ConDems dismantling NHS...

So, the Tories have let slip their secret plans to scrap the professional, much-respected NHS Direct Service.

So when you phone NHS Direct in future, you are unlikely to get a trained nurse responding, but a call centre operative instead.

It's another of Cameron's pre-election promises broken and threatens to reverse the achievements of the past few years in reducing waiting times at Accident and Emergency departments.

The Tory determination to cut the NHS is not so surprising given their record - they fought tooth and nail to prevent Labour creating a National Health Service for all in the first place - then starved it of cash and almost destroyed it in the Thatcher era.

What I find surprising is the apparent willingness of Nick Clegg and the LibDems to roll over, dump any pretence of principles, and campaign for the Tory agenda to cut public services under a thinly disguised veil of 'cutting the deficit'.

Of course we need to cut waste where it can be identified and improve services, but the ConDem Coalition has no mandate to cut the NHS itself.

Did you see the LibDem leadership duo squabbling on live TV...? UPDATED

LibDem leadership hopefuls Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne apparently squabbled like kids when they came head-to-head on today BBC's Politics Show on BBC1...

Missed the spat myself as I was on the way back from the national Labour Students conference in Grantham where I was honoured again to be a speaker...

I caught the end of the Politics Show, when presenter Jon Sopel says if you want to see today's broadcast, including the Clegg-Huhne fallout, go the the Politics Show website.

I just have done, but frustratingly the 'see again' feature hasn't yet been updated and still repeats last week's Politics Show...Very annoying.

Did anyone see it...is it worth repeating?

UPDATE: The clip is now on the BBC site and they go at each other like rats in a sack: Huhne accuses Clegg of 'flip floppery', trying to face both ways, allegations that Clegg is a 'calamity' and Clegg fighting to defend himself.

Less than edifying, and certainly fiercer than anything we ever saw between the two Davids - Steel and Owen - when the Libs had two leaders, and a rare but real insight behind internal tensions and disunity in today's LibDem party...

Who said come back Ming Campbell or Chas Kennedy...?

Game up for the Mingers...?

Could Ming Campbell be the first casualty of Gordon Brown's decision not to hold an early general election...Could have been a Contender thinks so.

LibDems were gagging to get the general election behind them so they could move ahead, sack Ming and hand Nick Clegg the poisoned chalice.