Six things Nick Clegg should do

The Guardian has a pretty good list of advice to the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg (well, four are pretty good, one quotes me and only one do I have significant objections to):

1. Show humility and declare a new direction
2. Acknowledge that the party compromised too much in coalition
3. Stop trying to align the Lib Dems with Osbornomics
4. Swallow the reality of polling
5. Boost the morale of ground troops
6. Talk less about principled points, more about everyday concerns

The one I would poor a gigantic bucket of caveats all over is #4 because the polling it refers to (the ‘secret’ polls commissioned by Matthew Oakeshott) was so deeply flawed.

Yes, the party should learn from polling, but no, it shouldn’t rush to embrace polling that involved getting the polling company to drop its usual methodology, deliberately seeking out the question wording that gives the worst results for the Liberal Democrats rather than the wording that has the track record of giving the most accurate results, and more.

That aside, the full piece about Nick Clegg’s future is well worth a read.