Mark

That phrase is a huge simplification of a complicated and nuanced theme stretching over many years, yet military conflict between Christian and Muslim forces were a regular part of European and Mediterranean history. Not just the crusades, with their large and direct British involvement, but the siege of Malta (the first one, not the one with the Royal Air Force), armed conflict in Italy in the Middle Ages and battles in the Balkans right up to the gates of Vienna.

Distortions of that history are often peddled by extremists in an attempt to justify all sorts of outrageous and inhumane behaviour in the modern world, most particularly both in the Balkans and in relations between the western world and Islam.

If history is of any contemporary use, and I believe it is, then surely understanding the true issues that lie behind the extremists' justification of their contemporary actions should be there on the curriculum?