Today's news stories about the Liberal Democrats in full

Suddenly the Liberal Democrats are in the news again.

Business Insider has been told by someone they various style "a senior Lib Dem source" and "a Lib Dem grandee" that

Moderate Conservative and Labour MPs have been in talks about splitting from their party whips "in the next six months" and forming a new centrist bloc in Parliament centred around the Liberal Democrats.

I have heard this story elsewhere recently, with a much sooner date mentioned, but I wonder about that claim that the new party will be "centred around the Liberal Democrats".

Remembering the measureless hours consumed by seat negotiations between the Liberal party and the SDP in the Alliance years, if I were in charge of this new party I would consider a different approach.

I would give the Lib Dems a clear run in a couple of dozen of their best seats and fight them in the rest. If we cannot beat them there, I might reason, then we have not future as a party.

Still, I have heard of a Lib Dem in what used to be a good second place for us being given certain assurances, so maybe we will soon be back to seat negotiations after all.

Of course, I still claim to be a Liberal and not a centrist, but I must admit to being less clear on what a Liberal policy agenda looks like today.

That note is taken up by other "Lib Dem sources" who have been talking to Emily Ashton at BuzzFeed News.

I was going to complain about their lack of knowledge of party history and their patronising of Layla Moran, but I find Nick Barlow has done it for me. Go and read him at once.

Still, at least me are being talked about again.