Nick Clegg has just said during DPMQs that the power to recall MPs isn’t going to be granted anytime soon. He said he didn’t want to aid “vexatious and unjustified” complaints and was very vague about when such a procedure will be put in place, or how it will work.  Quite a blow for the Yes to AV headbangers and their attempts to steal the anti-politics message.

They say voting reform – in connection with other reforms – would make MPs more accountable, responsive and harder working. Yet their standard bearer Clegg has knifed them in the back by stopping the only real measure to allow recourse against MPs between elections. Not only that, but recall powers were promised in both the governing parties’ manifestos…

The deputy Prime Minister (when he remembers) is set to be humiliated in the Barnsley by-election because, according to a survey in the Mail, the LibDems are looking likely to come fourth after coming second in the general election.

UKIP’s Jane Collins was ‘born and bred’ in Yorkshire, raised in Pontefract, the daughter of a miner and is the blonde who is set to land a bombshell on Clegg’s party.

Dan Jarvis (Labour) will cruise home with a wacking 63%, James Hockney (Conservative) will stay in double figures on 13%, Jane Collins (UKIP) on 9% could push Dominic Carman (Liberal Democrats) into a humiliating fourth place next to the BNP and other assorted loonies. The survey data shows the most former LibDem voters switching back to Labour. This will give Clegg party management problems with the left of the LibDems…

It was heavily recommended last week that the No2AV campaign take the fight to Nick Clegg.

That should do the trick…

Nick Clegg just told the Today programme this morning that the AV referendum was “nothing to do with me”. Strange, Guido was at the Liberal Democrat Party conference where he launched the campaign for AV.

That sounded pretty cowardly and reminded Guido of one Gordon Brown, whenever trouble was around Gordon could not be found. Clegg argued for AV on the radio this morning and he is going to give one speech today, after that he is disappearing from the Yes to AV campaign. Last night his local Sheffield radio station, Hallam FM, were chairing a debate. Fellow Sheffield MP David Blunkett was tp argue the case for “No to AV” against Clegg, yet despite being invited in January, Clegg was nowhere to be seen. He is keeping out of the Yes campaign because of fears it will become a “No to Nick” referendum.

Despite the “Yes to AV” side being largely staffed by LibDem activists, funded by LibDem donors and essentially a LibDem campaign to keep them in power, Nick Clegg is keeping a low-profile. This is because the Yes side want to portray themselves as anti-politics, despite AV being the ultimate politicians fix. Under AV Clegg will be able to cut a political deal to save his skin behind closed doors with whomever gets the most votes, never mind the manifesto promises…

Nick Clegg told Radio 5 Live this morning that

“Today we’re announcing we’re going to remove the law that means if you’re a politician or an MP and you suffer from a mental health problem for more than six months you are disqualified from standing for public office… That’s an old fashioned approach to mental health that is completely out of step with what we now know.”

Clegg wants to “end the stigma attached to mental illness”, he also wants to shift away from medication to spending £400 million on “talking therapies”. All well and good. Guido may be going out on a limb here, but lunatics getting their “talking therapy” in the chamber of the House of Commons seems like a bad idea. MPs are paid by the taxpayers to represent us and exercise their judgement, voting as our representatives. If they are crazy they can’t do that effectively.

That is the reason we have legislation barring the insane from being MPs. It is a good reason. It isn’t outdated and old-fashioned to think that the certifiably insane should not be deciding legislation of national importance. If this passes they will have to change the old workplace sign you still see in some places:

“You don’t have to be crazy to work here… but it won’t matter if you are…”

Or did he? According to BBC North, Clegg accidentally kicked a small child in a push chair on a walkabout in Oldham yesterday. He then tried to blame a less than impressed Michael Crick who was doing his usual two-paces-behind-asking-awkward-questions trick.

However, as PoliticsHome picked up, the father of the alleged victim has rushed to tweet Nick’s innocence, denying it happened. Guido isn’t so sure though, especially when you look at the footage from fourteen minutes here. Of all things that could go wrong on the stump, injuring small children is very high up the list.

There’s definitely some sort of contact.

Tonight’s tuition fee vote is the first real test of the LibDem’s willingness to be lashed to the mast as the coalition government sails the course of deficit reduction. The stupid pledge made during the election and the student centred Cleggmania have made them the focus of the backlash.

A ConservativeHome poll last week had Nick Clegg more popular with conservative supporters than LibDem voters. Now in government the days of being all things to all people are behind them. Solemn promises have been discarded, Sarah Teather looks on the brink of tears, Vince Cable squirms, Simon Hughes is loving the limelight. On Newsnight last night he was being a vote-tease.

Hughes pompously told us he is minded to abstain, but he might vote no – what a look-at-me wuss he is – clearly demonstrating he doesn’t know his own mind. At least Tim Farron and others are clear about voting against. The betting has punters expecting 10 to 20 LibDems to vote no.

UPDATE:

Oh how your words can come back to haunt you…

The culture of political special advisors was developed under Maggie, and boomed under Labour. Dave promised to cut the numbers of partisan aide-de-camps paid for by the taxpayer. The LibDems went even further and pledged in their manifesto to take SpAd’s off the public payroll and make parties pay for them out their own funds. However despite these “cast iron” promises the coalition have found a loophole – simply make former party staffers Civil Servants. Guido has been looking at this dishonest tactic for a couple of days now and the list of staffers who have been suddenly “neutralised” is absurd:

While Dave and Nick might promise smaller government and a new politics, they are using backdoor methods to get their yes-men into Whitehall and Downing Street.

The Mail asks on the front page: Why is atheist Nick Clegg considering sending his son to the same exclusive Catholic school as the Blairs? Could it be because the children are being brought up as Catholics? Clegg might be Godless but his wife is not.

Normally the non-Catholic partner agrees, at the request of the priest, to let the Catholic partner bring up the children in the faith if they are being married in a Catholic church. Hypocritical? Perhaps. He would however have likely been breaking his word to have done otherwise…