Former Liberal Democrat leaders reveal themselves in their advice to Ed Davey

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Friday's Red Box email from The Times carries advice for Ed Davey from former Liberal Democrat leaders - some of it revealing about those former leaders.

So Ming Campbell tells Ed to lock himself away in a bunker from the start:

As I found when I became leader, people who will have never bothered you before will be wearing holes in your carpet attempting to advise you.

Instead, find a couple of people whose advice you really respect and value. Take advice from them. Don’t have an open house on advisers.

And Nick Clegg, who reduced the party from 63 to 8 MPs over two general elections, advises him not to listen to criticism:

Oh, and – you know this - the better you do, the more they will yell at you from left and right. So listen to the voters – you’re dead right on that – but put your political ear muffs on when the carping starts!

The other former leaders are more helpful.

Tim Farron says:

Clarity is king. You need be clear with yourself what your strategy is and what it is that you want to achieve. Be clear with the party members on the direction and what you need from them in order to achieve that, and be clear with the public about what it is you and the Liberal Democrats stand for.

And Vince Cable says:

The Liberal Democrats will have to craft a narrative which embodies economic competence combined with environmentalism and a message of social justice, which Ed Davey can very plausibly do by rebuilding the grass-roots and re-establishing our reputation for good community-level politics.

The most concise contribution comes from Jo Swinson - I quote it in full:

Make time to think. Whether it's diarising time for exercise, reading, or stimulating conversation with friends, it's important to step back from the immediacy of 24/7 news cycles to see the bigger picture.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon features in Correction of the Week

Well done to The Times:

We wrongly referred to Tommy Robinson as a "girlfriend-beating football thug" ("We ignore Tommy Robinson at our peril", Aug 4). His 2005 conviction was in fact for assaulting an off-duty police officer who had intervened in a domestic incident. We apologise for the error.

Six of the Best 721

"When so-called free marketeers try to defend bosses’ pay, they do the cause of free markets a huge dis-service by encouraging people to equate free markets with what is in effect a rigged system whereby bosses enrich themselves with no obvious benefit to the rest of us." Chris Dillow is right.

Richard Bartholomew dissects The Times reporting of its spurious 'Christian child in Muslim foster care' story.

Jesse Norman on the friendship between Adam Smith and David Hume.

"Just before lunch, a fifty kilogram bomb struck the roof of the school. Sixteen children were killed instantly, two died later from their injuries and thirty were seriously injured." Suzie Grogan reminds us of the largely forgotten bombing campaign waged against London by Germany during the First World War.

"Among the trees and memorials of Abney Park cemetery in Stoke Newington, a huge white marble lion sleeps peacefully." Caroline explains why.

Caitlin Green takes us to the lost islands of the Lincolnshire coast.

How internet trolls are attacking democracy

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Russia is helping Trump’s campaign, yes, but it is not doing so solely or even necessarily with the goal of placing him in the Oval Office. Rather, these efforts seek to produce a divided electorate and a president with no clear mandate to govern ...

Russia’s desire to sow distrust in the American system of government is not new. It’s a goal Moscow has pursued since the beginning of the Cold War. ...  What is new is the methods Russia uses to achieve these objectives.

Last month War on the Rocks published a report by Andrew Weisburd, Clint Watts and  J.M. Berger on Russia's social media propaganda war against American democracy.

They argued that:

Until recently, Western governments focused on state-to-state negotiations with Putin’s regime largely missed Russian state-to-people social media approaches

and identified five objectives that Russia’s social media campaigns seek to strengthen Russia’s position against Western democracies:

• Undermine citizen confidence in democratic governance;
• Foment and exacerbate divisive political fractures;
• Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions;
• Popularise Russian policy agendas within foreign populations;
• Create general distrust or confusion over information sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

They conclude that

The ultimate objective is to diminish and tarnish American democracy. Unfortunately, that effort is going very well indeed.

Meanwhile in Britain, research by Brexit24 reveals, someone appears to be employed full time to seed The Times website with positive stories about Brexit and to ridicule those who express doubts about it.

Whoever employs that troll, Putin has decided to weaponise the West's own stupidity against itself. And that is one resource with which we are well endowed.

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George Watson and The Unservile State deserve to be more than a footnote in history, argues Peter Sloman.

Did The Times make Oswald Mosley its Man of the Year in 1934? No, explains Mark Pack. "It feels like Twitter is rather like Wikipedia as of a few years ago. Often a source of useful information but its information has to be treated with care before being trusted."

Andy Boddington on his year as a rookie Shropshire councillor: "Ludlow will thrive if we accept we have to do more for ourselves. We must rely less on the unreliable administration in Shirehall. That means raising our own project funds and running our own schemes. We do a lot of this already. But we need to step up a gear."

"Russia spies on the West because it fears democracy and the rule of law, and sees a chance to subvert them." Ed Lucas on a new era of Russian spying.

Oliver Brown discovers the dark side of football transfers.

Oliver Hall introduces us to Robyn Hitchcock's memories of Brian Eno's 1969 art school 'happenings': "'Er, would you call this kind of thing music, as such?' asked the teacher. Eno explained why it was naive to even ask that question."

Good news for Tim Montgomerie, but perhaps not David Cameron

The news broke today that Tim Montgomerie, the editor of Conservative Home, is to become the new comment editor of The Times. Congratulations to him, and it is always good to see someone from the blogosphere get on in the mainstream media.

But I wonder if it is such good news for David Cameron.

Montgomerie is one of the more eloquent holders of the view that the way for the Conservatives to gain a majority is to move to the right and concentrate on issues like spending cuts, immigration and Europe.

It is not for nothing that Conservative Home is known to some as the Continuity IDS.

If Montgomerie's appointment is a sign The Times is to embrace this agenda more tightly then that is bad news for David Cameron.

Because Cameron has grasped that the way for the Conservatives to win that majority is for them at least to appear more moderate than they did in the decade after John Major's premiership. And if another newspaper is pushing him in the opposite direction then his task will become that much harder.

I am reminded of a story in one of Simon Walters' books. It is to the effect that Charles Moore reflected ruefully when he left the Daily Telegraph in 2003 that, throughout the eight years of his editorship, the Conservative Party had been unelectable. Walters remarks that it did not occur to him that his editorial policies may have been one of the reasons for that unelectability.

David Cameron must hope that no one finds it necessary to make the same remark on the day, far distant, when Tim Montgomerie leaves The Times.