I remember when Ed Joyce and Lembit Öpik were the future...

I recently noticed that we now have something called Lib Dem Future, and was curious to find out what this might be. By means of a little investigating, I discovering that this curious little effort appeared on Lib Dem Blogs under the name of Ed Joyce, a name perhaps familiar to readers of this blog.

I'd wondered what had happened to him, after the shambles of a campaign whereby he had been disowned by his own candidate for blaming the loss of Montgomeryshire on the misfortunes of a third party. And now I know, as he is providing a platform for the one, the only, Lembit Öpik, to opine on... well, anything, really.

Don't get me wrong, Lembit is a genuinely interesting person, although in a rather different manner these days, and his views on the world probably have a market... somewhere. But, since his defeat in 2010, he has been a bit of a political gadfly, supporting a candidate running against a Liberal Democrat in a Parliamentary by-election (technically an automatic expulsion offence), working for an Iranian television station, coming fourth (and last) in the contest to be our London mayoral candidate in 2011.

However, if the dynamic duo of Joyce and Öpik are together again, I suspect it means that either Lembit wants to make a comeback, or he wants something. What that might be is anyone's guess, as he does have something of a credibility gap to bridge, but we'll doubtless find out soon enough.

If I might be so bold though, gentlemen, as to make a suggestion, it would be to remove the sub-heading "The New Voice of the Lib Dems". In the light of the 18,000 plus new members, so many of which are in their teens and twenties, you're twenty years too old, and at least five years too late...