More news to emerge from the LibDems’ Spring Shindig behind the Ring of Steel in Sheffield. Little Cleggie has vowed not to let the “profit motive drive a coach and horses through the NHS“. (Full story here.)

It usually takes some time in power for a political party to destroy its reputation. Years of shattered dreams, failed ideas and broken promises – followed by a slow decline in the polls and, eventually, a decade or so in the wilderness to lick the wounds, elect a new leader or two and embark on the long, slow trudge back to power.

Cleggie has managed the first half of that process in a little over ten months!

The broken promise over tuition fees has been devastatingly destructive for the Liberal Democrats, and Cleggie’s parliamentary chums must take full responsibility for the damage it has done to the party’s credibility. Trailing in sixth in the Barnsley bye-election, behind the BNP and a local trainspotter, is a pretty good barometer of how people feel about such early treachery.

So – what price for this latest promise? Not much on current performance, when fundamental commitments are so easily abandoned in the name of economic expediency.

We will just have to wait and see whether the lad has a sufficiently big pair to stand up to the Boy David on this one. If he doesn’t the next Liberal Democrat conference can return to the seaside, because all they will need is a beach hut.