I just watched an interview on telly where Nigel Farage was being interviewed from his home. As it happened some of his books were visible on a bookshelf behind his shoulder. Here are a few observations on the ones I could see.
We have been here before of course. In March 1962 the Liberals sensationally captured the supposedly safe Conservative seat of Orpington. On the very same day elsewhere in the country they turned in a swing of 22% in a safe Labour seat, leaving the official opposition looking distinctly short of voter support even though they did manage to hang on to their seat. A new dawn had arrived of three party politics.
At time of writing the Liberal Democrats are gathering in Glasgow for their last conference before the 2015 election. Conventional wisdom amongst the political commentators and pollsters is that they are looking at an election where they are likely to lose about half their seats. Even that isn’t as bad as it could have been. Had the proportional representation measure they proposed early in the parliament gone through they would have struggled to get anyone back to Westminster.
