On the referendum question,  personally my position is clear.  When we are elected as representatives we often have difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions to make at whatever level of Government.  That is the essence of representative democracy in this country.  We should be honest enough to say what our position is, too often a call for a referendum is a figleaf to avoid arguing for a positon which may seem  unpopular in which one truly believes in. 

It was a mistake to call for a referendum on the draft constitution, we are forever bemoaning the lack of standing that parliament at Westminster has, no wonder when the politicians of the day are forever passing decisions that the people thought they had already passed to elected representatives back to the people.

The Lisbon treaty, which is a revising treaty is even less of matter for parliament to opt out of making a final decision about.  In future, would we pass all international treaties that the Government signs up to  back to a referendum?  I think not.

The problem for my Lib Dems colleagues is this, you may lose a couple of hundred votes for having promised a referendum on the must larger and now defunct Constitution but surely being permanently lowered by several percentage points in the polls as a result of the party being percieved as split by the electorate which surely endanger their seats much more.  There is nothing that has cost us more support over the last 100 years as the fact that on many important issues of the day we had our Westminster MPs going through opposing division lobbies on a regular basis.  My colleagues at Westminster would do well to remember that.