Sunny Hundal has a ridiculous piece up on Liberal Conspiracy about Vince Cable’s refusal to play Labour’s game on the Mansion Tax policy idea that they’ve stolen from the Lib Dems and reduced to a political gambit. That’s a great shame – to the Lib Dems, it’s a way to promote a fairer tax system, not a PR exercise.

His claims that you can tell Vince is being dishonest about not responding to cynical party games because he didn’t respond to Labour’s move last week, and because he’s really only responding to pressure from Downing Street.

The obvious problems with these reasons are:

1. The timing was part of Labour’s “cynical party political games”. It therefore makes perfect sense that Cable would wait until after the Lib Dem Spring Conference to respond. Unless Sunny is suggesting that Labour doesn’t ever play political games (and he’s never struck me as being stupid), it makes no sense to suggest that someone wary of a political trap should blindly follow the timing of the party setting that trap.

2. The trap being set was that Cable should either challenge his coalition partner on something that wouldn’t make it through Parliament at this time and therefore fail, or go back on his own policy and therefore fail. The only way to win that game is not to play. The fact that the Tories said exactly what we would expect is pretty much irrelevant, except to the extent that it highlight the reality of coalition politics: the coalition partners know that they need to pick their battles for what to push for.

Unless he honestly think that the targets of deeply cynical gambits must operate to the timetable of the party setting the trap (bet he wouldn’t if it were a Tory trap…), then he’s really made no case at all that Cable is being dishonest.

Oh, and the press release from Labour could have been written at the same time as the motion: “Nick Clegg and Vince Cable are letting down those they told they wanted a fairer tax system”. Utterly predictable.

Labour currently have no policies. That they have happened to suddenly find one, which just so happens to be a Lib Dem policy, is not honest or sincere politics. There’s absolutely no evidence they made any attempt to work with the Lib Dems to get their first policy idea in a long time through the system.

I honestly don’t mind a bit of political posturing and manoeuvres. But having had a blank sheet of paper for several years now, as a centre-left voter I really was hoping Labour would come out of the gates with something worthy of a party that aspires to lead again.

There’s been some talk amongst the commentariat that when it comes to sexual harassment, the problem is that some women need to toughen up. I make a minor concession below about understanding where that point of view comes from, but it’s still nonsense. Here’s some simple reasons why.

Bluster ain’t tough

There’s a lot of bluster coming from people talking about the need to be tough, or alternatively how bravely they are standing up for due process. Thing is, bluster ain’t tough. It can be loud and arrogant, but really it’s just giving in to temptation. Giving in to temptation just isn’t a tough thing to do.

One perfectly hard headed decision, on the other hand, might simply be: I’ve got better things to do than put up with this. Either the organisation does something about it when I raise the issue, or I’ll go off and have a more honest, better paid life doing something else.

It’s tougher to stand up for others than for yourself

It’s so much easier to leave it to everyone else to solve the problem. It’s much tougher if you have to actually confront someone on behalf of others.

To me, this is a defining feature of being liberal. The idea that taking responsibility ends once you’ve looked out for you and yours is fundamentally conservative. Liberalism challenges you to make an effort for others, too.

Proactive is better than reactive

Taking instinctive action, over a brief period of time, in reaction to events, might come from genuine toughness, and stem from an admirable personality. It’s still reactive, however. If you’ve got the right personality, it’s not that difficult. This is one reason, to be fair, why some people’s response to sexual harassment is essentially, “Can’t you just deal with it at the time?”

What is more difficult is being proactive, to take the time and make the effort to stop further incidents. Not everyone has that personality, and if you’re a leader you’d be better off with their contribution than their silence, or worse their departure. It is always, without exception, damaging to have senior figures regularly conduct themselves in a manner which disgusts promising talent. When their targets leave, probably having discussed their real reasons with a few others, both your talent pool and your recruitment opportunities shrink.

Don’t settle for less

Accepting sexual harassment is settling for less. It’s the easy way out that produces a poorer outcome. It’s not about whether those subjected to it are tough enough; it’s about whether those in charge are trying to build the strongest organisation and culture that they can.