I'm reminded of Tommy Carcetti in The Wire. An old politico tells him that when you become Mayor, every day brings someone coming to your office giving you another bowl of shit to eat.

If you're a Liberal Democrat, every day Cameron and Clegg give you another bowl of shit to eat. And then you have to pretend you've always liked the taste.

What are the Lib Dem strategists thinking? They are facing annhilation as a party. They are a weak, ineffectual, junior, ney childlike partner being completely used. It's like they don't belong in proper adult politics, using no skill, no wisdom, no strategy. They lurch from failure to calamity, dropping voters in the millions. Why in God's name do they think the voters will return when (actually big IF, if you agree with the liberal Keynes) economy improves? Course they won't. They are not going to thank you at any point before the next election. Pull out now, with panash, with style, before you have killed a party with a long and great tradition.

Young women earn more than young men. This is only reversed when women start having babies.
The whole pay gap discussion is based on fundamentally flawed statistics that assume gender to be the only factor in pay.

"Featherstone has not issued a statement in the response to the new move."

Um, yes she has:
http://www.equalities.gov.uk/news/featherstone_new_tools_will_h.aspx

In fact, it appears that Featherstone, rather than May, is the public face of this decision.

Perhaps if Featherstone was paid less than her male counterparts, she might live up to her pre election expectations and her current role of Equalities Minister and fight more vociferously for equal rights for women and equal pay rather than adopting the Clegg, Cable and Alexander position of kissing the coalition's derriére and abandoning LD political ideology. Yet another ineffective Lib Dem Minister who hasn't the courage of her convictions to challenge the policy u turn.

As for Theresa May Minister for Women and Equality - an oxymoron if ever there was one - let's not forget her voting record where equal rights for gay people are concerned, her voting record on abortion, her recent scrapping of the equality law that made public authorities have to take in to account disadvantage and inequality when making policy decisions where May described it as 'socialism in one clause'. In November, she said that economic equality 'was good for you, good for us and good for big business' yet here we are a fortnight later and she now abandons her argument for economic equality and undermines women and their rights yet again, and thus she overturns decades of hard work in getting legislation on to the statute to ensure equality prevailed.

Theresa May is a disgrace to the female race.

We're all in this together - as long as you are male, white, straight and not disadvantaged economically, socially or physically.

Perhaps Parties should produce 2 Manifestos at election time, one if they win outright and another if they have to go into coalition. That way we can see which policies they will ditch and compromise on.
Its the Lib Dems fault for going along with Tory policies and not forcing them to climb down. The Lib Dems have enormous power in that they could bring down that Govt and force a GE. That thought must be a constant worry to Dave 6 months into his Govt now we the public can see the true complexion of Dave the Camelion.
What is ridiculous is the spectacle of Cable voting against his own policies.

@ Lou

"We're all in this together - as long as you are male, white, straight and not disadvantaged economically, socially or physically."

Sadly, you are very right, but what else would we expect from a nasty party largely comprised of millionaire public school boys.