What The Papers Say: Ashdown’s Labour pact puts him out of step

With a post-war record number of MPs, the Liberal Democrat party might have been expected to have smothered Paddy Ashdown in affection at Eastbourne last week. Even though parts of his main speech were received with the usual rapture, there were clear indications that there is some distance between ’where Ashdown wants to take the party and where they want to be’ (Donald MacIntyre, the Independent, 25 Sept).