Betrayal Not Always Best Shock

One of Nick Clegg's most senior advisers outside the Daveybloke dog-handling pool has taken advantage of his impending retirement to hint that throwing the manifesto overboard may not necessarily be the optimum course of action every time a conflict arises. Richard Reeves claims that, after the bloody nose of the tuition fees, the broken arm of electoral reform and the amputated guts over the Health and Social Care Act, the Deputy Conservatives may decide to retaliate against the Conservatives if Lords reform is blocked. The plotted Great Daveymander, whereby the Conservatives hope to reduce the number of Commons seats while awarding themselves an extra couple of dozen, would then suffer defeat, unless the winds of opportunism on that particular day decreed that Labour should support it.

Update The Deputy Deputy Prime Minister, Simon Hughes, has now proclaimed that Reeves is "completely overstating the case" and has made clear that, in fact, treachery may well be the best option here too. In any case, it appears that, on this issue as on so many others, the Deputy Conservatives will be pleased to accommodate Britain's Head Boy and his chums in any and every possible orifice. In a superb outburst of sycophancy, reminiscent of poodles on the White House lawn or Louise Mensch twittering the innocence of Murdoch, Hughes even appealed to the party of tax havens and Daddy's money as "anybody who is in favour of a modern parliament and a modern democracy ... where parliament is principally elected in a second chamber by the people rather than being there by patronage or by heredity".