Some things in politics are symbolic. For dyed-in-the-wool environmentalists like the Liberal Democrats, solar power is one of these things – indisputably clean, green and cutting edge technology. The sort of thing Liberal Democrats in a government that aims to be the greenest ever should be unequivocally behind. Our commitment to the environment was why

Would rent controls be the worst method of controlling housing benefit aside from all the others? With its mixture of good ideas and painful ones, the Welfare Reform Bill going through Parliament is causing more anguish among Liberal Democrats than anything since… Well, since the last horrible compromise the Coalition Government came up with. The logic is relentless: Labour wrecked the econ...

The Liberal Democrats will make a pre-Budget demand for a tax raid on the pensions of middle-class professionals.

It’s a great shame that so many Liberal Democrats have reacted to the political downfall of Chris Huhne by bashing his successor. Ed Davey is an immensely capable minister and will do a wonderful job in his new position. Sadly, some have chosen this news to complain because a woman wasn’t promoted instead of a

There have been some high profile (if not high level) Blairite defections to the Tories. While there are some similarities between the Blair legacy and our coalition partners, the defectees seem to have overlooked or discarded one idea – joining the Liberal Democrats. As Jonathan Powell says in his book, The New Machiavelli, and as

Daniel Radcliffe, the Harry Potter star, has switched his allegiance from the Liberal Democrats to Labour, branding Nick Clegg a "whipping boy".

The unelected House of Lords was yesterday likened to the tyrannical government of Syria as leading Liberal Democrats warned that the chamber full of "dinosaurs" must be reformed.

Today’s papers make clear just how damaging the next phase of this whole Chris Huhne business could be to the Liberal Democrats. The danger is that because this story is a very human drama it cuts through to the public in the way that some minor dispute over policy would not. The Mail, for instance, reveals that Nick Clegg’s wife Miriam called Vicky Pryce as soon as the news broke abou...

At the Conservative Conference that was held following the formation of the Coalition government there were many, often negative, views from delegates about the need to be in government with the Liberal Democrats. By contrast, Tory ministers, enjoying government for the first time after a long spell in the political cold, were almost falling over themselves to commend their Lib Dem partners as eff...

The biggest danger for the Liberal Democrats from this coming trial is that it turns the party into the butt of everybody’s jokes. Having gone into government and lost much of their original support by taking tough decisions, they have consoled themselves with the hope that they have now established themselves as a serious political party.   Their aim at the next election will be to pre...