Who are you?

Bad news for Nick Clegg, eh? Apparently more than a third of this once-great Nation don't have a clue who he is. Whether these same people have any idea what 'The Liberal Democrats' are is unreported.

The dwindling section of the public that is still interested in politics has been watching with incredulity as a series of bizarre, unconnected, almost random policy announcements drip-drip-drip from Cleggy's Lib Dem Conference.

It seems that Lib Dem policy-makers gathered last week round some crisps and agreeable wines, and then suffered a massive collective case of writers block, staring at each other, stricken, over the Chardonnay.

There can be no other explanation for the dogs' dinner of policies presented to an incredulous world.

And non-policies. The Lib Dems seem to have adopted the tired and irritating Labour approach of rubbishing the evil Tories as an alternative to espousing new ideas. Its certainly a lot easier, isn't it, Cleggy? "Conservative. Con". See what he did there?

And of course, there's the parallel Brownian technique of misrepresenting - well, lying about - the Tories policies. "The Tories would put VAT up to 25%". Would they? Did they say that? Well, no, but they probably would: they're evil, see?

Great policies, Lib Dems! Your policy on Indirect taxation? "The Tories would..." Yes, yes, we heard.

Other policies have clearly been lifted wholesale from 'Old' Labour. There's the classic Class War, envy politics, soak-the-rich nonsense that is Vince Cable's ridiculous Mansion Tax. For fucks sake. A tax on all houses worth more than a million quid? This raises many questions:  Valued by whom? How is it collected? What have you been drinking? Are you insane?

Not all policies are Old Labour - some are achingly, tediously, 'New' Labour. Like the preposterous proposed air-brush law. When Lib Dems rule the world, there'll be no more Photoshop. It's OK to scour the country and pay ridiculous amounts for the services of perfectly proportioned lingerie models; it's OK to photograph them in the artificial environments of a photo studio. It's just not OK - in fact, it'll be illegal - to use a computer program to remove a stray hair, a mole, or a little wrinkle. Wimmin, rejoice!

But enough with these ridiculous policies, Cleggy. It's all bloody irrelevant anyway. We all know that, in the increasingly unlikely event of a hung Parliament, all of these policies would be quietly slipped into the nearest wastepaper bin.

Think not? The worthy-but-dull Lib Dem Voice ran a poll, asking over 1000 party members where they should hang their hats in the event of a hung Parliament. Here’s what the party members said:

25% – No negotiations or coalition with Labour or Conservatives
5% – Negotiate only with Labour
6% – Negotiate only with the Conservatives
61% – Negotiate with either Labour or the Conservatives

So, a quarter wouldn't want to negotiate with either party, thereby throwing away the only chance the LD's have of even getting a toe in government. A mere 11% actually have a view on one or other of the big two, saying negotiations should be exclusive.

And a massive majority of cat-owners-who-expressed-a-preference, more than 3 in 5, really don't care one way or the other.  Either they don't see any significant ideological or policy differences between Brown's Labour and CallMeDave's Tories (what?) or they really don't mind who they get into bed with as long as Vince gets a turn at being Chancellor. Or Cleggy gets the Foreign Office.

As they chant at the football matches, Lib Dems, "Oo are yer? Oo are yer?"


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