I am more than a little irritated by an article in the FT in which three of our eight MPs are quoted. They are all talking about the need for the Liberal Democrats to stick to that centre ground and not try to move to the left of Labour if they elect Jeremy Corbyn.

When on earth was that ever going to happen? How on earth could you outflank Corbyn from the left? He is an old fashioned socialist. He wants to nationalise everything, leave NATO, dispense with any sort of fiscal caution. To go any further left would involve Five Year Plans, hammers, sickles, a whole load of red and a Politburo. That’s not really our usual style, shall we say. The notion that Tim Farron would actually try and do this is risible, yet we have three of our MPs and perhaps an un-named fourth constructing a straw-man.

One un-named MP is quoted thus:

My concern is that we have a real problem in competing for the same space. There is no way Tim can compete to the left of Labour if Jeremy Corbyn wins.

It’s hardly surprising that further dark utterances ascribed to a “Lib Dem parliamentarian” were given off the record:

Tim will need to recognise that poor turnout and 44 per cent support for Norman means he has no clear mandate to shift dramatically to the left.

Except nobody ever said that Tim had any plan to do so. In fact, his comments to Scottish members on Thursday were very clear about where he saw the Liberal Democrat space:

Lib Dens need to occupy rational, radical centre ground space in UK politics says @timfarron — Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) August 27, 2015

I am not a great fan of anonymous briefing of the press. It annoyed me on the few occasions when it happened during the Coalition years. Regrettably most of it seemed to come from inside the government. The thing is, there were 20 ministers to choose from and 57 MPs so a briefer had a bit of cover. This is simply not the case any more. Let’s look at our eight. It’s unlikely that Tim or the three MPs who supported him, John Pugh, Mark Williams and Greg Mulholland would have come out with this. Our un-named MP, and perhaps even our un-named “parliamentarian” comes from a fairly small “gang of four” comprising Brake, Carmichael, Clegg and Lamb. The habit of briefing may be hard one to break, but there are fewer places to hide. Just don’t.

It would be good if our parliamentarians could stick with what actually is happening, not just make stuff up. There are way too few of us now. We have to make sure that our engagement with the media is constructive and actually advances our cause rather than undermines it. Anything less threatens that all important #libdemfightback.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings