The Lib Dems the party of nonces, traitors and liars. (Image from Munguin’s Republic blog ( http://munguinsrepublic.blogspot.co.uk/ )

If Carlsberg gave up brewing lager and instead put their energies into political writing they would probably create something very much like this wonderful and very accurate filleting of Britain’s Liberal Democrat Party, which has been written by Douglas Murray.

The Lib Dems and the supporters of the other two Establishment parties have been pulling out all the stops in their quest to convince the British voter that UKIP are a bunch of ‘racists’ and full of oddballs. The Establishment parties are getting very worried that UKIP may take votes of all of them, Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat.

There is an old saying that ‘they who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’ and it has been proved correct as all parties have oddballs, racists and criminals among them. A writer who I otherwise very much admire, Nick Cohen, in a recent polemical piece attacked UKIP for the make up of its members and its policies.

This elicited a response from Mr Murray which has been published on the Spectator website. It is a glorious listing of all the crimes and misdemeanours of the Liberal Democrat party which range from a bombing campaign by a former Lib Dem councillor and the Cyril Smith pederasty allegations. The Lib Dems are in no position to throw stones at UKIP as Mr Murray so plainly shows.

Douglas Murray said:

“My colleague Nick Cohen has a piece asking ‘Are you fit to be British? Take the UKIP test.’ In it he cites a number of horrible and silly and things said by people in UKIP before he himself descends into rudeness.  Stuart Wheeler is apparently a ‘cadaverous gambling tycoon’. ‘Cadaverous’? As in old? I suppose it must come to us all.

But it is Nick’s conclusion that spurs me to respond. He finishes, ‘The scandals are so frequent you have to conclude that it is not the odd rotten apples that needs throwing out but the whole stinking barrel.’

Nick is not the only journalist to take this view. The British media in general are keeping up a sustained open season on UKIP. This is because the many people who wholly oppose UKIP’s policies are worried that the party looks likely to come top at next month’s EU elections. Which of course presents them with a problem. Because if the claim by Nick and others is true – that UKIP is indeed a racist, misogynistic, homophobic party to its core – then it must mean that in very large numbers we the British public are racist, misogynistic and homophobic. Or that we need re-educating as we are utterly ignorant of the true nature of UKIP and never read the news.

Or is it possible that there is a third explanation? Could it be the case that it is not entirely fair to judge an entire political party on the basis of a few stupid people on a notoriously stupid social media platform? I wonder. To try this theory out let us see whether we can turn from a very new party to a very old one, and from the realm of ‘nasty words’ to the realm of ‘nasty deeds.’ In other words, let’s try turning ‘Are you fit to be British? Take the UKIP test’ into ‘Are you fit to be a Liberal Democrat? Take the party test.’

Let’s have a go.

Are you a paedophile?

In recent weeks a book by the excellent Labour MP Simon Danczuk has reignited the ancient row about the dead Liberal Democrat MP Cyril Smith. It seems to be the case not only that Cyril Smith was a child abuser but that he was also well known to be so, by, among other, the heads of the Liberal party who – as Private Eye have recently been reporting – were repeatedly made aware of the charges against him. The party never did anything to deal with the charges. Indeed when Cyril Smith died the party leader, one Nick Clegg, said of Smith:

‘He was a true Liberal, dedicated to his constituency, always showing great passion and determination. Cyril was a colourful politician who kept the flame of Liberalism alive when the party was much smaller than it is today. Rochdale and Britain have sadly lost one of their great MPs, and I think we can safely say there will never be an MP quite like Cyril Smith again.’

Do you place bombs in public places?

Last October a Liberal Democrat councillor in Denbigh was jailed for setting off a string of bombs in his constituency. John Larsen planted the 14 devices, packed with shrapnel and ball bearings in a range of locations, bringing terror to the local community.

In sentencing Larsen, who was a Liberal Democrat councillor at the time of the offences, Judge Merfyn Hughes QC said he had subjected residents to ‘a sustained campaign of quite deliberate terror’ and had ‘abused the trust’ of neighbours. He added: ‘If you hadn’t been arrested, I’m entirely satisfied you would have killed someone or caused serious injury.’ Councillor Larsen was jailed for 18 years.

Do you try to silence reformist Muslims?

Earlier this year when the Liberal Democrat candidate Maajid Nawaz tweeted out an innocuous cartoon depicting the well-known historical figures Jesus and Mohammed, he received numerous death threats and was encouraged by the police to keep a low profile for a time.

Among those who appeared to inspire extreme reactions against Nawaz was one Mohammed Shafiq, a member of the ‘Liberal Democrats Ethnic Minority group’. Shafiq denies that he was spreading fear or encouraging violence. But what is not in doubt is that he campaigned to have Nawaz dropped as a candidate by the Lib Dems. In order to solve the problem the party high command appeared to have subsequently orchestrated a meeting half-way between Nawaz and the person who helped to organise – in Andrew Neil’s words – a ‘lynch mob’ against their own candidate. The party has subsequently tried to deny evidence that they have subsequently cooled on supporting Nawaz because of his alleged ‘blasphemy’.

Read the rest here: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/douglas-murray/2014/04/are-you-fit-to-be-a-liberal-democrat-a-response-to-nick-cohen/

I dare say that those who take an interest in politics will find other examples of Lib Dem dodgy-ness. But, the attacks on UKIP by them and by the other Establishment parties are not having the required effect of discouraging people from supporting UKIP but are only encouraging people to look at how these mainstream parties have themselves behaved.