Charlotte Gore mentioned that Nick Clegg has provided us with a 4000 word (I'll take her word for it) treatise on his "Vision for Britain" and so I went in search of this document to have a look. I have to agree with her lament that Chris has, as yet, not produced something similar, though you'll remember my disdain for people with "visions" when actually i want government and politicians to interfere less, but I suppose when you are claiming that your vision actually involves government and politicians interfering less it is forgivable!

I do think Chris needs to produce something of this sort, given the relatively few electors who are going to get to hear and question the two candidates in person at hustings around the country, and Nick's document has certainly cleared up one or two things about his position statement that I had erroneously interpreted from his speech at Newbury last weekend.

So to the apology...several times Nick refers to protectionism as a bad thing in his "Vision", so I take it as read that he is in fact against protectionism as he sees it anyway (which I suspect will always be different from how a mutualist or libertarian sees it) and am happy to be corrected for suggesting otherwise in my post last week.

But neither do I find anything much in Nick's vision statement that moves me "outside my comfort zone". Nor the timetable terribly ambitious. Others may feel that ten years to break "stifling deadlock of two-party politics in Britain ... for good" is just realistic, while I dream of radical liberalism recapturing the same levels of imagination as 1906. Nick points the way, in the form of the issues he picks out, but not, perhaps, the truly radical liberal solutions that could really ignite a fire in people:

"How to counter the epidemic of powerlessness that has left people bewildered by giantism in both the public and private sectors;"

Today's "giantism" was 1906's protectionism. The liberals then offered free trade and captured the mood. That same debate needs to be reopened today. If we are not going to join what Nick calls the "‘Sat-Nav’ politics we are seeing today" we must boldly go, "balls out" as a friend of mine says, with a manifesto that is, to all intents and purposes, "do or die" next time round and not flinch when the others try to portray us as quite mad!

I don't want to fisk the whole "vision" and I do think there is plenty of good stuff in there, but there are a few markers I would put down that really don't, I think, challenge that comfort zone:

"We need to set some ground rules here: our universal public services must be free to use and accessible to all. But beyond that, I want us to think afresh about how they should be funded and delivered."

Why should we assume any government provided services ought to be "universal" and "free" or indeed "publicly" provided? I believe what we should be aiming for in order to "extend opportunity" is "financial independence" for all. We should be aiming to provide people with a basic income as of right that allows them to make choices for themselves and their children, for liberalism must, if anything, be about trusting people to make the right choices if they only had the means to do so.

State monopolies are only needed because other (ie private) monopolies and the (state and multi-national) protectionism that maintain them skew the distribution of the national income towards the already haves. And local state monopolies are not greatly better than a national state monopoly, be it in health, education or anything else - it may increase accountability but it doesn't necessarily increase personal freedom to dissent from the general consensus and choose an alternative. Break those other monopolies and protections, using their surplus "profit" to fund a dividend to all citizens, and you achieve that "financial freedom" and "freedom to choose".

For example, if we "want to see funding for the poorest state school pupils rise to private school levels, not one day, but straight away" then why not let that money be used to buy places at private schools? Why not let St Paul's or Westminster Schools open "branches" in Peckham or Brent, or City of London School in Tower Hamlets? Well maybe not them, per se, because they tend to be aggressively selective on ability also, but there are plenty of private schools in which parents put their faith and cash to add extra value to less able children too. With Land Value Tax you'd soon see these currently deprived areas becoming the haven for "smart money" anyway, pulling up their economic fortunes as people want to trim their land tax bills move there and spend their money there.

Anyway, as I say, there is much that's good in Nick's "vision" and he finishes with a flourish with which I reckon we can all agree:

So my message to my party is a very simple one: trust your instincts and stay true to your beliefs. The politics of the 21st century will increasingly be played out on liberal territory. And we will have home advantage.

Our liberalism is instinctive. It cannot be faked.

Empowering individuals, extending opportunity, balancing security and liberty, protecting the environment, engaging with the world – these are causes which we have espoused for years, but which we must now champion in new ways, with renewed leadership and vigour.

I do still think that we can be even more ballsy though and aim to turn the electoral landscape around, 1906-like, as a result:

Some argue that the best the Liberal Democrats can hope for is third place and a toe hold in government if we’re lucky.

That surely cannot be our aim.

Third place is not good enough. Not good enough for me, for the party or for Britain.

In a time of real political change and shifting public opinion I believe we must be much more ambitious.

If we can address the concerns of the British people and the challenges facing our country, then the next big shift of opinion will be towards Liberalism.

The demands facing us require ambition, verve and self confidence. That is what I promise to bring to the leadership of the Liberal Democrats.

Too right; would it be too much to work towards being enough of a power in 2009 to force the "Spin Twins" to work with each other against the Liberal Democrats as their opposition and win for liberal Britain a few short years after that?