John Pardoe endorses Ben Maguire, the Lib Dem candidate for North Cornwall

Ben Maguire is the Liberal Democrat in the North Cornwall constituency. Today he tweeted this endorsement from John Pardoe.

A sweet young thing asks: Who is John Pardoe?

My early Liberal heroes were David Penhaligon and John Pardoe, who both sat for Cornish constituencies.

Pardoe won North Cornwall from the Conservatives in 1966 and held it until 1979. From 1970 until he lost his seat, he was the Liberal Party's treasury spokesperson, and was known for his pessimistic view of the prospects of the British economy. As it was the Seventies, he generally proved to be right.

It's 45 years since Pardoe was defeated in North Cornwall, perhaps as a victim of Jeremy Thorpe's antics. Though he has resurfaced from time to time - notably, in 1987, when he was the manager of the Liberal-SDP Alliance general election campaign - he is pretty much a forgotten figure today.

But clearly not in North Cornwall, where his endorsement is still thought valuable.

He is also remembered in Calder's Sixth Law of Politics, which holds that every Liberal Democrat leadership election is a rerun of the 1976 Liberal Party contest between Pardoe and David Steel.

I first pointed to the importance of that contest in a post here from 2014:

One candidate (Steel) was orthodox, sensible and just a little dull. The other (Pardoe) was more charismatic, more open to new ideas and just a little unreliable in his judgement.

So in later contests Paddy Ashdown was a Pardoe and Alan Beith was a Steel. And Chris Huhne was a Pardoe and Ming Campbell and then Nick Clegg were Steels. In all these cases I voted for the Pardoe.

It doesn't always work: in 1999 there were five candidates. I suppose you could make a case for Charles Kennedy being a sort of Social Democrat Steel, but a clear Pardoe failed to emerge.

Can we project this pattern back into past? I don't know, but it tempting to see Asquith as a Steel and Lloyd George as a Pardoe.

And was Jo Grimond a Steel or a Pardoe? He seems to have combined the better qualities of both.

Anyway, I'm pleased to see that John Pardoe is still around.

Did Ed Davey take a page from Paddy Ashdown's playbook?

So let me shout it, yet again: if you want to boost our economy, you have to repair our broken relationship with Europe.

Conference, you don’t need me to tell you what a disaster the Conservatives’ botched deal with Europe has been for our country. You see it every day in your communities: The businesses strangled by red tape. The farmers, fishers and factories, unable to sell to their customers on the continent. The empty shelves in local supermarkets. 

It’s why we campaigned against it. Why, when Boris Johnson brought his terrible deal to Parliament, when even Labour supported it, Liberal Democrats stood alone and voted against it.

And why now Liberal Democrats are the only ones with a real plan to fix Britain’s trade. To tear down the Conservatives’ trade barriers, rip up their red tape, and rebuild the ties of trust and friendship with our European neighbours.

I'm not sure about that "yet again": Ed Davey has been notably quiet on Europe. And there's nothing here that he couldn't or shouldn't have said when he became leader in 2020.

But I'm glad he said it today. The rapturous response in the hall tells you that this is what the party wanted to hear.

In fact, I suspect a deft piece of party management here.

I am reminded of my first Liberal Party Assembly at Bournemouth in 1984. Paddy Ashdown, the dashing new MP for Yeovil, had already made a name for himself by opposing the deployment of US cruise missiles in Britain.

But in the run up to the assembly there had been strong rumours that he had agreed a compromise position with the party establishment.

So when he rose in the hall to speak against cruise, there was an ecstatic reaction.

You can read about that assembly and the defence vote in the New York Times.

I am pleased to see that the Times report mentions Liberator, because Bournemouth 1984 was our finest hour. 

We were the lead item on the BBC evening news because, under the heading 'Should Steel go?', we had printed betting odds on who would become the next Liberal leader, along with a pithy description of each MP.

And the bit about 'Liberal delegates arriving in Bournemouth' was illustrated with footage of me and Stewart Rayment strolling along the sea front.

"When he was wise and learned ... he was known as the Calder"

If I understand Nick Barlow's latest blog post aright, it is a story told round a campfire far into a post-apocalyptic future and inspired by Calder's Sixth Law of Politics.

This holds that:

All Liberal Democrat leadership elections are reruns of Steel vs Pardoe

Nick writes:

You know how we have those who are foolish on some days and yet wise on others? They had one such as this. He was said to be an ancient soul, who was one of the Parley-Pardies in the times before the times before, he was said to know the location of the steeper stones, whatever they may be, and that he had, in his youth, put many pieces of paper through the door of many houses, though none could enlighten me as to why that was important. When he was a fool, they laughed and called him Bonkers, an old epithet of the lands of Ukay, my uncle believed, but when he was wise and learned, they sat before him as well-behaved orphans might, and then he was known as the Calder.

Now, there was an ancient prophecy, said to have been uttered by the first Calder of the tribe, that the new leader would be chosen from just two of the Parley-Pardies and that one of would be of steel, the other of a type of uncooked bread my uncle did not know but they called a par-dough. And so, the Parley-Pardies would line up in front of the Calder, he would examine them through squinted eyes and declare for all to hear which of them were steel and which were par-dough.

I have not been so flattered since I lent my name to the chairman of the Blaxwich Chamber of Commerce who attempted to assassinate Dr Beeching in Hookland.

Nick's story also reminds me of one of my very favourite blog posts: Fred Carver's Argonauts of the incredibly specific: anthropological field notes on the Liberal Democrat animal.

For instance:

Liberal Democrats also have formative rituals, or initiation ceremonies, known as “by elections” to establish identification with the group. The by election ritual is much like the circumcision ritual of the Xhosa tribe:

"During the time of the initiation, the young men live in special huts, secluded from the rest of the tribe and especially from any females. They undergo training and endurance tests, which require great discipline. All aspects of the initiation are kept very secret."

Ed Davey and Layla Moran: It's déjà vu all over again

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Calder's Sixth Law of Politics holds that all Lib Dem leadership elections are reruns of the Liberal Party leadership contest between David Steel and John Pardoe in 1976.

As I once blogged:

You could argue that the 1976 contest set a pattern for later Liberal and Liberal Democrat leadership elections.

One candidate (Steel) was orthodox, sensible and just a little dull. The other (Pardoe) was more charismatic, more open to new ideas and just a little unreliable in his judgement.

So in later contests Paddy Ashdown was a Pardoe and Alan Beith was a Steel. And Chris Huhne was a Pardoe and Ming Campbell and then Nick Clegg were Steels.

Not all contests have obeyed my law as clearly, but this time it is spot on. It's clear that Ed Davey is the Steel and Layla Moran is the Pardoe.

For me, Ed is being a bit too much of a Steel for his own good, but I shall not be declaring my support for either candidate until I have seen more of the campaign. I have urged the same course of action on other Lib Dem members.

In case you are curious, you can find all seven of my Laws of Politics in a recent post on this blog.

Francis Wheen on David Steel and Cyril Smith

Private Eye produces a regular podcast called Page 94.

The latest edition looks at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and allegations aginst politicians.

In particular, and with the help of Francs Wheen, it looks at David Steel's odd defence of his lack of action over Cyril Smith.

But it would be unfair to blame Steel alone for this. Liberals of my generation all read the report of Smith's activities in Rochdale in Private Eye, believed it and did little.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Professor of Hard Sums from the University of Rutland at Belvoir

Something tells me that the old boy was not the greatest supporter of the Liberal Party's alliance with the SDP.

Saturday

So David Steel has left the party. Not before time, if you ask me. Did you know that in the early Eighties (the 1980s, that is) he persuaded the Liberal candidate to stand down in half the seats in the country in the belief that this would see us win a majority. I tried to convince him that this was mathematical nonsense and even got the Professor of Hard Sums from the University of Rutland at Belvoir to Have A Word with him, but all to no avail. Little Steel was not to be gainsayed.

Turning to my complete run of Liberator, I locate the volumes from that era and have a jolly good laugh at his expense.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary

Made from the scrotum of the Rutland gazelle

Wearing his wartime gas mask

A particularly amusing item about the Duke of Rutland

A foul-smelling creature of uncertain temper

Above all, Liberal MPs from the 1970s

Why I'm concerned the Lib Dem leadership election has been postponed until next May

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Last week the Liberal Democrats' Federal Board voted to postpone the party's leadership election until May 2021.

It's not clear what constitutional basis they had for doing so, and there had been much criticism of the decision. Some see it as a way of excluding the party's members from the choice of leader, at least for a year, to ensure the establishment's favourite son retains the post for as long as possible

I worry because the idea the public will be impressed that we have stepped back from the political fray and reward us at the ballot box in due course, which some use as an argument in support of the decision, reminds me of a strand in the party's thinking I have complained about before:

You often hear the criticism that we are too tribalist, but that is a libel. 

Chuka Umunna joined the party and was made our Treasury spokesperson the same weekend, and I have not read a whisper of criticism of him or that promotion. 

Back in the 1980s the Liberal Party, which was supposed to be far more fractious than the modern-day Lib Dems, did David Steel's bidding and stood down in half the seats in the country to make room for the SDP. You can't  get much less tribal than that. 

A fairer criticism of Liberals and Liberal Democrats over the years would be that we have been too prone to the belief that the route to success lies in giving in. 

If only we give up enough of our beliefs and policies, runs the logic, if only we stand down in favour of someone else in enough seats, we will be swept to power. 

You sometimes get the idea we believe we are an obstacle to Liberal government and not its greatest hope.

These days a wholly online campaign would exclude few members, but it would be wrong to hold the election right away.

But let's hold it as soon as is decent and practicable. Otherwise, by the time the we get a new leader the public may have forgotten all about us.

Archy Kirkwood and the Average White Band

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Alwyn Turner's masterly survey of the UK singles charts of my early teenage years for Lion & Unicorn has reached March 1975.

One of the top ten in the week he chooses was Pick Up the Pieces by the Average White Band. Alwsyn rightly describes them as "Britain’s best-ever funk band".

When I chose Pick Up the Pieces as one of my Sunday music videos I repeated some lines from Norman Baker's Against the Grain where he remembered an unsuccessful gig by his band The Reform Club:

As well as members of the band, we had roped in Archy Kirkwood, the Lib Dem MP for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, on guitar, and Chris Berry, our Eastbourne candidate, on keyboards. 

Archy was a competent rhythm guitarist and had been in a Scottish band in the 1960s, half of which went on to be the Average White Band, though not Archy's half.

This morning I sent the link to this post to Alwyn, and of course he knows more than I do.

It turns out Archy was a member of a band called The Kingpins and only one of its members, Onnie McIntyre, later joined the Average White Band.

Googling The Kingpins does not get you far, but it does lead you to the site of another band member, Lex Gibson, and reveals that this history got scrambled so there was once a rumour that Archy had been in the Average White Band himself.

My own first involvement with Archy Kirkwood was at my first Liberal Assembly at Bournemouth in 1984.

This was the era of big debates on nuclear weapons and we radicals wanted people with clout on the platform so they would be seen voting against David Steel's support for cruise missiles.

So I got there early and took a seat on the platform, only to give it up to Archy just before the debate began.

Six of the Best 911

"We can often make flippant and incorrect assumptions of the standards of previous times, especially when we are seeking to retrospectively justify failures. but my own experiences from that time tell me something different." Andrew Page does not buy the arguments of David Steel's defenders.

Stephen Unwin explores how some of the most civilised and intelligent thinkers have supported eugenics - one of the most dark and barbaric philosophies in modern history.

University College London has been accused of disregarding Jeremy Bentham's final wishes, reports Ruchira Sharma.

Chiara Betti looks at the life of Agnes Baden Powell, artist and founder of the Girl Guides.

Eoghan Lyng celebrates the 50th birthday of the Small Faces album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake.

"He emphasizes the penned-up livestock on board to keep them fed, the immensity of the ropes and the boom and the mainsail, the scurrying of lookouts up and down the mast on a pre-dawn shift change. The film is as interested in the culture and environment of living on a ship for months at a time as it is about steering it into battle." Scott Tobias revisits Peter Weir's Master and Commander.

Lord Steel resigns from the Lib Dems and the Lords

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The party's former leader David Steel has resigned from the Liberal Democrats and the House of Lords following today's report on the Westminster strand of the Independent Inquiry on Child Abuse.

You can find the chapter of the report that covers Cyril Smith and the Liberal Party on its website.

It's verdict on Lord Steel runs:

Lord Steel should have provided leadership. Instead, he abdicated his responsibility. He looked at Cyril Smith not through the lens of child protection but through the lens of political expediency. 

As suggested in the written closing submissions on behalf of the complainant core participants, when attending the Inquiry, far from recognising the consequences of his inaction, Lord Steel was completely unrepentant.

Jonathan West, who helped expose abuse at Ealing Abbey and St Benedict's School, has expressed dissatisfaction with the inquiry's recommendations in a thread on Twitter.

He call for the introduction of mandatory reporting of suspicions of child abuse :

I'm seriously disappointed with the recommendations in the @InquiryCSA Westminster report 1/10 https://t.co/kItHhnKJYQ

— Jonathan West (@JonathanWest_) February 25, 2020

Lord Steel 'facing expulsion from Liberal Democrats'

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This morning's Telegraph reported that Lord Steel - the former Liberal Party leader David Steel - faces condemnation from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

It also said a committee of senior Lib Dem MPs and peers is being convened to discuss Lord Steel's future in the party once the inquiry's finding is made public.

The question at issue is Steel's failure to pass on Cyril Smith's alleged confession of abusing boys to the authorities.

After that the article quotes the inevitable 'friends' of Steel disparaging the inquiry.

As an antidote, let me point you to an interview with its chief psychologist, Dr Rebekah Eglinton:

Often we hear from survivors who disclosed the abuse as a child, but were met with disbelief or dismissal. This response is hugely damaging to self-esteem and trust in authority. 

Some survivors told us it took a long time to feel worthy of a Truth Project session, having internalised a sense of being ‘not good enough’ or of minimising the true nature of the abuse perpetrated against them. ... This self-doubt and low self-esteem is a common legacy of child sexual abuse.

Paddy Ashdown profiled in 1988

Taken from an edition of This Week broadcast in May 1988.

At that point David Steel and Robert Maclennan were acting as joint leaders of the new party known as the Social and Liberal Democrats.

GUEST POST Unionism is making the Scottish Lib Dems irrelevant

Mark Stephens says it is time for the Scottish Liberal Democrats to abandon 'me too' unionism and engage with Scotland’s constitutional future

The Liberal Democrats once played a prominent role in Scottish politics. The party played a full role in the Constitutional Convention which 'acknowledge[d] the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs' and paved the way to the Scottish Parliament. The party was in coalition with Labour for the first eight years of the new parliament up to 2007, with Jim Wallace serving as Deputy and periodically Acting First Minister.

Twenty years on from the restoration of the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Liberal Democrats are - bluntly - irrelevant.

The party played an undistinctive role in the Better Together campaign during the 2014 independence referendum. Then was the time to articulate the case for a federal UK, but this 'core objective' was set aside for some ad hoc proposals dressed up as 'principles' that the party fed into the post-referendum Smith Commission. (The commission was set up in the aftermath of the independence referendum to deliver the UK party leaders' 'vow'.)

Contrary to the expectations of the UK parties, the defeat of independence in 2014 did not mark a return to politics as usual. Instead, it established independence as the principal fault line in Scottish politics.

This has played to the advantage of the SNP (obviously), which has now replaced the Labour Party as the principal centre-left party in Westminster as well as Holyrood elections, and Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party as the most authentic voice of unionism.

In 2016 Brexit opened up a second constitutional fault line. In response, Nicola Sturgeon unambiguously positioned the SNP as the main anti-Brexit party north of the border. Given that one-third of the Yes vote in 2014 voted for Brexit in 2016, Sturgeon’s leadership may be contrasted with Corbyn's ambivalence. Consequently, there has been some churn in the pro-independence support bringing it into closer alignment with pro-EU sentiment.

The Liberal Democrats (like Labour) have failed to adapt to this new landscape. The party has effectively become a 'me too' unionist party. This may make sense as a strategy to unite the unionist vote in the handful of seats in which it is competitive, but it is catastrophically limiting as a national strategy.

What is the point of the party everywhere else in the country if the Tories (or Labour in the case of Edinburgh South) are best placed to stop the SNP? A perusal of the results across Scotland provides the voters' clear answer.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats managed to get themselves into a complete fankle over these two constitutional issues during the 2019 election. The SNP supported a second EU referendum, and indeed played a leading role in Westminster opposing Brexit and challenging in the courts the government’s attempt to prorogue parliament.

It also argued that since Scotland voted very clearly (by 62 per cent) to remain, being taken out of the EU constituted the material change required in its 2016 Holyrood manifesto to justify a second independence referendum.

To be clear the manifesto stated 'the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum ... if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.' With Green Party support, a referendum bill is progressing through the Scottish Parliament.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats argued for a second referendum on the EU, but vehemently opposed a second independence referendum. This inconsistency appeared hypocritical - for the good reason that it was. But Willie Rennie went even further - ruling out another referendum in his lifetime regardless of the outcome of future Scottish Parliament elections.

The Lib Dem response to the dual victory of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in England and Wales, and the SNP's landslide in Scotland has not been encouraging. Jo Swinson has blamed a "wave of nationalism" north and south of the border, as if Brexit and support for Scottish independence are both sides of the same xenophobic coin.

This bares little scrutiny. Brexit is backward looking, focused on withdrawing from an international organisation, hostile to immigration, led by the political right, and supported by the elderly. Scottish independence is forward looking, founded on a 'civic' view of nation, led by the political centre-left, and supported by the young. The franchise for the independence election included EU citizens, and the SNP wishes to extend it further to everyone legally entitled to live in Scotland.

In marked contrast to the UK's government’s 'hostile environment' to immigrants, Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister has issued a number of open letters to EU citizens living in Scotland, one this week stating:

Scotland values you for the contribution you make to our society, our culture and our economy. Whether you have lived here for months or many years, Scotland is your home, you are welcome here and we want you to stay." 

Characterising expressions of such openly liberal values as xenophobic nationalism is clearly pretty daft, especially when voters in parts of Scotland have shifted allegiances backwards and forwards between the SNP and LibDems in seats such as Ross, Skye and Lochaber, East Dunbartonshire and Fife North East. It seems unlikely that the values of the switchers markedly change.

Perhaps they share the view of former Scottish Lib Dem chief executive Andy Myles, who questioned the "magic spell that says sovereignty must stay with the State Imperial Crown at Westminster, and that it might be better to bring it back closer to the people."

Post-election, it is clear that constitutional questions will continue to dominate Scottish politics. Already some Labour figures are dropping their outright opposition to future referendums, finding the prospect of Brexit and a majority Johnson government to be unpalatable. David Steel has mooted a 'British Isles confederation, replacing the House of Lords with a Senate elected by its component institutions.'

The Scottish Lib Dems could be part of this process, but only if they abandon their outright opposition to a future independence referendum, and enthusiastically enters the debate on Scotland’s constitutional future. This is key to restoring their position in Scottish politics.

Of course the Scottish Lib Dems can carry on with their 'me too' unionist strategy. They can continue to parrot the increasingly tired trope that the independence referendum was only 'once in a generation' even though the party signed up to the post-referendum Smith Commission, which stated that “nothing in this report prevents Scotland becoming an independent country in the future should the people of Scotland so choose.”

They can maintain that Nicola Sturgeon has no mandate for a referendum despite its manifesto pledge on precisely this point and commanding a majority on this issue in the Scottish Parliament.

The Lib Dems could even claim that the SNP winning 80 per cent of the seats in Scotland in last week’s election, with leaflet after leaflet demanding that Scotland’s future be put in Scotland’s hands represents no mandate, because they 'only' got 45 per cent of the vote.

This would look ridiculous coming from a party that had intended to revoke Article 50 without a referendum on the basis of a majority of seats, not votes.

But if Willie Rennie and his colleagues choose to continue to go down this path, they might reflect on what happened the last time Liberals chose to add the word 'Unionist' to their party’s name.

Mark Stephens worked for Alan Beith at Westminster.

Political satire 1977 style

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So there I was listening to Radio 4 Extra and an episode of The Burkiss Way which I probably heard when it was first broadcast in 1977.

When (at 09:36) this happened:

Robin Day: Well, Mr Novelty, the question I must put to you is this. Who dreamt up this whole toad idea in the first place? 

Liberal candidate: Well, it were our party's economics expert. 

Robin Day: Pardoe? 

Liberal candidate: I SAID IT WERE OUR PARTY'S ECONOMIC EXPERT.

They don't write them like that any more. It's up there with the Two Ronnies' joke about boundary changes in the Scottish Border and David Steel being upset at losing his Peebles.

That one turned up in Lord Bonkers' diary one day and I cannot promise that this one won't too.

Full restoration of the Waverley Route under consideration

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The Waverley Route, a mainline railway from Carlisle to Edinburgh through the Scottish Borders, was closed in 1969. The local opposition to the move was led by a young local MP called David Steel.

In 2015, 31 miles of the route from Edinburgh to Tweedbank near Galashiels was reopened as the Borders Railway.

Now come news from the International Railway Journal that the funding is in place for a feasibility study of the full reopening of the line from Tweedbank through Hawick to Carlisle.

The Lib Dems have not been tribalist enough

Back in February, when Change UK was launched, I wrote:

Remembering the endless hours expended on seat negotiations by the Liberal Party and the SDP, I would be tempted to pursue a selfish strategy if I were in charge of TIG and it had grown into a national party. 

I would give the Lib Dems a clear run in the seats they hold and in another dozen where they had realistic chances of winning. After that, I would stand a candidate in every seat in the country and let the Lib Dems stand against me if they dared. 

So low is the present Lib Dem support across much of the country, I would reason, that if we can’t supplant then we TIGgers have no future as a party anyway.

Now things have turned around - and that post is a reminder of how quickly it happened - that has become good advice for us Liberal Democrats.

You often hear the criticism that we are too tribalist, but that is a libel.

Chuka Umunna joined the party and was made our Treasury spokesperson the same weekend, and I have not read a whisper of criticism of him or that promotion.

Back in the 1980s the Liberal Party, which was supposed to be far more fractious than the modern-day Lib Dems, did David Steel's bidding and stood down in half the seats in the country to make room for the SDP. You can't  get much less tribal than that.

A fairer criticism of Liberals and Liberal Democrats over the years would be that we have been too prone to the belief that the route to success lies in giving in.

If only we give up enough of our beliefs and policies, runs the logic, if only we stand down in favour of someone else in enough seats, we will be swept to power.

You sometimes get the idea we believe we are an obstacle to Liberal government and not its greatest hope.

So I will now apply my advice from February to my own party.

I would not have a problem with our standing down in favour of the Greens in constituencies where they have a realistic hope of winning and we have none. But there are not many seats like that.

Nor would I have a problem with standing down in favour of Change UK, though I can think of only one seat - Heidi Allen's South Cambridgeshire - where that would be worth doing.

But we should stand candidates in the huge majority of seats and let other parties decide whether or not to put up against us.

"Don't blame me I voted Pardoe"

From the Awkward Squad website:

Calder's Law states that every lib dem leadership election mirrors Steel vs Pardoe: a boring, centrist, reliable, safe-pair-of-hands Steel, vs an exciting, radical, a bit risky Pardoe. Nine times out of ten the Steel wins. 

This t-shirt is for those of us who mourn the tendency of our party towards centrism, and is available in black, white, grey, and tie-dye for those who don't remember the seventies because they were there, man, and really DID vote Pardoe.

Strictly speaking, it is Calder's Sixth Law of Politics, but I am immensely flattered.

I was all set to be a Moranite, but if our next leadership election is to be Swinson vs Dayey I shall vote for whichever candidate emerges as the Pardoe.

As to the T-shirt, even I am not old enough to have voted Pardoe, so I shall settle for the grey.

David Steel's suspension lifted as Lib Dems "recast" investigation

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From BBC News this evening:

The Liberal Democrats have lifted the suspension of former leader David Steel, according to a senior party source. 

Lord Steel had the whip removed over comments he made to a child abuse inquiry about the late MP Cyril Smith. 

The source told the BBC that the whip had now been restored while the party recast the procedure being followed in its investigation into the comments.

Lord Steel was suspended after telling the inquiry that Cyril Smith had admitted abusing youths to him.

One odd thing about this affair is that Steel told us the same thing back in 2014 and no one turned a hair.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Suspended by the bigwigs

I managed to put him off yesterday, but I am afraid it is time to spend another week with Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer.

He begins with some characteristically trenchant views.

Monday

Meadowcroft emerges from his potting shed displaying an unwonted sense of urgency. “Steel’s been suspended by the bigwigs,” he informs me. “I’m not surprised,” I reply. “Do you remember when he persuaded us to stand down in half the seats in the country to make way for the SDP Party? No good came of it. Well I never thought it would.”

It turns out that he has been suspended for quite another reason. It has emerged that all those stories one heard about the appalling Cyril Smith were true and, what’s more, he admitted as much to Steel, who promptly did chuff all about it and later nominated him for a knighthood. No wonder E.W. Swinson was up in arms.

Smith, whom I once described as “Extremely Large”, was one of many politicians I was at pains to keep away from my Home for Well-Behaved Orphans. There were times when I had a whole phalanx of gamekeepers deployed with their orchard doughties to keep these undesirables away. All power to this inquiry’s elbow, I say.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Calder's Sixth Law of Politics: All Lib Dem leadership elections are reruns of Steel vs Pardoe

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My suggestion that every Liberal Democrat leadership election is a rerun of the 1976 Liberal Party contest between David Steel and John Pardoe has been getting some traction recently.

The idea , as I said in that original post, is that you get a recurring pattern where one candidate (Steel) is orthodox, sensible and a little dull and the other (Pardoe) is more charismatic, more open to new ideas but less reliable in his judgement.

It is discussed by Mark Pack and Stephen Tall in their latest Never Mind the Bar Charts podcast and it also got some notice on Twitter.

I was told by one person that this theory "has become one of the bits of mental toolkit for a few of us when talking about the party".

But then I was told by another that it is "an incredibly simplistic approach".

Anyway I have decided to elevate it into Calder Sixth's Law of Politics.

So here they all are - the fifth has been firmed up since I first stated it:

1. If all parties are united in support of a measure, it will turn out to be a disaster.
2. The more power the state takes to itself, the more arbitrarily that power will be exercised.
3. When politicians do something which they think is very clever, it will eventually turn out to have been very stupid.
4. The more extreme a person's views, the more certain he or she will be that the majority of voters share them.
5. No argument that involves expressing indignation on behalf of a third party is to be trusted.
6. All Liberal Democrat leadership elections are reruns of Steel vs Pardoe