Conservative Love-bombing.

Nothing more devastates a young man contemplating his future than unrequited love. Do you remember, as a blotchy teenager, asking the object of your fantasies if she would like to join you for five minutes behind the bike shed, or accompany you on a visit to the cinema - only to be rebuffed with a contemptuous laugh. And do you remember the humiliation when the goddess then told all of her friends of your vain attempt to win her favour. The emotional stress was severe - for a few days anyway. I look back on the behaviour of such women as cruel and heartless. Nick Clegg's behaviour today has brought it all back to me. His failure to even consider an invitation to discuss the possibility of getting together with the Conservatives is distressing. His public boasting about it on national media is the action of a man with no regard for human feelings - just the sort of thing a man willing to sleep with 30 different women might do!

Now that the Lib Dems have performed the mother of all U-turns, and are acknowledging that there must be reductions in public spending, there should be no reason why Nick Clegg shouldn't be willing to co-operate with the Conservatives. He seems to be adopting most of our policies. Yet he chooses to launch his 'nastiest' attacks on us. This is what Ukip also do. Despite the Conservatives being the 'Euro-sceptic party', its in our direction that Ukip seems to direct most of its vitriol. And now I think about it, Plaid Cymru are focusing their heavy artillery on us as well. As the home-alone spotty teenager might ask,"why don't any of them love us". Perhaps they're all a bit miffed that we seem to have the voters on our side.

Winning the affection of Lib Dem and Plaid voters is crucial to my own chances of success in Montgomeryshire. I suppose you could call it a strategy - except that it just comes naturally. Lots of my friends have generally voted Lib Dem over the years. Lots of my extended family are instinctively sympathetic to Plaid Cymru. And I will not choose my friends, and cannot choose my family on the basis of their politics. My 'libertarian' and 'localist' instincts should make for comfortable discussion with Lib Dems, and my love of Wales and its language must help with Plaid friends. In fact, I sense that I have very little in common with the spotty teenager at the Montgomeryshire level. Perhaps, David Cameron should make me head of his 'love-bomb' unit.