It has been an oft-espoused theory that the Lib Dems couldn't organise a booze-up in a brewery and now we have proof positive.

Not only did they manage to get their posteriors comprehensively handed to them in not just one but two polls, but now their attempts to cast off the albatross round their necks has turned into a self-inflicted decapitation.

How rubbish do you have to be to fail to oust Nick Clegg?

As attempted coups go this was somewhere between the US attempted ousting of Chavez and Simon Mann's jaunt to Equatorial Guinea in terms of its total ineptitude.

Vince Cable, one of the alleged plotters, immediately distanced himself from the abortive putsch and dropped his co-conspirator Lord Oakeshott right in it.

If Cable had been involved in the gunpowder plot Guy Fawkes would have got nowhere near Parliament. Cable would've sidled up to the nearest man at arms after the first meeting and said, "that bloke with the hat looks a bit iffy."

T'was ever thus. If, as the adage goes - and with ample evidence to support the hypothesis - politics is showbusiness for ugly people, it is also pugilism for cowards.

In this case the so-called plot consisted of sending out a few surveys and asking people whether they thought Clegg was a liability. It was hardly a revolutionary scenario, but then this is the Lib Dems we're talking about.

Oh, for the good old days of cloak and dagger, backstabbing and cyanide.

In a further example of how far the party has plummeted Oakeshott, who made important interventions on a number of issues and refused to tow the (Tory) party line so sycophantically followed by the rest has quit the party.

Lord Rennard, who is alleged to have made rather less helpful interventions, still shows no sign of doing so.

He issued his second non-apology on Thursday, expressing "regret" if he had "inadvertently" invaded the personal space of his female accusers.

The porcine Rennard appears to think that his girth is such that it exerts its own gravitational pull and that hapless individuals are sucked into it by accident.

But of course that is nonsense. There's nothing attractive about Rennard.

At the moment politics in this country most closely resembles football. Unsavoury conduct seems to be par for the course, sexism and racism abound and usually go unpunished. The top tier is populated almost exclusively by pampered prima donnas and the working classes are priced out of the game.

The Lib Dems are the political equivalent of Manchester United last season, widely reviled with their lowest points tally in decades and out of Europe.

Following this to its (vaguely) logical conclusion this means that Clegg is the equivalent of David Moyes.

Everyone knows he's going except him.

Moyes is widely held to be a decent bloke given an impossible task, and Clegg... well, no, the analogy falls down there, but you get the point.

But it's not just the Lib Dems who've lost the plot. The comparison bears even more fruit if transplanted to Labour. Blair was without a shadow of a doubt the party's equivalent of Alex Ferguson.

They both claimed to be socialists while raking in millions and both hung on to power like grim death while running their teams into the ground and then jumping ship just as the ship was about to sink.

They both also keep popping up in the background to offer unhelpful advice, undermine their successors and remind everyone of how brilliant they think they are.

Miliband isn't even David Moyes, he's Phil Neville.

In case you're wondering the Tories are, of course, Chelsea. Bankrolled by foreign-based billionaires, full of bigots and with a smug, arrogant git at the helm.

But a fool returns to his folly as does a dog to its vomit, so back to Blair it is.

It emerged recently that the four-year delay over the publication of the Chilcot report into the Iraq War was due to the refusal to disclose the content of discussions between Blair and George W Bush.

Speaking earlier this week Blair, showing as if there were any doubt that he couldn't tell the truth to save his life, claimed to be as frustrated as anyone about the delay. He was eager to have his position vindicated, he spouted, and the refusal to divulge the information was nothing to do with him.

Yes, and if you believe that you'll believe Clegg has a future.

Yesterday it further transpired that the inquiry has struck a deal and is not going to get to see the contents but rather the "gist" of them instead.

Personally I think it probably went something like this...

"George, I mean sir, how are we going to get round the fact that the UN won't back the invasion?"

"Hoody hoo! I'm the lone ranger. Come on Tonto. Which way's Iranistan?"

It's no wonder Blair seems relaxed about the verdict, he's got his own equivalent of Fergie time and a tame referee.