That Chris Huhne/disabled person interface is on the cards any day now...

So it turns out Ming didn't need to set Hughes up with an aide. He did it all on his own. The twist, of course, is that Hughes isn't out of the race. In fact, it's tempting to conclude that the statement was timed to coincide with Hughes' appearance on Question Time on Thursday. Certainly it gave him every opportunity to make a statement direct to the nation rather than having to filter it through the agenda of national newspapers. Lib Dems being the sort they are, of course, it's a point of principle that something like this won't affect they way they vote (nor should it): it wouldn't surprise me if it increased his share of the vote, so determined will your average LD be to prove his tolerance.

What I'm really curious about is whether they'll have the sense to spot where the space is. With David Cameron's understandable but infuriating co-option of any policy that he thinks people will like, the biggest gap in the political market at the moment is a true libertarian angle. (In fact, that's been the case since the Lib-Lab alliance betrayed Liberals in 1903, but it is marked at present.) Of course, Mark Oaten was the man most likely to take the party in that direction, but Ming might make a reasonable fist of it: it's only ever been his social liberalism that kept him out of the Conservative party. But with Cameron and Blair fighting for the fence, there's a whole garden for the taking.