Photo: AFP/Getty ImagesChris Huhne has suffered a setback - but could this merely be the latest step in an improbable path to the Liberal Democrat leadership?

Think about it. It's dawn on May 8th, 2015.  Nick Clegg emerges from the steps of the party headquarters in Great George Street to a flurry of snapping cameras. Faced with a drop in his party's support to the high teens, and an overall collapse in the number of MPs to around 30, he has no choice but to resign. Five years in power isn't bad going for a Lib Dem leader, after all. Now the party has to find its successor. Who are the likely candidates?

It's not unreasonable, in this scenario, to include Chris Huhne among them. There are a number of caveats to this suggestion - but their cumulative effect doesn't mean this unlikely prospect should be instantly ruled out.

The personal embarrassment surrounding the speeding points case is undeniably damaging. But by 2015 a couple of years will have passed since its resolution. And in any case, of all the

Betrayed by their hero, Cameron's eurosceptics are quickly returning to their bitter, angry roots.

The last time David Cameron updated the Commons on his return from Brussels he was treated like a hero. The acclaim appeared to have no limits; the prodigal son, had he seen this display of lionising, must have felt like a big disappointment upon his own return. What a difference a follow-up summit makes. Yesterday the Tory eurosceptics edged away from the PM, collectively wrinkling their noses as if he had made a bad smell.

Labour had anticipated this, and so had lined up a stratagem of its own to increase the discomfort. The opposition's jibes began even before Ed Miliband stood up to respond to Cameron's statement. When the prime minister told MPs that he had "vetoed that treaty" they exploded with laughter.

The comedy threshold is always lower in parliament, of course, but this was nowhere near funny in the normal sense of amusement that you or I might understand. No, this was

Mark HarperIt is, perhaps, the hardest reform of them all. Can Mark Harper succeed where so many before him have failed?

The Conservative constitutional reform minister is in an unusual position: he is the right-hand-man to deputy prime minister Nick Clegg. Twenty months into the job, Harper is upbeat about coalition relations when I interview him in his Westminster office. The arrangement "works very well", he insists. After all, they managed to survive the acrimony which surrounded the tone of the electoral reform referendum campaign. Harper doesn't pretend that this wasn't a tough period. "If you can work through a quite contentious issue like that, I think you can do it through anything."

His job is far from easy. The Lib Dems are inherently keener on the constitutional reform agenda, so persuading Tories is often harder work. "We work together very hard with our respective parties," Harper says. I suspect he has to work much harder than Clegg.

It's Harper's job to win over the many Tories

Photo: AFP/Getty ImagesBy Dr Matthew Ashton

The left has been comprehensively outmanoeuvred in Britain over the last 30 years. They need to reconsider their tactics.

Today sees the 100-day anniversary of the Occupy Movement in Nottingham. So far the mainstream media has focused almost all of its attention on the Occupy London movement, and in particular the camp set up outside St Paul's. As a result most of the arguments have been about their right to protest there and not their criticisms of capitalism.

In Nottingham there has been a small camp based in the main city centre square for over three months now. Made up of several dozen tents, they've been a continuing presence throughout the winter. For the first time I actually went to see them yesterday to ask them what they were trying to achieve. As I pointed out, 100 people in the centre of a medium-size East Midlands city wasn't likely to bring capitalism to its knees any time soon.

The protesters I spoke to took this in good humour and argued that their

Trusting our politicians is hard at the best of times. Letting them take care of the interests of the country is, as we have seen repeatedly, more than enough of a challenge for them. Is it too much, then, to ask them to take on the interests of the unborn, too?

That's the idea behind a radical new report by the Green party's thinktank, Green House, which is worried that there is a chronic failure among the political classes to adopt anything remotely resembling a long-term outlook. On climate change alone, it's argued, the need for politicians to be forced to take the interests of future voters as well as present ones into account is pressing.

Of course, under the present system they are only accountable to their electorates. So report author Rupert Read, a former Green party candidate who lectures in philosophy at the University of East Anglia, has come up with a rather far-out idea. He proposes a super-jury, randomly picked from the public, whose solemn task it would be to make sure

Photo: AFP/Getty ImagesLondon may have seized the initiative in the Scottish independence referendum debate, but it has by no means made certain it will get its way.

Yesterday the Scotland Office launched a consultation paper on Scotland's constitutional future, outlining the way in which it proposes to give the people of Scotland their say on this key issue for the United Kingdom's future.

Its biggest play is its attempt to scotch, once and for all, the distinction between a 'binding' and an 'advisory' referendum. This, according to Scotland Office officials, is nothing but a red herring. Whitehall lawyers believe they have a cast-iron case which they believe would stand up in the supreme court: any referendum held by the Scottish parliament would be illegal, full stop.

That would be a huge setback to the Scottish National party, which has been sniffing around the issue of an advisory referendum for some time. Take its 2007 paper on the issue: "At present the constitution is reserved, but it is arguable

The history books will only remember one scandal from 2011. But this year wasn't just about phone-hacking. We've had our fair share of people not doing what they're supposed to. Sometimes it cost them their jobs, sometimes they survived. Some are long gone, some are still rumbling on. Let us know whether you think we've got these in the right order...

(Last year's position in brackets)

10 (2) A scandalous new year hangover

OK, so this one really was a hanger-on from last year. But former Labour minister Phil Woolas' fall from grace, the result of some rather dodgy electioneering, was what caused the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election which took place in early January. It was a complex race in a marginal seat, which ended with a surprising Labour hold for Debbie Abrahams. So much for Elwyn Watkins, the Lib Dem candidate, who didn't do nearly enough to seize his unlikely second chance in the seat. That was partly because of frustration at the coalition. But it was probably more to

By John Baron MP

As the eurozone crisis becomes increasingly desperate, it's time for the prime minister to face reality.

All the signs of stress are there. Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, is openly talking about the breakup of the eurozone. Even though Italy alone requires 300 billion euros in refinancing next year, eurozone members presently struggle to cobble together a new 200 billion euro loan to the IMF to help rescue the single currency. Several European leaders have warned of the difficulties of pushing the fiscal compact through their national parliaments. Meanwhile, the market continues to demand jaw-dropping interest rates on peripheral debt.

The eurocrats have brought this on themselves. Their response to the eurozone crisis has been too little, too late. The umpteen summits, the various initiatives, the increased borrowing and loan agreements have failed to reassure the markets. This is because the central cause of the problem — that is, a lack of