David Cameron screwed up agreed negotiating plan, says Ashdown

LORD ASHDOWN, the former Lib Dem leader, has accused David Cameron of incompetence and screwing up the agreed negotiating position which led to him being isolated in the EU Council and at odds with Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.

Nick Clegg was fuming - not merely sulking - when he refused to sit alongside Cameron in the Commons yesterday to see the PM being lauded by his eurosceptic MPs for becoming the first British Prime Minister to use the veto in Europe.

Clegg will go to the Cabinet meeting this morning, however, where he and the Prime Minister will have to patch up this row. Both men are determined to avoid a coalition divorce which could provoke an early general election.

Nevertheless, furious Lib Dems want an inquest into why Cameron screwed up and they want assurances that the PM will allow Clegg to try to rebuild bridges with his contacts inside the EU.

Ashdown hinted that the Lib Dems could walk out of the coalition if Cameron allows himself to be ruled by his eurosceptic backbenchers. "If the Government were foolish enough to let the eurosceptics run riot, then the Government would be in a serious position," he said.

Ashdown blames Cameron and Sarkozy for the breakdown in Brussels, saying the two leaders were incompetent. "I think we have two international leaders - Sarkozy who thinks he is President De Gaulle and Cameron who thinks he is Mrs Thatcher - two leaders who are not up to the task."

It has been revealed Cameron only began discussion on his demands for guarantees for the City at 2.30 am on Friday morning. One EU source said Sarkozy was tired because his new baby is giving him sleepless nights.

Ashdown revealed the depth of Lib Dem anger on BBC Newsnight last night, saying there were 30 phone calls between Clegg and the PM on EU summit preparation.

"We put together a joint negotiating position which was for Mr Cameron to deliver. He didn't," said Ashdown. "It would have been won by any other Prime Minister. It is deeply regrettable. That dismays us. It angers us."

After yesterday’s Commons statement from Cameron and Clegg’s pointed absence, Tory and Lib Dem whips ordered their MPs not to rock the boat. Lib Dem MPs refused TV and radio interviews and avoided the journalists in the Lobby by attending a Lib Dem federal executive meeting at which Clegg was given warm support.

Yet right-wing Tory MPs were openly rude about the Liberal Democrats in the Chamber. Philip Davies described them as "lickspittles" and Nadine Dorries attacked the Lib Dem leader for "cowardice", which had only been "surpassed by the absence of the Deputy PM in the chamber".

Labour MPs are enjoying Clegg's humiliation, comparing him unfavourably with Charles Kennedy, the Lib Dem leader who quit because of his drink problem.

"Kennedy once missed a statement on the euro by Gordon Brown because he had a hangover. We can all relate to that, but Clegg refusing to show up because he was afraid of being humiliated is pathetic," a former Labour cabinet minister told the Mole. ·