They’re languishing in the polls, their leader is considerably more unpopular than either David Cameron or Ed Miliband, they face a difficult set of local elections in May — and yet the Lib Dems still seem relatively upbeat at the moment. Why so? Mostly, I think, it’s because they feel that asserting themselves is starting to pay off. Not in votes, perhaps, but in perceptions. They cite the Budget as a defining moment in this respect: they got the increase in the personal allowance that they wanted, the Tories got most of the blame for everything else.
That’s why I suspect some Lib Dems will be quietly delighted at the last couple of days of news. Yesterday, the web surveillance plan. Today, secret justice. Both are stories that enable the Lib Dems to resist the Tories in government — or ‘differentiate’ themselves, as they call it — so that is exactly what they are doing.
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