The prize for silliest Lib Dem idea goes to . . .

ShAdoW home Secretary diane Abbott says a Labour government won’t count the number of people coming into this country. Such an abrogation of responsibility for border control policy is not surprising from someone nicknamed Abacus Abbott for her track record of innumeracy.

Trust the Lib Dems, currently flatlining embarrassingly in opinion polls with around 10 per cent of public support, to come up with a risibly duff idea to revive party fortunes.

Earlier this year, they launched a nationwide competition — named after former leader Paddy Ashdown — to ‘ find radical new solutions’.

the winner of the Ashdown Prize for radical thought would be chosen for having ‘the boldest new policy idea that best empowers the citizen in the Britain of today and tomorrow’.

Clearly, Lib Dem policies such as job-sharing for MPs, a ban on the sale of diesel cars by 2025, ending imprisonment for possession of illegal drugs for personal use and a second Brexit referendum were deemed insufficiently attractive to voters.

How silly, too, to have named a prize after a man who’s political antennae are so blunt. For Ashdown was forced to eat humble pie (as well as his own hat) after disbelieving an accurate exit poll for the 2015 General Election that showed the Lib Dems were on course to lose all but ten of their seats.

some suggestions put forward for the ‘Ashdown Booby Prize’ included a voluntary higher tax band and turning student loans into house deposits.

the winner is due to get a speaking slot at the party’s forthcoming conference and has been given £500. But, witheringly, the Lib Dem Liberator magazine has said the competition was a ‘pointless exercise’. A bit like the Lib Dem conference!