Leader lines up `People’s Railway’

Many of those, such as housing and the NHS, have been debated many times before.

It will fall on deaf ears, not least because it is comically misconceived. “Radical and liberal and responsible too“.

The Liberal Democrats will “bounce back” from the disastrous general election by filling a “chasm” in the centre ground of British politics, Nick Clegg has claimed. “We are here at Bournemouth, come and join us”. Then the only evidence of Labour MPs wishing to leave appears to be more of defectors going to the Tories. When the SDP broke away from Labour in 1981, taking 27 MPs with them (and one Conservative, Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler), it was one-sided nuclear disarmament, along with Europe and orthodox economics, that motivated them. He welcomed visiting leaders of Sinn Fein, the political affiliate of the Irish Republican Army, in 1984 just weeks after the IRA killed five people in a bombing of a hotel hosting a Conservative Party conference.

UK worldwide Development Secretary Justine Greening told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show that she believed Cobyn’s plans to renationalise the railways would be “an ideological joyride”. Peter Mandelson was seen around the House of Lords carrying a copy of Bill Rodgers’s memoir, Fourth Among Equals.

Mr Farron, who will formally launch his party’s referendum campaign later today, said: “Liberal Democrats believe in an open, modern and inclusive Britain that stands tall in the world, and doesn’t hide from it”. Justin Madders, elected in May, responded sarcastically to Farron’s appeal: “Anyone got Tim Farron’s mobile?” I’m not. It’s great entertainment. “Oh, hang on, remembered why there’s only eight”.

The Independent asked a Labour Party official to comment on the general’s warning: “It does seem like quite an extraordinary statement”.

After a first week marred by a row over his failure to sing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial event and policy splits emerging within his newly-formed shadow cabinet, Mr Corbyn has now found his leadership the subject of global ridicule.

But Clegg said the election of left-winger Corbyn as Labour leader this month has muddied the waters. Former business secretary Sir Vince Cable said he thought defections “could become an avalanche”.

“Give him a bit of space and time to lay out his stall”.

The MPs are no more or less badly behaved in Parliament than they were 20 or 40 years ago. He said that when he was out and about speaking to voters they were unimpressed by Prime Ministers Questions (PMQs).

Lord Falconer, a close friend of Tony Blair who served in the former prime minister’s government, said he had “no idea” if Mr Corbyn would be prime minister following the 2020 general election. “They certainly don’t take these immensely hard , painful, death-defying journeys to go and scrounge benefits off us”.

“He said during the course of the leadership election that, for example, he might think about withdrawing from North Atlantic Treaty Organisation “.