Clegging along in the blue ...

Nick Clegg MP - the new leader of the Lib Dems - thinks the Scottish Parliament should have more powers, not because it's right but because he thinks that that will stop the SNP advancing - I'm glad I'm in a party that bases its positions on the principles we believe in rather than on party political advantage.

Anyways, old Cleggie came to the wild north today and praised us wild Caledonians:

"Let's take the moves in Holyrood to protect private information from any ID card scheme and the way in which the Scottish Executive has used DNA databases in a much more selective way than they have south of the border. You have a kind of liberalism in Scotland which we should learn from in the rest of the country."

What rest of the country? I assume he means England and means liberal as in the political philosophy rather than his party which voted to have the DNA samples of innocent people retained by the police during the passage of the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice Act 2006?

Well, it can't be the Scottish Lib Dems he's praising for protecting civil liberties on DNA retention, so who can it be? You've guessed it - he's praising the SNP, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill who said in June 2007 when he was launching a review of DNA retention that blanket retention was unacceptable in the relationship between the citizen and state.

Good to know that the English Lib Dems support the sensible policies of the SNP - if they now persuade their Scottish pals to accept SNP policy then we can make Scotland a much better place much more quickly.