Chris Huhne's fall is complete. Appearing at Southwark Crown Court, the former Lib Dem cabinet minister has just been sentenced to eight months in prison for perverting the course of justice. Vicky Pryce was also sentenced to eight months. 

In an interview with the Guardian  [2]hours before he was sentenced, Huhne said: "I am sorry. I want to say that to family, to friends, to constituents and to colleagues, and more broadly to everybody who cares passionately about the causes I care about, including saving the planet for our children and our grandchildren." He added that he had hoped Pryce would not be found guilty "for the sake of the family". 

Pleading for mitigation, Huhne's QC John Kelsey-Fry said that his client had already suffered "the direst consequences for this aberrant behaviour ten years ago" and urged the judge to give him the shortest sentence possible. He added that Huhne had done the honourable thing and "fallen on his sword" by pleading guilty and avoiding the "bloodbath" of a trial. But the prosecuting counsel, Andrew Edis, attacked Huhne's conduct of his defence as "scandalous" and his "highly selective amnesia" when interviewed by the police. The judge, unsurprisingly, paid more heed to Edis's arguments. 

As for the Lib Dems, they can reflect that, in one respect at least, fate has been kind to them. Had it not been for the 1,300 postal votes caught up in the Christmas post in 2007, Huhne would have defeated Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems would have just seen their leader imprisoned.