Clegg: Labour leadership contenders in a comfort zone of collective bile and vitriol

In an interview in the Guardian yesterday, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg urged Labour to ask some searching questions about what has happened to itself, and why it is appearing as a backstop to progress in so many issues of progress.

He expressed deepening disillusion with Labour and asserted that the coalition government is advancing more liberal-progressive policies than Labour achieved in its heyday. "Civil liberties, political renewal, devolution of power, green sustainability: all are being achieved at a pace, and with a radicalism, that Labour did not manage in 13 years," he said.