Ashdown can still rouse the party faithful

It's good to see an old dog who hasn't forgotten what were new tricks to him when he first gave a leader's speech to his party conference 25 years ago.

Speaking to the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference in Brighton, chairman of the party's next general election campaign and former party leader Paddy Ashdown made the most of his chance to rally the troops again in what Patrick Sawyer of the Daily Telegraph referred to as 'a rousing speech'.

And what was the line that caught the media's attention?

Surprise, surprise - it was a simple contrast: “I don’t want being in government, to be a blip for the Liberal Democrats. I want it to become a habit."

What do Nigel Farage MEP and Gordon Brown MP have in common?

I'm grateful to @HadleighRoberts for tweeting a link to this clip of Guy Verhofstadt MEP pointing out that Nigel Farage's participation in the European parliament fisheries committee rivals that of Gordon Brown's participation in the House of Commons since the last general election.

I was also interested to see that this attack on Mr Farage prompted three bursts of applause in less than two minutes, and has now been seen by nearly 100,000 YouTube viewers.

Some of the comments posted under the YouTube clip, and especially that by 'britboy4321', are well worth a read by anyone who might be thinking that Mr Farage and UKIP are worthy of so much attention (e.g. Westminster Village media reporters, editors of BBC Question Time, BBC Any Questions, etc.)...

Was the Conservative candidate gagged after losing Eastleigh?

Maria Hutchings, defeated Conservative Party candidate in yesterday's Eastleigh by-election, has provided another remarkable video-clip for my collection.

What's so peculiar about it is the 'interviewees' determined refusal to say anything at all, accompanied by an unchangingly static facial expression.

Opening questions fishing for her view on what had gone wrong,  such as "Why did you do so badly?" and "You came third in a two-horse race - what went wrong?" quickly gave way to her silence as the main focus of reporters' attention: "Why won't you say anything?"; "Have you been gagged?" and "This is unbelievable."

And there was indeed something very 'unbelievable' about it, as it's so rare for a politician to refrain from  speaking to the media, even in the face of such difficult questions, that I too was left wondering whether Ms Hutchings had been 'gagged' by her party machine...