One of the Liberal Democrat MPs who abstained on Article 50 lost his seat on Thursday

I have seen it suggested that the Liberal Democrats' position on Europe was toned down during the general election because some of our remaining MPs were concerned it would alienate their voters.

In view of that, I was interested to discover a post I wrote back in December. There I quoted the words of the three Lib Dem MPs who abstained on Article 50.

I see that, sadly, one of those MPs - Greg Mulholland - lost his seat on Thursday.

The others were John Pugh, who did not stand this time, and Norman Lamb.

Michael Gove's appointment as environment secretary this evening rather bears out what I wrote in that post:

If the farmers of North Norfolk think they will do better out of a Tory government than they have out of the European Union, they must have been sniffing the silage.

Later. I originally suggested that John Pugh had been defeated on Thursday, but of course he did not stand this time. Which makes this post rather less impressive than when it first appeared.