Would you like a chocolate bar?

You would? Excellent! OK, I’ll get you your chocolate bar. That’s a promise.

Actually, hang on a minute. Instead of a chocolate bar, would you rather have a box of Quality Street? I mean, there’s a lot more chocolate in it, and far more variety… OK, we’ll forget the chocolate bar, then. I’ll get you a box of Quality Street.

Mmmm. Doesn’t your mouth just water at the thought of those choccies.

Hang on, you really don’t want a box of Quality Street, do you. You’d just get sick if you ate that much chocolate – and anyway it’ll make you fat. Don’t worry about it – we won’t bother with any chocolate. Silly idea, really. I don’t know what possessed me to make the offer, really. I mean, one chocolate bar probably would have been fine, but a whole box of Quality Street? Sheesh, how greedy are you?!

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So, anyway, apparently the Liberal Democrats have decided no longer to campaign for an ‘in or out’ referendum on the European Union. Or, at least, so says Sir Mezies Campbell:

Sir Menzies told the Daily Politics there was ‘no public appetite’ for a vote since Lisbon Treaty ratification.

Which is funny really, since the Lib Dems were only promising an ‘in or out’ referendum on the EU so that they could justify not giving us a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. So they have:

  • Promised a referendum on the EU Constitution in their manifesto at the 2005 election.
  • Abstained from the Commons vote which would have secured a referendum on the broadly-similar Lisbon Treaty.
  • Justified their abstention on the basis that it would be better to have an ‘in our out’ referendum. And then…
  • Quietly dropped their pledge for that ‘in or out’ referendum on the basis that we the people probably don’t really want one anyway, now that it comes to it.

You know what? I’d have been happy enough with the chocolate bar.

There is one phrase which Lib Dems hate hearing; whose mere utterance sends a chill through their very bones and engenders much shuffling of feet and staring at fingernails throughout their ranks. I know that they hate hearing it, but I also know that the reason it stings is that it is so often being proven true. Here it is:

The Lib Dems are just the same as the other two parties.

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Anyway. Sorry. Excuse me, I’m acting all unamused about it this. Forget about the referendums – who cares, after all? Ming’s right – there’s no ‘appetite’ for this stuff. No one’s intersted, really. Talking about Europe is something everybody hates doing anyway.

So, on a slightly lighter note, I thought I’d find out more, so I searched Google for ‘liberal democrat policies’. Would you like to see what I found?

liberal democrat policies hosted by Ember

404 Error: We’re sorry, no Liberal Democrat policies could be found.

…And you wonder why everyone thinks the Lib Dems are a joke.

Darren Bridgman