Dear Anonymous...

I have a rule here, in that;

I do moderate comments, rejecting those I deem to be offensive, libellous or otherwise unacceptable. Anonymous commenters can expect to be either ignored or abused unless I agree with them. After all, like any publisher, I maintain the right to uphold certain standards. However, dissent with my views shall not, in itself, cause me to reject a comment.

And, generally, I stick to it. However, today, this comment arrived for moderation (I moderate all comments for self-protection as much as anything else);

The sooner this liar goes the better. He is dishonest and loves a cover up. He is not an action man and backs off doing anything positive ... The voters see him as a loser and if the LD party doesnt change him now they will lose the 2015 voters just like they did in the 2014 local election this week.

It is, self-evidently, an ad hominem attack, clearly made by someone who doesn't like Nick Clegg. However, it is, as so many of these are, anonymous. So, dear anonymous reader, here is my response.

Your blanket smear of a human being, albeit a politician, adds nothing to the quality or tenor of public debate, made worse by the fact that you demonstrate that you don't have the courage of your convictions by failing to put a name to your tirade.

Regardless of what you or I think of Nick Clegg, he at least has had the decency to put himself up for election, explain what he hopes to achieve and offer you, the voter, one of a range of choices that you may take or not, as you see fit. He made the decision four years ago to go into government, at a time when all the potential courses of action were likely to be unpopular, and give it a go. You, on the other hand, have decided that you want to behave in such a manner as to drive any normal human being as far away from the political arena as possible.

There is, my anonymous correspondent, a price to be paid, in that, by your behaviour, you help to ensure that politics becomes an arena for those that want power for power's sake, or that have a skin so thick that they can handle the abuse or, worst of all, hold views so extreme and with such venom that you ought to be rather worried - you may very well be the sort of person that, eventually, is on the receiving end of that venom.

Politics is, in this country, and probably elsewhere, an increasingly unpleasant business, in which an ever smaller number of increasingly unrepresentative individuals hold more and more sway as ordinary people give up their involvement in civic society - the number of people who join political parties is almost catastrophically low in relative terms.

So, my anonymous correspondent, thank you. Thank you for demonstrating that there is an element of the public, hopefully small, that should count its blessings. Because if the sort of behaviour that you believe is acceptable were to become standard, you had better believe that you would be living in a society where your choice to be so abusive would make you either a member of a rather unpleasant regime, or a victim of it.

But have a nice day, nonetheless...