PITY poor Nick Clegg.

He is, first of all, leader of the LibDems. Also, he’s been finding it hard to attract any publicity. He is, after all, the only one of the three main party leaders with absolutely no chance whatever of being Prime Minister. Ever.

So that rather limits your options when it comes to seizing the agenda. In the summer he pretended that he wanted parliament to cancel its recess in order to get MPs’ expenses sorted out. He had a moderate hit with that one, so he’s tried the same thing again, by “demanding” (bless) that the Queen’s Speech is cancelled and that we spent the next six months wringing our hands in anguish (but he doesn’t want us to mention MEPs’ expenses scams, for some odd reason).

Yeah, we know that very little of the next legislative programme will make it onto the statute books before the general election, Mick – we read newspapers when we were at school as well; we know how the constitution works. Just get back in your box and concentrate on what LibDems do best: complaining about dog crap on the pavement then doing sod all about it.

And if you don’t feel like making conversation with a parliamentary under-secretary of state during the walk from the Commons to the Lords on Wednesday while Brown and Cameron discuss grown-up stuff at the front of the procession, why not just stay at home and write whateer you intend to say next time you appear on “Thought for the Day”?