Are you going to finish essays yourself? I think that you ought to buy essay papers and relieve your stress.

This is pitiful, and symptomatic of the best Labour is producing at the moment.

Medhi Hasan is a woeful journalist with a shameful background in defending the utterly indefensible. Yes, Clegg's hardly statesman like, but every time i cringe at his latest gaffe, i only have to think about that cretinous, ineffectual opportunistic simpleton E Miliband and i find myself almost weeping tears of joy. Your party Medhi, that's Labour, the guys looking out for the poorest and most vulnerable, managed to decrease social mobility and increase the gap between the richest and poorest. Well done. Oh and good job on the Iraq War as well. For all you Old Labour types, sorry, not even Ed is willing to be that barmy. For all you New Labour types, right, so it's the LDs that are mirroring the Tories is it? Pot and kettle?

For all those slinging insults at the LDs, pull your head out your behinds and look at the reality of a party with, what, 57 MPs, still holding the Tories to account and achieving wins on policies (i haven't seen the archaic tax credits for married couples Cameron was so keen on, have you?)

Lazy journalism from a sub-standard intellect.

Thanks Mehdi, this terrible article convinced me to join the Lib Dems.

You have four points, because number 5 hasn't happened. 2 was down to the Tories, and the LDs are looking to rebel on it. You can hardly blame the Lib Dems for 3 either (you could have looked closer to home until recently).

Surely this article's title should read "What is the point of the Clegg leadership?" The party has lost hundreds of council seats, two-thirds of its popular support and membership has fallen by about a quarter. What a triumph.

You might well ask.
They are simply a protest Party nothing more nothing less, but these days the the protess are aimed directly at them. Their excuses at a manifesto may as well be binned. Or possibly a think tank because the 2 main Parties will filch ideas from themif they are good ideas.

In my eyes, the Liberal Democrata have lost all credibility in the world of politics. They were much better off pairing up with the Labour party. At least that way, things wouldn't have got any worse for them.

How about the point of the Liberal Democrats being the only radical party in British politics, taking on the assumptions of the way things are run, instead of sticking with the status quo?

Shifting tax policy to help the worst off instead of the best; linking top public sector pay to the lowest paid; prioritising the poorest pupils by making sure the funding moves with them, not just in lump sums building unnecessary new schools where others will benefit from investment; negotiating with Europe on multi-national issues like climate change (Chris Huhne this week, Graham Watson in the EU etc); legislating for equal rights inc. gay marriage; restoring pensions to earnings link; investing in young people & expanding apprenticeships; defending human rights; having a weighted and progressive approach to issues like drugs legislation instead of reactionary dogma...

It's the easiest thing in the world to knock the Lib Dems at the moment, but its disingenuous and cheap to claim we are not making a difference and hitting above our weight. Focus on point scoring, and ridicule if that's easier, but in doing so the Left are increasingly isolating any hope of a future alternative to Tory-led governments in an increasingly multi-party British politics. I'm suppose Labour and UKIP would suit you much better?

@PikeyMikey, thanks. I just get really frustrated reading rubbish like this; its childish, petty but most of all bad journalism.

What is the point of the LIbDems? Obvious - they have been designed for those voters who are too snooty to vote for the party of the proles - the Labour Party and yet too scared to back the Tories, a party of rodents red in both tooth and claw.
Even now these confused professionals, managers and students who exercised their mandate in favour of LibDem power-brokers are still too hoity-toity to vote Labour but much too terrified to move further right.

Undecided

Sean Davey amusingly writes of the LibDems' "Shifting tax policy to help the worst off instead of the best". May I recommend that Sean comes down to this planet and reads the nef's new document 'Why the rich are getting richer'.

Crikey, Medhi, Indu agrees with you which does not happen everyday.

A major achievement of Clegg (a success?) is that he has polarized the vote. The Libdems split the Labour vote at the last election which is why Labour lost.

Milibandwagon should be capitalising on Cameron saying No and the disagreement with Clegg. But he has seen the opinion poles showing a substantial majority of people support Cameron's decision. Again Clegg gets it wrong.

I can’t make produce or design anything. I can’t mend anything either because I stayed in the classroom for another 3 years after school & studied something as useless as Social Anthropology. So I have no practical experience at doing anything of any use & have no real grasp of what reality is like for real people as I am a plastic person.

But I can talk & I enjoyed talking on the Euro gravy train for 5 years & my wife makes a fortune out of the EU. So you see I preach the EU to everyone so that when I finally get my just deserts I’ll have the Euro gravy train to return to.

I talk in clichés;
We'll build a bridge to the 21st century.
Euro sceptics are racists & xenophobes
We'll face the challenges of the new millennium.
We'll grow the economy.
We're going to reform government.
We'll reach across party lines.
We're here t serve the people.
We'll fight for working families.
We'll empower people.
We'll leave no child behind.
We must put children first.
Our children's future is at stake.
We have to look to the future.
Together, we'll build our future.
We are focused & engaged & we have a road map built on a raft of measures

I waive my arms around as if I’ve been to the B.Liar school of body language.
I spout left wing junk whilst loving my upper middle class lifestyle.

The millions of East Europeans coming here because of the EU that I love so much, don't bother me too much because I live in a nice middle class suburb where none of them live.
So unlike most of the rest of you plebs, I don't have to feel as if I live in Poland every time I go out my front door.

Without even understanding my own reasons why, I'm happy to see UK taxpayers who are barely able to pay their energy & food bills, being forced to give £17 billion a year to the EU for unelected Eurocrats to throw at whatever takes their fancy.
Even though we don't even have enough money to fund our own police, hospitals & schools properly & pensioners who've paid taxes & national insurance for 45 years barely exist on their pension.

I am Nick Clegg.
I am a useless manipulative self serving piece of ****

Willp, do you not understand that what Sean said is completely true. You might not like to think that because of Lib Dem policy 1.1 million people no longer pay income tax (mostly law paid women!) but its true.

Lets also remember the manifesto. There were four key areas that the party stood on (no, tuition fees was not one of them). If you look at the manifesto and what has been achieved in government then you'll see that the party has had a significant amount of influence over policy. It is no wonder that independent studies have shown the Lib Dems are implementing 75% of their manifesto in government! Also, lest we forget that the Tories, pre election, proposed 96bn pounds worth of cuts, the Lib Dems just £81bn. And how much is the Government cutting? Thats right, £82bn, a billion pounds LESS than the proposed Labour party cuts.

I'm proud to be a Lib Dem and very much proud to agree with the poor arguments of Mehdi Hassan.

You're either left or right or somewhere in between.
Quite what Lib Dems are I just dobt't know.
In fact I think they are 'Don't knows' or whatever policies their left wing middle class socialist leaders trump up at the time !

Strange article... Could you only think of 4 things?!

I think the best thing the LibDems are doing is at least lessening how bad things actually would be under just a Tory Govt. They won't be thanked for it by the elctorate, but I am thankful.

I believe Nick Clegg is an embarrassment to British politics and the Lib Dems. He has practically wiped his party off the political map and still they hold onto him. He should resign

Hmmm. The problem - as this article and the comments show - is that the reasonable people don't get any credit when they behave reasonably because they are consistently shat upon by the unscrupulous.
The UK and US political systems are irreparably broken at the moment because they only work on confrontation, not on negotiation.

Are not the Liberal Democrats now in government? But as things stand, apart from Vince Cable from time to time in the Mail on Sunday, that party is exempt from an important form of scrutiny, a Fleet Street column.

Every national newspaper should have a Liberal Democrat. They need scrutiny. Scrutiny of schemes to join the euro. Or to grant an amnesty to illegal immigrants. Or to abolish church schools. Or to raise the income tax threshold, but without the wholesale restructuring that would guarantee everyone a tax-free income of at least half national median earnings at the given time. Or to reverse the erosion of civil liberties, but without therefore restoring proper sentencing and proper prison regimes because we could once again have confidence in convictions. Or to give the vote to prisoners. Or to advocate in this country openness, decentralisation and the election of everything, while also subscribing to European federalism.

Those, remember, are only the things that have managed to become party policy. Liberal Democrat columnists would give an insight into the milieu that produced such policies, into the ideas that circulate around them and provide their context, and thus into the minds and character of the people involved in that process. Where are those columnists?

For many years The Sun would not even send a reporter to the Liberal Democrat Conference. Yet over a good number of years it carried fairly or very regular pieces by Sir Clement Freud, much loved by many of us for his appearances on Just a Minute, making him the only regular Liberal or Liberal Democrat, as such, on Fleet Street.

Where the press is concerned, the Liberal Democrats are probably feeling very smug at the moment. After all, that is their usual aspect. They should consider, and be reminded, that their only newspaper voice over a prolonged period was in a paper of which Rupert Murdoch was not only the proprietor but also the editor-in-chief, and that it was the voice of a Liberal and then a Liberal Democrat whose son was by happy coincidence married, and still is, to Murdoch’s daughter.

What a silly article. Mehdi, I honestly don't know how the New Statesman can justify your wage when you write rubbish like this.

What's the point of labour?

Ineffective Opposition, with a terrible, hopeless leader. I am a labour party man and am desperate for change.

Labour has become a party that criticises everything and has a solution for nothing.

Why was my last post removed?

Is defending the Lib Dems against house rules now?!?

Thank God these nutters aren't in power. Oh wait, they are!!!!! Amnesty for aliens? thats a bloody disgrace!!! Yes, everyone apart from the Tories and the BNP wants a new electoral system, but not AV!! AMS is the best. the Fib Dums are idiots. I hope they get parred in the next election by UKIP.

As a working class kid I knew that labour was "our" party, against the tories, I was always puzzled by the Liberals/SLD/Lib Dems because they were obviously pro-tory, but with nice sentiments- anti-aparthied,anti-hanging, pro-gay. It has always been clear however, especially by the power happy idiots supporting this government, that they are simply weak but selfish tories.

Sean Davey
Shifting tax policy to help the worst off instead of the best;
----
I support cutting tax at the bottom, but the Lib Dem move includes removing tax credits, meaning the overall effect has been to help middle income earners, not the poor, so your point is not highly convincing.
2. linking top public sector pay to the lowest paid;
-----Why just the public sector? the division is far more acute in the private sector, and yes you can make a difference as a government on the point.

3. prioritising the poorest pupils by making sure the funding moves with them, not just in lump sums building unnecessary new schools where others will benefit from investment; ----
personally I consider education to be among the successes of NewLabour, as well as Health.
4. negotiating with Europe on multi-national issues like climate change (Chris Huhne this week, Graham Watson in the EU etc); ---Jeez, one step forward, and several back in Europe dialogue and ; I mean FFS.
5. legislating for equal rights inc. gay marriage; er, Civil Partnerships, end to Clause 28, heard of these? Distinctive???
6. restoring pensions to earnings link; just when inflation is outpacing earnings, great. And support for what is clearly a political move against Labour (assault on public sector pensions), painting it as simply in the pay of the unions. Cut the pay, increase the contributions, work longer, and get less. Do you really think this quadruple whammy is fair?
It has been a disgraceful episode of this govt. And it is the young
7. Investing in young people & expanding apprenticeships; (cutting EMA, cutting future jobs fund, one million unemployed youths - Labour did not do enough for the youth, indeed NewLabour impoverished the young via allowing the credit boom that pushed house prices ever higher. But your start in govt has been lamentable.
8. defending human rights; Well done for ending the expensive and grotesque ID cards scheme, which you did not need to convince the Tories on, so hardly your distinctive achievement. But that apart what has the discernible improvements been?
------------
Since the (hopefully) end of NewLabour, I have definitely gone back to Red. And Ed Miliband has been ahead of the game, seeing the end of an economic era. I find the carping that he is weak quite amusing. He has failed to convince the public yet, that is evident, but taking ion his elder brother with all the hurt that could cause, taking on Murdoch before any other major politician (and please, Cameron saying that the actions of the NotW are despicable was not nearly sufficient), and taking on the entire economic hegemony of deregulated market economics is not the actions of a weak man.

A cap on immigration is a matter of urgency, not ideology. Most people in this country want net immigration stopped. It is for the greater good of our long term health. Nothing xenophobic about it, this country is running out of water, cannot produce enough food to feed the population and will turn into an urban jungle.