Even Chris Huhne's Guardian column has not appeared in a month.
Beyond that, a party with five Cabinet Ministers including the Deputy Prime Minister, with another Minister attending Cabinet, with a blocking minority in the House of Commons, and with a permanent blocking minority in the House of Lords, simply does not exist from the media's point of view.
Question Time has just been broadcast from within a Lib Dem Cabinet Minister's constituency, but with no Lib Dem on the panel.
Heaven knows that I carry no candle for them, although more than anything I am baffled by their absence from Lanchester, where they returned one Parish Councillor out of 15 in 1999, she did not last until 2003, and nothing has been heard from them since.
But this is all very, very, very strange.
But this is all very, very, very strange.
It has been so for many many years. The media have merely ignored the Liberal Democrats focusing on the Tories and Labour,having stood as a Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate this would have been my fate had it not been for a sympathetic letter editor in the then still independent local newspaper (soon swallowed by the Newsquest group). Also there seems to be a very serious collapse the Liberal Democrat activist base as older members die or withdraw due to age or exhaustion. I know this to be a problem with the other major parties too but it is noticeable in the Lib Dems as they are the least attractive main party for the ambitious young. Another major mistake they made was to un-ceremoniously de-select many loyal and long standing activists from their approved candidates list about six years ago. This was obviously the of some idiotic young party manager or paid consultant in effort to bring in more young, minority and women candidates (which I actually do not disapprove of in principle) and less grey hair, white, quirky and middle aged men (the quirky bit was always part of the Liberals/Lib Dem charm). Personally this action both hurt and insulted me and I withdrew from the party after twenty years active membership (on the executive, candidate and local party president for two years). I have remained a member because I was given free membership and I like fellow members in my constituency as individuals and I am a liberal at heart but politically I find myself less in agreement with the party to which I'm a member. To nick Irving Krystal's phrase I'm now a liberal whose been mugged by reality!
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