IMAGES of rats and sinking ships are difficult to set aside in light of Lord Oakeshott’s decision to quit the Liberal Democrats rather than face action for trying to oust Nick Clegg.

It is difficult to argue with Clegg’s view that it is “unacceptable” for a leading and long-standing member to conspire against the party leadership during an election campaign.

However, many people will sympathise with the desperation of someone who was involved with the party’s birth and fears having to witness its demise.

Oakeshott’s description of the Liberal Democrats under Clegg as having “no roots, no principles and no values” is utterly self-evident.

The Liberal Democrat leadership, including Vince Cable for whom Oakeshott worked as an unpaid adviser, leapt enthusiastically into bed with David Cameron in return for the trappings of office.

These Orange Book neoliberals ditched their vote-catching election pledges such as abolition of university tuition fees and signed up lock, stock and barrel to the austerity agenda.

HIH

The sense of betrayal felt both by long-term Liberal Democrats and new voters converted by Clegg’s rhetoric that his party was different from the “old” parties is palpable.

It has been expressed in election after election, with solid Liberal Democrat majorities evaporating and seats tumbling in profusion.

If Clegg is not responsible for this political implosion, who is? 

If the buck doesn’t stop with him and his leadership cronies, where should it stop?

Oakeshott’s opinion polls don’t make good reading for the Tories’ collaborators.

All of them, Clegg included, look likely to lose their seats next May. Many people have lost a lot more than that as the result of the Tory-Liberal Democrat bankers-approved austerity agenda.

It may be too late for any substitute for Clegg to reverse his party’s decline before next year’s scheduled general election.

But sacking him could possibly lead to the Liberal Democrats quitting the conservative coalition and bringing a general election and David Cameron’s exit from Downing Street a little nearer.

Anything that offers the slightest chance of an early end to this government’s anti-working class austerity agenda is welcome.

SNP’s true colours

SCOTTISH Transport Minister Keith Brown’s attempts to defend his decision to hand privatisation monster Serco a 15-year contract to run the Scottish sleeper service are threadbare.

Brown highlights the “absurd anomaly whereby state-owned companies from the rest of Europe can bid but you can’t have a public-sector bid from the UK,” but he has gone along timidly with this situation.

It makes little sense to point out franchise system shortcomings and then operate it without challenge.

What does it say about a supposedly “national” party that it transfers an £800 million contract from a Scotland-based company to one in England and subsidises train building in Spain to the tune of £60m?

Brown notes correctly that new Labour Westminster governments did nothing to change the system and claims that his SNP would “do it with independence.”

Yet, following talks with Serco chief executive Rupert Soames, the minister said: “It’s a 15-year contract and that’s what we intend to see through.”

Pro and anti-independence teams went head to head yesterday over their rival claims of economic benefit linked to change or continuity.

What an opportunity missed by Brown to nail his colours to the mast of a publicly owned and operated Scottish rail network and to make that a key campaign principle.