First of all, I wish you sincerest best wishes for becoming the President of the Liberal Democrats, commencing January 2011. I understand from colleagues that you have been a popular choice, and I feel that you have been very good at explaining the difficult issues concerning the country at present.

I am genuinely concerned however that your political interviews recently have demonstrated a lot of political point-scoring surrounding Labour’s past period of government under Gordon Brown. To put this in context, I am a Labour Party activist, a member of the Holborn and St Pancras Constituency Labour Party. To give you an example, Labour is more than aware of its substantial mistakes in civil liberties, which is why it is taking great pains to get this policy right this time. You will be aware that even in your own party there is much unfinished business from David Laws’ “Orange Book”, and the path to be followed by the Coalition must be to see through your policy review on the Human Rights Act. It is not a secret that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats do not ‘see eye-to-eye’ on this; if anything, as you know, the position of Labour was much closer to the Liberal Democrats, notwithstanding the terrible past on civil liberties by Labour.

So the offer of Ed Miliband to the Liberal Democrats on policy is not a plea for help. It remains to be seen whether Nick Clegg’s pledge to revisit Forgemasters will be sufficient to see your party have a succesful outcome in Oldham East, for example. It is a genuine acknowledgement that we must all move the country forward. For example, Labour does wish to distance itself  from the Liberal Democrats making more people unemployed and slowing growth, which will be your legacy not ours. Whilst I personally believe that Nick Clegg and the Coalition need each other until 2015, and indeed any criticism might make them stronger, there will need to be a rigorous policy review within your Party, especially if the country returns a ‘NO to AV’ verdict. Such a verdict is possible, because it is unfortunate that people are indeed seeing this vote as a plebicite on Nick Clegg, whose unpopularity is well known.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Shibley Rahman