ePolitix is today reporting that one LibDem MP is refusing to back down over wanting the public to have its say on the EU referebdum.
Dominic Lawson, in today's Independent, offers a metaphor for Nick Clegg's ridiculous insistence on an in-out referendum vote:
"Nick Clegg is so angry that he has started hurling metaphors. Following the Speaker's decision not to allow a Parliamentary debate on his party's suggestion of a referendum on whether to leave the EU, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats has declared: "It is like allowing the British public to choose their mode of travel without asking whether they actually want to continue on the journey at all."
Well, if we are to descend to metaphors, here's another one: Imagine you are at a restaurant with some friends, sharing the bill. You have all eaten two courses and are now discussing whether to order some pudding. Suddenly one diner says that the debate should actually be about whether it was a mistake to have eaten the previous dishes. When he is politely told not to be so silly by his companions, he walks out of the restaurant.
This, it seems to me, is a reasonable description of the Liberal Democrats' behaviour as they stagily stalked out of the House of Commons after the Deputy Speaker declared that their suggested amendment really had nothing whatever to do with the contents of the Lisbon Treaty bill, and therefore would not be put to a vote."
