My letter to the Evening Standard on the party’s future

Ex-Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott may have earned a footnote in the history books for a spectacularly self-destructive plot against Nick Clegg that simply resulted in his own exit from the party.

His constituency polling was deeply flawed through failing to use ICM’s usual methodology, not naming candidates in individual constituencies and for testing which question wording would produce the worst result before using that in the other polls.

None of this should blind Liberal Democrats to the need to debate and improve strategy and policies. Far too often in the European elections campaign, Lib-Dems sounded like supporters of the status quo. Being pro-European in support of British jobs, protecting the environment and cutting the costs of travel doesn’t mean being happy with the EU as it is.

Lib- Dems should champion reform; a good start would be to end the waste and cost of moving the European Parliament back and forth between Brussels and Strasbourg.

Yours etc.