Scratch a Lib Dem, find a Tory

The Lib Dems have lost another 3 parliamentary candidates to the Tories, bringing the total to six.

So nearly 1% of the Lib Dems' standard bearers in 2005 turned out to be Tories.

This

a) suggests they are scraping the barrel to find parliamentary candidates

and

b) suggests their activist base are primarily motivated by being anti-Labour

None of this is a surprise to anyone active in local government, where the outcome in virtually every hung council is a Tory/Lib Dem coalition deal.

Someone needs to tell the Lib Dems' voters though, many of whom are under the delusion they were voting for a centre-left party, and some even more naively thought they were voting for a party to the left of Labour.

Maybe they are already beginning to work this out as yesterday's Communicate Research poll numbers were: LAB 37% (+1%); CON 36% (+2%); LD 14% (-3%).