It was trashy of Lib Dem HQ to try and bury their bad news under budget mania yesterday.

It didn’t trouble the Mercury, however. We placed the story even more prominently than the budget coverage. The novice spinner in Cowley Street who thought that plan up needs a new job.

The real reason for the Lib Dems replacing Gill with new man Zuffar Haq still isn’t clear. This Guido Fawkes post says it’s because of election irregularities, allegedly discovered by the Lib Dems themselves, in the run up to the 2005 election, and high expenses in Parliament six years ago.

The document mentioned was widely circulated.

It doesn’t fully explain why the party was quite happy for him to stand in a seat which was – at the time at least – seen as a Lib Dem/Labour marginal, just ten months ago.

Yesterday’s event appears to be a combination of factors rather than a single “smoking gun”.

By-elections are high profile, and the Lib Dems can’t afford another epic defeat like the one in Barnsley just a few weeks ago.

A twice-beaten candidate doesn’t inspire confidence from local campaigners. A candidate who let his Labour opponent buck the national trend and increase his majority is even more of a liability.

He also refused to sign a letter, on behalf of city Lib Dem councillors, to distance himself from the toxic tuition fees issue. Leicester South, of course, has a large student population. The Mercury was due to run a prominent story on this decision.

Take the fact that many saw his ten months in Parliament as an expensive but very low profile affair, along with the election document which poses many questions, and you’ve got the makings of the situation where Cowley Street simply had to make a clean break from the past.

So if the two parties are happy to share government, then it’s no surprise that they’re happy to share advertising space on the same building here in Harborough.

Zuffar Haq’s way ahead of the game on the coalition front…