The Lib Dem attacks on the Conservatives get even more personal

12.30pm update:

The Evening Standard reports that the passage in Huhne's speech describing William Hague as "a skinhead" has been excised from the version he will deliver this afternoon. It quotes Danny Alexander, chief of staff to Nick Clegg, as saying:

"Chris Huhne is making an important point about the other parties with whom the Conservatives have chosen to associate in the European Parliament. There was a line in an early draft, and I think he decided that the substance of that was important, not getting into a discussion about William Hague's hairstyle or his drinking habits."

Meanwhile, Conservative MP Lee Scott said of Huhne's proposed passage:

“This Nazi slur is an insult on William as a human being. It's not only offensive, it's outrageous.”

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Tim wrote at the weekend about the new efforts of the Liberal Democrats to attack David Cameron and George Osborne.

Today it would seem that the attacks on the Conservatives are being ramped up yet further.

Chris Huhne, the party's Home Affairs spokesman, is to make a speech later in which he will claim that "a vote for the Tories is a vote for more crime", according to the Daily Mirror.

But that's not the half of it. Michael Crick reported on last night's Newsnight that Huhne will go on to make a highly personal attack on William Hague in relation to the new European Conservatives and Reformists grouping in the European Parliament.

Crick said (17 minutes and 30 seconds into last night's programme) that Huhne will describe William Hague as "a skinhead who has gone round the beer cellars of Europe and come up with the dregs".

Aside from the offensive personal smear contained in that remark, is it not rich in the extreme coming from a party which regularly talks about desiring less confrontational politics?

Meanwhile, the Independent reports that Huhne himself will be heading the Lib Dems' "aggressive" anti-Tory rebuttal unit.

> Click here to listen to Huhne and Eric Pickles discussing Tory efforts to love-bomb Liberal Democrats on this morning's Today progamme.

Jonathan Isaby