Lib Dem Jody Dunn's chances of winning Hartlepool at the general election are looking more distant than ever.

The Lib Dems couldn't even make any inroads in last month's local by-election in Rift House ward caused by newly elected Labour MP Iain Wright's resignation from the Council. In fact, the Lib Dem share of the vote fell from 31.7% last June to just 17%.

Oh dear. Has anybody actually seen Jody in Hartlepool since her by-election defeat?

News reaches us from the constituency of the real Shadow Home Secretary David Davis. Apparantly Lib Dems in Haltemprice & Howden are sending leaflets to students in halls of residence saying "the Conservatives can't win here"!

With it being a Conservative seat this is a pretty far fetched statement for even the Lib Dems to be making. We would love to see the leaflet and any highly dodgy bar charts they may be using to back up this extraordinary claim.

Charles Kennedy has received the backing of at least one person for his policy of giving prisoners including convicted killer Ian Huntley the right to vote.

David Seary, a Lib Dem councillor in Stafford, rebukes us for suggesting that the Lib Dem votes for prisoners policy may not be a universally popular or sensible one. In an email to this site he insists:

In my view your stand appears somewhat illogical and in a calm overall debate during the election votes for prisoners will be seen by most people as an issue to debate and consider with a balanced and open mind. Are you doing that?.

Perhaps Cllr Seary will kick start that very debate in Stafford by putting the issue on the front page of his next Focus leaflet? We'd love to see it and it could earn him a cash prize!

Lib Dems in Waltham Forest have put out a Focus leaflet criticising the Council for sending out 22,000 letters to residents in thr borough about the single person council tax allowance.

All well and good. Yet the committee that decided to do this is run by, yes you've guessed it, the Liberal Democrats. And the Lib Dem Cabinet member responsible for revenue and benefit services Cllr Keith Rayner has defended the letter in the Waltham Forest Guardian.

So either Waltham Forest Lib Dems are shooting themselves in the foot. Or, more likely, they are trying to mislead the electorate.

We wonder whether the next Leytonstone Focus leaflet will feature Cllr Rayner explaining why he does not think it was a "blunder", "disaster", "badly written and insulting".