Then there is the wilful refusal of the party to investigate one of its own MPs despite allegations of serious professional misconduct. Mike Hancock, MP for Portsmouth South, was approached by a vulnerable constituent in 2009 for help with her housing problems. Over the following months he began to see her regularly, bought her gifts and once took her out to dinner at the House of Commons, all of which he admits. Hancock also admitted to sending "sexy" text messages to the constituent, who suffers from mental health problems. One read: "Please give me a chance you never know my princess XXX". Hancock was arrested by Hampshire Police in October 2010 but the Crown Prosecution Service later decided that there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

Even though only seven of the 57 Lib Dem MPs are women, Clegg opposes all-women shortlists. (The Tories have 49 out of 306.) The Lib Dems set up a Campaign for Gender Balance nine years ago but it has been a relative failure compared to Labour's all-women shortlists or the Tory A-list. (This may be why the party took so long to expel the Lib Dem peer Jenny Tonge for her anti-Semitic ranting.) At the 2009 Speaker's conference on making parliament more representative, Clegg suggested the problem was not the selection process as such, but the fact that not enough women were coming forward in the first place. Is it any wonder, with the policies the party has adopted? 

The stark reality is that the Lib Dems face the prospect of having no female MPs at all after the next election if their current poll ratings do not improve, because five of the seven represent marginal constituencies. Would that really make any difference? They hold a skewed idea of personal freedom and liberty, and claim that it is beneficial to everyone. What they refuse to acknowledge, however, is that women and girls who face sexual violence desperately need state intervention and tough law and order responses both to feel and to be safe.

The party says it stands for "the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals". But it is the freedom of men rather than women that is prioritised. Any rights of the individual must include effective public remedies against private violence. The Liberal Democrats are the last party to recognise this truth.