Why Are There No Lib Dem Columnists?

There is Vince Cable in the Mail on Sunday, but that is hardly the same as having someone who happened to be a Lib Dem, as Fraser Nelson happens to be a Tory or Polly Toynbee happens to be a Labour supporter (more or less), and who is able to fly kites, give an insight into the subculture, act as a critical friend, and so on. Heaven knows what, specifically, Mark Steel is. Simon Heffer and Christopher Booker, at least, are UKIP supporters. But there is no Lib Dem opinion-former in Fleet Street.

I do not write this as any great fan of the Lib Dems. Rather, this lack of coverage is a lack of 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 allow 16 and 17-year-olds to appear legally in porn films that would then haunt them on the Internet for the rest of their lives.

Those, remember, are only the things that have managed to become party policy. A Lib Dem columnist would give an insight into the milieux 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. As existing columnists provide such insights in the worlds of metropolitan elite Toryism, New Labour, Steel's sectarian Left, the UKIP base in Heffer's case, and UKIP itself in Booker's.

It looks as if the national newspapers are about to feel the need to secure such services. I am told that several are already asking around. Not before time.