In Which Alistair Carmichael undermines LibDem campaigns

In discussing the football at the tail end of the Politics Show today, LibDem Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland Alistair Carmichael pointed out that pundits said that Ross County couldn't win yesterday so we shouldn't dismiss the Liberal Democrats.

The irony, it seems, was lost on him. I wonder if it was lost on their candidate in Aberdeen South:



Neither the Tories or the Nationalists can possibly win here. Voting for them now will only help Labour hold on in Aberdeen South. Only by voting for the Liberal Democrats can we stop Labour taking our area for granted.

What will it take for the LibDems to get that you can't keep doing this?! You can't keep dismissing the whole 'two-horse race' notion when you're not one of the horses nationally, only to beat that drum over and over again on the strength of a local result!

And of course, it's leaving a massive hostage to fortune: time and again we're told that only they can win in X. But what if they don't? Then, you haven't managed to eject a candidate you dislike, and you haven't voted for the party you actually agree with. Now, that really is a wasted vote.

Every party produces the bar charts, but most parties have beliefs that accompany them.

The lesson here is that if you don't use policies as the key to your campaign, the only horse metaphor worth using is the one involving the words 'flogging' and 'dead'...