Vince Cable has resigned as deputy leader of the parliamentary Lib Dems to concentrate on his cabinet role. “So what?” I hear you cry. Well, the Deputy Leader of the party, whoever it turns out to be, will have a crucial effect on the coalition and its running. If we elect a bullish anti-Tory that could have some serious repercussions…

So far, the only declared candidate is Tim Farron, although other names being thrown about include Don Foster, Lorely Burt, and the inevitable Simon Hughes. There was an early push for Jo Swinson to put herself forward, but she has declined.

There is a movement abroad to elect someone female to the role, if only to counter the bad press we have been getting on equalities since the electorate rejected our huge numbers of stellar female candidates – Susan Kramer, Julia Goldsworthy, Sandra Gidley, Bridget Fox, hell, even Hilary Myers in my own constituency. The fact that El Presidente and the party chair are both female doesn’t seem to cut much ice with the media, or the public, neither of whom pay any attention to either of these roles. The problem with this proposal is that there isn’t that big a pool to choose from. Lynne Featherstone, utterly awesome as she is, is a minister, and so is Sarah Teather. Lorely is chair of the party. Jenny Willott is due for maternity leave soon. Tessa Munt has endorsed Tim Farron. Jo has ruled herself out. That leaves Annette Brooke as the only female MP who is non-ministerial who could run… And nobody knows who she is.

So it looks like our MPs are going to be left with a choice between Simon Hughes, the perpetual candidate, and Tim Farron. Which means that the public face of our leadership is going to remain white middle-class middle-aged men in suits. Oh well, at least Tim is properly Northern…