Richard Spring MP
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

I was wrong. When after the last general election Michael Howard put in place a long leadership process I thought it would be disastrous. During the 1990s the Conservative Party was irredeemably associated with lack of unity and I thought it would all flare up again. It did not. It was an extraordinarily civilised process. David Cameron has led the party to new levels of popularity, whilst David Davis has been an exemplary Home Office spokesman. 

Now it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats. Yesterday I uncharacteristically turned on the lunch time TV to witness the most vicious verbal punch up I have ever seen between two colleagues from the same Party. Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg were at each others throats like Neapolitan fishwives. It was breathtaking. 

Many Liberal Democrat voters are decent people who have voted this way because they do not like confrontational politics. I hope that very few were watching this most unedifying spectacle. The two contestants clearly detest each other. 

If there is one thing that Liberal Democrats are good at, it is by-election campaigning. Their unapologetic ruthlessness is at times breathtaking. So it is instructive to know what they are up to in the Ealing Southall by-election.

Like many other Parliamentary colleagues, I have been there to deliver leaflets or canvass. The Liberal Democrats’ literature, at least what I saw, is all about Iraq. It is directed at the nearly 50% of the electorate which is Asian. However, I fear the moment may have passed. It is perfectly obvious that Gordon Brown is intent on withdrawing our troops as quickly as he can, without making it too too obvious.

Media comments about Liberal Democrats are very Ming-centric. But there is a greater underlying reality – we are back increasingly to two party politics; and the Liberals are so obviously being squeezed into greater and greater irrelevance. Meanwhile disaffected councillors locally are defecting to the Tories, who have an exceptional candidate.

No doubt the Liberal Democrats will characteristically try to trash him. However, I have a feeling that their campaign will not wash this time. We may well be in for something of a surprise.

The poor Liberal Democrats do seem to be a having a rather torrid time at the moment. Not so long ago, Sir Ming was again having to suppress leadership speculation and a certain amount of jostling behind the scenes from the next generation impatient for the crown, at a time when their Party is slipping further into the political abyss.

Their plight has not been helped by reports this week that Gordon Brown had talks (sadly not at the now defunct Granita) with Sir Menzies about a possible deal between the Liberals and Labour, and also offered the Lib Dem peer and former leader, Lord Ashdown, the post of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in his new Government. Ashdown refused and Campbell has made it clear to the senior figures in his party not to enter into discussions with the Brown camp. Many in his party are furious about the whole fiasco with one Lib Dem MP describing the farce as ‘politically toxic’.

It may appear that Ming currently finds himself in the same position as the ageing, respectable CEO of a struggling company, valiantly fighting off a hostile takeover bid from a much larger and somewhat tarnished organisation soon to be headed Gordon ‘clunking fist’ Brown.

However, this analogy slightly misses the point that the damage to the Liberal Democrats comes not from external factors, but their own internal haemorrhaging. Under the surface, they are suffering from many of their Parliamentary candidates and councillors across the country defecting to the Conservative Party. Under David Cameron, we have a real chance of winning the next election and this has not been lost on the Lib Dems who now see their own Party floundering.

Is it any wonder many are slipping out of the back door?

One of the defining characteristics of Liberal Democrats is their sheer ruthless opportunism when it comes to election campaigns. The stories are legion and are often the basis for amused/horrified conversations amongst Members of Parliament.

Last year, a cross party Liberal-Labour-Conservative panel began to consider the future of education in Suffolk and unanimously concluded that the county’s three-tier system should move to a two tier structure, in common with almost all of the rest of the country. Nevertheless, when the panel reported, one of the first matters raised by local Conservative MPs was how the county’s Liberals would react. After all, there are district council elections in May! We knew instinctively that they would characteristically sniff where the wind is blowing, and respond accordingly.

The trouble is that barring most middle school parents, teachers and governors, the rest of the educational establishment is content with the proposed change.

On Friday, we were told that the local Liberal Democrats have called for referendums, truly a ridiculous idea; we all fell about laughing. We knew that they would cook up something. It is the nature of the beast.

As was in evidence in the Trident vote in the House of Commons, habitual fence sitting is not in accord with the real time political battle between Conservatives and Labour, for the next Government.  As once again shown by Suffolk’s Liberal Democrats, this highlights their unwillingness to take decisive positions, which happens when your political roots are embedded in a blancmange. All of which is a pity because so many actual LibDem voters are decent people with very genuine motives. Their natural home is with David Cameron’s Conservative Party who are fighting for civil rights, social responsibility and green issues with an increasingly real hope that these policies  will actually be put into place in government after the next general election.

The history of the Liberal Democrats propping up unpopular administrations is well known. It was deeply damaging to their cause when they kept the previous Labour Government in office. They paid a big price. They did the same in Suffolk, propping up a particularly inept County Council.

The threat to most Liberal Democrat MPs is from the Conservatives, which may in part account for their rejecting the so-called equidistance stance. It is very unwise of Ming to rule out effectively a relationship with anybody other than a Labour government. If, say, at the next General Election, Labour emerges as the largest single party that in itself would indicate very much less support for Labour. They would surely use the Liberals much more than Blair flattered Ashdown who got nothing. It is unclear whether Ming would fight for proportional representation, which is anathema to most Labour and all Tory MPs.

As the Government becomes less and less competent and more and more unpopular, the electorate will have a simple choice. Ming’s weekend speech showed some very sloppy thinking from somebody with such extensive parliamentary experience. What they say in future is simply likely to be much less listened to. 

Have you noticed how irrelevant the Liberal Democrats are becoming? Two days ago there was a re-shuffle of their front bench which barely hit the radar screens. A year ago we were entertained much more frequently to the views of Liberal Democrat spokesmen on the airwaves – no more it seems. Engagingly eccentric Lembit Opik was the only Liberal Democrat MP to be noticed this week.

David Cameron has led the charge very successfully on green issues. The interim report on foreign policy written by Pauline Neville-Jones and her team, endorsed by David Cameron, has also enabled the Conservatives to create greater distance even on a difficult subject like Iraq – but with real coherence. I fear that the Liberals’ thunder has been stolen. In contrast to Ming, David has caught the public’s imagination. Today’s poll says it all.

It would appear that we are back to two party politics in England. That is why my Liberal Democrat opponent in two General Elections defected to us this year, citing their increasing irrelevance.Colleagues report tetchiness amongst Liberal Democrat MPs. I can’t think why!