The LibDems are a fount of bright ideas at the moment. Having already vowed today to raise taxes AND increase borrowing, they’re now also tabling a conference motion to ‘enhance our education system’ by making critical thinking and media studies a core part of the national curriculum. These skills might be lacking within the party, though mandating them for all school kids is probably over-egging the soufflé…

This isn’t the first time the LibDems have floated ridiculous changes to the school policy: last year, then-education spokesperson Layla Moran insisted teachers should receive better training to avoid making microaggressions, while also demanding that training be “more racially inclusive“. This morning, Ed Davey promised the party would “go strong on education”. Guido thinks they should stick to lying about tuition fees…

With the LibDems’ mostly-virtual conference kicking off this weekend, Ed Davey is laying the groundwork for what promises to be an agenda-setting barnstormer of a speech on Sunday. Speaking to the FT today, Davey vowed that the party would never enter a coalition with the Tories under his leadership. On the contrary, their shock by-election win in Chesham and Amersham proves they could become a “significant force” in British politics and they pose a “big threat” to the Tories in the southern ‘blue wall’. Given he’s already ruled out alliances with Labour or the Greens, presumably this means Ed Davey actually has his sights set on Number 10. Jo Swinson Ed Davey: Britain’s next Prime Minister? Aim for the moon…

Davey also promised to build on the results seen in Chesham and Amersham by chasing the votes of “liberal Conservatives” who’re “unhappy about the foreign aid cuts” and Boris’s “style of government“. Appearing on BBC Breakfast this morning, Davey explained his novel idea for attracting these kinds of voters:

“We will borrow more for capital investment like housing, but when it comes to spending on wages, we would raise taxes.”

Higher borrowing and higher taxes. That’ll get wealthy, middle class blue wall voters flocking to the LibDems…

Last night, Young Liberals voted to expel former LibDem leader Vince Cable from the party after insisting on GB News that labelling the Uyghur humans rights crisis a genocide is “hyping the language” . The motion’s proposer, Young Liberals’ International Officer Peter Banks, slammed Cable in his speech, saying:

“Uyghurs in Xinjiang have faced horrific abuse by the Chinese government, including forced sterilisation, torture, restrictions on childrens’ names, destruction of religious sites, forced separation of families, and detainment in re-education camps.”

“These atrocities undoubtedly meet the international definition of genocide, and it’s a disgrace that the former leader of a liberal, democratic party would seek to undermine emerging international campaigns to put an end to the abuses of Uyghurs.”

A Guido source who attended the conference said that roughly 50 people participated in the vote and it passed nearly unanimously. Guido wonders whether Ed Davey, who has thus far been strong on condemning the genocide, will have anything to say about all this…

Cable hit back at the Young Liberals by saying:

“They cannot claim to be Liberals when they demonstrate an unwillingness to debate alternate views. The anti-China campaign is orchestrated by the far right Republicans in the USA and I am surprised to see progressive groups lining up with them.” 

Is the CCP looking for a new communications director?

LidDem councillors have been caught stealing campaign leaflets from voters’ doorsteps twice in the past week. As shown in CCTV footage above, the two councillors – David Whipp from Pendle and Lancashire, and Jo Trigg in Towbridge – can be seen rifling around letterboxes and replacing their opponents’ electoral literature with their own. Talk about trying to steal the election…

The homeowner who caught Whipp rummaging in his letterbox said:

“If someone takes something out if your letterbox on the wall attached to your house and puts it in their pocket what would you call that? […] My security camera has just alerted me that someone was on my property and when I looked it was a local councillor taking something which was probably a Conservative flyer out the letterbox and into his pocket.”

Whipp mounted an audacious defence of his thievery, claiming the Conservative leaflet was hanging out the letterbox, and he “didn’t want more littering the area”. Guido awaits an explanation from Jo Trigg with bated breath…

Newsnight interviewed former electoral commissioner and Cambridge law professor David Howarth to discuss the ongoing flat-gate scandal, during which he claimed “this is not a trivial matter, or just a convention“, and that “it’s about transparency and openness“. Wise words indeed from the professor…

Ironically, it seems Newnight had little interest in “transparency and openness” because at no point did the interviewer, Lewis Goodall, disclose that David Howarth is a former LibDem MP, having sat in Parliament for five years (2005-10) and previously served as both the Leader of Cambridge City Council, and as a member of the Lib Dem Federal Policy Committee. Hardly trivial background details, given the topic he was invited to discuss was party political and BBC guidelines state that viewers should be informed of party affiliations…

Seemingly blind to irony, the Liberal Democrats have just deleted their own tweet which dismissed the importance of free speech on university campuses. Fortunately, Guido kept the receipts…

As shown below, the tweet contained a clip from last night’s Question Time, in which Layla Moran attacked Gavin Williamson for announcing plans to protect freedom of speech in higher education. According to Moran, it’s “absolutely not” a priority…