Dr Theodore Dalrymple doesn’t pull any punches in telling it as it is.

That Chris Huhne is an opportunist becomes plainer by the day.  It has now come to light that he wrote an article in the Oxford student newspaper Isis in 1973 where he argued that drugs should be accepted as part of society.  That he did not really hold such a view then and certainly does not hold now, I have little doubt, but it shows a tendency that he seeks to curry favour with his peers by saying what he thinks they want to hear.

Further embarrassment has been caused by the Institute of Fiscal Studies costing his commitment to exclude people on the minimum wage from paying tax, a measure which it is estimated would cost the equivalent of a rise in the rate of income tax of 5½ pence in the pound.  Mr Huhne has pledged to raise “environmental taxes” to meet the cost of his programme but no matter how the cost is met, it must result in a very large tax hike for the rest of us.  I had been led to think that fiscal matters were Mr Huhne’s strong points. Perhaps they still are, but he is clearly saying what he thinks the membership of the Liberal Democrats would like to hear.  He is not the man to hold the balance of power following the next General Election.[1]