Quick, before it is too late. It’s time to save Nick Clegg. I have just read the Sunday papers, and the anti-Clegg feeling rises off them like a sulphurous cloud. According to one reliable analyst, the ratings of the Lib Dem leader are currently standing at minus 62 per cent – lower than Osama bin Laden. Expert after expert steps forward to give the Deputy PM a kick in the pants, and the overwhelming view is that he should be defenestrated before the next election. He is not just toxic for the Libs, say these pundits – he is contaminating the entire Coalition. Some talk of Vince Cable replacing him, some of Ed Davey.

So in the dwindling months we have available, it is time for us Clegg fans to echo those kindly folk who are trying to save the sweet furry badgers from the wrath of farmers. Never mind the badgers – save the Cleggster from extermination!

Here are 20 reasons why everybody, not just Tories, should be grateful to the Cleggster, a man who has effectively laid down his political life so that the government of the country can be carried on, and who has endured the most protracted political humiliation since the emperor Valerian was captured by the Persian emperor Shapur, and turned first into a living footstool, and then flayed and used as a rather striking wall hanging.