Showing posts with label Lib Dem leadership contest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lib Dem leadership contest. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Ming's top team: a preliminary verdict

Ming Campbell has now completed the long-drawn out Lib Dem frontbench reshuffle and the full list can be viewed here.

I don't think there are any great surprises. We knew he would reward Clegg for not standing by giving him a more important position than Huhne, who did stand, and this has duly happened.

In my view Huhne should have got the Foreign Affairs spokesmanship but that would have irritated the Clegg camp and in any case Michael Moore appears to be joined at the hip to Ming.

Sarah Teather has been getting the headlines today for her promotion to Education spokeswoman, but I am not alone in wondering whether she really cuts the mustard.

In terms of the minor placings, interesting to see old Paddy Ashdown ally Nick Harvey back in the top team at Defence, and Lembit keeping his job as Wales and Northern Ireland spokesman despite making an arse of himself in the leadership campaign.

Out go Andrew George, Sandra Gidley and Tom Brake who are no great losses but I'm puzzled as to what poor old John Thurso has done wrong apart from wear a silly Lord Lucan-style moustache.

One potentially really significant appointment is that of Simon Hughes to the constitutional affairs brief.

Some of my colleagues in the Campaign for an English Parliament believe that Hughes is a secret supporter of their cause, so it will be very interesting to see if this now forms of part of Lib Dem policy development in this area.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Lib Dem succession race gets under way

This is a such a great idea I wish I'd thought of it first...but a great new blog has been launched dedicated to the battle to succeed Sir Menzies Campbell as Leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Okay, so it's meant to be a bit of fun, but there's a serious point here in view of the dynamics behind Sir Ming's election.

The plain facts are that Ming Campbell owes his election to the time-honoured principle of "young cardinals elect old popes."

The young turks who backed Campbell's leadership bid - the Nick Cleggs, Ed Daveys, David Laws and Sarah Teathers of this world - were not doing so because he is their ideological soulmate, but because when he stands down after the next election it will give them an early crack at the leadership.

The authors of "Ming's Dynasty..." whoever they are, are therefore correct to surmise that the race is already under way.

Indeed, the ongoing Shadow Cabinet reshuffle is part and parcel of this process, with Clegg given the chance to put himself in the driving seat as Home Affairs spokesman with his most prominent rival, Chris Huhne, given a more junior role at Environment.

Also in the running is new Treasury spokesman Julia Goldsworthy, who is likely to prove a more durable female contender in the longer-run than Ms Rabbit-caught-in-headlights Teather.

Lets hope there's still a party left for them to lead once the Minger has finished with it.

March 9 Update: Here's some further justification of why this might conceivably be a valid subject for discussion. William Hill, as ever, supply the odds.

Hat tip: Guido Fawkes.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Which way will Ming swing?

I was not terribly complimentary about Sir Ming Campbell in my Column this weekend, also available in Podcast form.

"I see no evidence at all that Ming Campbell will be capable of engaging potential new Lib Dem voters – in particular the young...I think he may very well turn out to be a Lib Dem William Hague - a politician’s politician who is good in the Commons but who leaves the wider public cold."

But I go on to explain that, with the next election set to give the Lib Dems their best chance of holding the balance of power since 1992, none of that may matter a damn.

Irrespective of who ends up in Sir Ming's Shadow Cabinet - some interesting speculation here from Iain Dale - the big strategic question now facing the Lib Dems is: which way will Ming swing?

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Hail Ming!

So Ming Campbell it is, and here's the breaking news story I wrote earlier for the this is network of websites.

As a Blogger for Chris I am obviously disappointed Chris Huhne didn't make it, but after a bright start he didn't really build on the early momentum of his campaign. His chance will come again, although he'll doutbless be up against Lib Dem golden boy Nick Clegg next time round.

I do have grave doubts about Ming Campbell's ability to connect with the British public in the way Charles Kennedy managed, and I continue to believe he played a far bigger role in Kennedy's political assassination than has so far been publicly acknowledged. But for the sake of democracy I wish him well.

I'll be going into the implications of the result in greater detail in my newspaper columns and podcast this weekend, which will as ever be available on this blog on Monday.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Lib Dems: It looks like Ming

The result of the Lib Dem leadership contest is declared at 3pm tomorrow, with opinions among the political betting fraternity divided over who is likely to take the spoils.

King of the tipsters Mike Smithson is still calling it narrowly for Huhne, but most visitors to his PoliticalBetting.com site disagree, with a good two thirds predicting a Campbell victory.

Rival pundits SpecialBets are also going for Campbell, as is Guido Fawkes who has followed the twists and turns of the contest more obsessively than most.

My own gut feeling is that they are right, and that Ming has it. I hope I'm wrong, but my gut instinct tells me that Huhne just hasn't done quite enough to overhaul a man who was a fairly big frontrunner to begin with and who, unlike Hughes, has got through the campaign without any major gaffes.

As to where it will leave the poor old Lib Dems though....well, that's another story.

4pm update: Guido now has a poll of polls showing Ming on 53pc and Huhne on 47pc following redistribution of second preferences. I reckon that's about right.

Monday, February 27, 2006

A missed opportunity for the Lib Dems

Good piece by Andrew Rawnsley in yesterday's Observer on the Lib Dem leadership contest and why it has been a bit of a missed opportunity for the party to thrash out some of its strategic dilemmas.

Andrew correctly makes the point that all three candidates have shied away from confronting the most difficult policy issues and instead concentrated on seeking to prove themselves the most experienced (Campbell) the most passionate (Hughes) or the cleverest (Huhne.)

I didn't really expect a lot more from Campbell or Hughes but as a supporter of Chris Huhne I thought he would be much more radical than he has been, like setting out a distinctive political direction instead of banging on about his six years in the European Parliament all the time.

I am increasingly convinced that the Lib Dems should have followed the Tories' example and had a six-month contest which would have enabled a much more searching debate to take place.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Another reason to support Chris Huhne...and a bogus reason for supporting Ming Campbell

With the Lib Dem leadership battle entering its final stages, it is now widely perceived to be a two-horse race between Chris Huhne and Sir Menzies Campbell.

I've made no secret of my view on this blog and in my newspaper columns that Huhne is the man, and here's another reason for supporting him.

The indefatigable Gareth Young of the Campaign for an English Parliament Newsblog has been asking each of the candidates for their views on the "English Question."

While Simon Hughes fudged about with the discredited (and unworkable) "English Votes on English Laws" idea (EVoEL for short) Huhne correctly recognised that sorting out the mess of Labour's assymetric devolution strategy will require starting again from scratch.

"We need a comprehensive constitutional settlement which deals with this issue along with others - and indeed deals with financial matters. Because a lot of matters which are meant to be only English, if they affect public spending, affect Scotland through the Barnett formula," he said.

Quite right. Any solution which fails to include the Barnett Formula (see previous posts) would simply leave England under-financed and over-taxed as well as under-represented. More on this here.

Meanwhile....the Campbell campaign has been wheeling out the Lib Dem grandees in support, with David Steel making the following (preposterous) claim of Sir Ming:

"His bad luck was not to enter the Commons earlier than he did in 1987. Had he done so, he would probably have been leader instead of Charles Kennedy and possibly even Paddy Ashdown."

Er, wrong. The reason Campbell did not get the leadership in 1999 - indeed, the reason why politically he was not in a position even to contest it - was because he allowed himself to become mixed up in Paddy's abortive project to merge with New Labour.

Kennedy, on the other hand, recognised which way the wind was blowing in the party, and successfully managed to distance himself from it.

What this provides is further demonstration, as if it were needed, that Kennedy's political judgement was always superior to the man who has plotted so remorselessly to replace him.

More on this at Jonathan Calder's blog, here.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

We hate it when our friends become successful....

...was of course originally the title of a Morrissey song. But it applies equally well to the world of journalism as Lib Dem leadership contender Chris Huhne is now finding to his cost.

Huhne, an ex-journalist, seems to have a fair few enemies in the media, which doesn't surprise me knowing what a bitchy, backstabbing world it is.

In a column published on Saturday, the normally scrupulously-fair minded commentator Matthew Parris described Huhne as "mysteriously and indefinably ghastly."

I think if people with Matthew's sort of power as an opinion-former are going to throw that sort of mud around, they really ought to say more by way of explanation, and I have written to the Times to say so.

But Parris is not alone. In this space filler at the end of his Observer column on Sunday, Nick Cohen dredges up some ancient story about Huhne driving a flash motor in the 1980s and contrasting this with his support for green taxes today.

And even the Daily Telegraph, whose esteemed political correspondent Brendan Carlin was the first to reveal the Huhne leadership bid, has come out against him in this editorial published on Friday, accusing him of "duplicity."

Against that, Polly Toynbee in the Guardian last week constitutes a rather lone supportive voice in the national media.

No doubt there is always some resentment towards poachers-turned-gamekeepers, but the level of media abuse being directed at Huhne in this contest is well in excess of his opponents.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Why it has to be Huhne

I've been plugging the claims of Chris Huhne for the Lib Dem leadership on this blog for some weeks now but I'd not had a chance to do so in my newspaper columns or podcast until the Dunfermline East result gave the issue a fresh topicality.

To read my detailed explanation of why Huhne is the man, click here, or alternatively, if you want to hear it, click here.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Huhne in the driving seat

Yesterday I was (wrongly) accused by an anonymous user of this blog of being the person behind a "fake" YouGov poll which artifically inflated Chris Huhne's support in the Lib Dem leadership election in a bid to create a false sense of momentum.

I suppose I ought to be flattered that anyone could think that I (1) had that much influence, or (2) was wealthy enough to fund YouGov polls.

The truth is Chris Huhne's campaign needs no help from me to give it a sense of momentum. According to a real YouGov poll published today, Huhne is now the front-runner in the race, with 38pc of the votes to 34pc for Ming Campbell and 27pc for Simon Hughes

Click here for the full story, and here for a detailed breakdown of the results.

The three candidates are due to appear on Question Time tonight which should be very interesting. Last week Huhne wiped the floor with the rest of the panel, despite Iain Dale hilariously claiming that actor and would-be Tory MP Adam Rickitt was the star of the show.

As for who was really behind the YouGov poll that wasn't - suspicion points firmly at Camp Campbell as has been covered in detail on Guido's blog.

February 10 Update: Question Time sort of confirmed me in my view that none of the candidates are as good as Charles Kennedy. Huhne did not quite sparkle as I had hoped but at least did not mess-up. For a fuller analysis (and more detailed comment from me) see Iain Dale again.

Since then, of course, we've had Dunfermline East, which demonstrates that the era of three-party politics is not quite as dead as the Tories and Labour would have had us believe.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Huhne right to reject Campbell coronation

What are we to make of the story in today's Times that Chris Huhne welched on a deal not to stand against Sir Menzies Campbell in the Lib Dem leadership contest?

I've no idea whether it's true, though I note that the author is not the impeccably well-informed journalist (I won't embarrass him by using his name) who usually covers Lib Dem matters for the Thunderer...

But whether or not there was such a deal, I think in retrospect it is clear that Chris Huhne made the right decision in asking Sir Menzies to release him from it.

The implosion of Mark Oaten's campaign, and the subsequent revelations about Simon Hughes, have left Huhne as the only credible alternative and a Campbell coronation would only have served the interests of Nick Clegg and Co, not the interests of the party.

As Huhne himself has said, appointing a "caretaker" leader who would stand down after the next election would effectively be like appointing "the chairman of an ongoing leadership campaign among the younger candidates."

The Lib Dems deserve a bit better than that, in my view.

Friday, January 27, 2006

'At least no-one's shot a dog yet'

This is the thought with which Liberal Democrats are apparently consoling themselves after surely the most shattering week in their 17-year history, according to today's Guardian.

Full marks to pol corr Julian Glover for finding someone prepared to say this - I'm assuming he didn't make the quote up himself although some less scrupulous hacks doutbless would have done ;-)

The Guardian also scores with the best piece I have read so far on the Hughes affair, from Philip Hensher and Andy Beckett in G2.

I think I would take the view that, although it shouldn't have been necessary to ask the question, because he systematically misled the public over a number of years it sadly became necessary.

As to the leadership election....I do think Hughes' campaign is probably now holed below the waterline, which at least has the benefit of clarifying the choice facing Lib Dem members.

What I hope will now happen is that those Hughes supporters who want to see energetic leadership coupled with radical policies will realise that Chris Huhne stands a far better chance of defeating Ming Campbell.

Jan 30 update. Not surprisingly, Huhne has latched on to this idea and is now seeking to convince people that it's a two-horse race.

As ever with the Lib Dems, it could all come down to tactical voting.....

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Huhne campaign launches Bloggers4Chris

Bloggers4Chris logo

Chris Huhne may only be recognised by three percent of voters, but he appears to be the favoured Lib Dem leadership candidate of the blogosphere.

Now his campaign have launched a new website entitled bloggers4chris.org and those of us who think Mr Huhne might make a half-decent leader are invited to display its logo. Happy to oblige.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

This moral cesspit

The detailed nature of the revelations concerning Mark Oaten are said to be so disgusting that not even the News of the Screws will print them.

That of course has not stopped a few jokes doing the rounds that moreorless give the game away.

This one is far too filthy to reproduce on a family-orientated blog (?) but if you're into Lib Dem toilet humour you can read it here.

When this story first broke I didn't think Oaten should quit as MP, but I would now take the view that Oaten's credibility is blown to such an extent that if the Lib Dems want to hold the seat, they should find a new candidate.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Oaten quits - now will he back Huhne?

Mark Oaten has quit the Lib Dem leadership race after an apparent botched attempt to win Charles Kennedy's endorsement.

This leaves Chris Huhne as the only candidate with any credentials either as a moderniser or an economic liberal.

Will Oaten back him though? If ideological closeness has anything to do with it, he surely will, but this contest has always had more to do with personal rivalry than ideology.

If the old adage about "young cardinals electing old Popes," holds true, expect to see him joining Ming Campbell's campaign in the near future.

Jan 23 update: Apparently I was right about him not backing Huhne but wrong about him backing Ming - he was in fact planning to back Simon Hughes. I doubt if Hughes will want his support now though....

Friday, January 13, 2006

Odds slashed on "Chris Who?"

In the 48 hours since Chris Huhne was tipped by this blog (and the Daily Telegraph) as the next Lib Dem leader, his odds have come in from 300-1 to 6-1, according to the Political Betting site.

I'm not a betting man myself, so I didn't take advantage - but it's good to see Chris emerge as a genuine contender.

Ming Campbell's interview in today's Grauniad was interesting in that he is clearly tacking to the left to counter the Simon Hughes threat, but Chris Huhne doesn't really need to play this self-defeating left-right game.

As someone with strong social justice and environmental credentials as well as economic credibility I genuinely feel he could be the man to pull this divided party together. Here's a link to his campaign website.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Daisy, Daisy....

Readers of this blog will know I was not best impressed by the behaviour of ITN's Daisy McAndrew in revealing the drink problems of her former employer, Charles Kennedy.

Now some wags are suggesting she owes the BBC's Jeremy Paxman an apology too.

Back in 2002, Paxman came under fire for asking Mr Kennedy some pointed questions about his drinking habits, including whether he had ever drunk a bottle of whisky on his own late at night.

Among his sternest critics was the then Daisy Sampson, who at that time had only recently given up being Mr Kennedy's Press Secretary. She said:

"I do think he went too far. I think his questions were insulting. You couldn't do that job for two years. Sixteen thousand miles in an election campaign if you were drunk all the time. It just couldn't be done."

Keen students of hypocrisy can find much more on Daisy from the peerless Iain Dale's Diary and arch conspiracy theorist Guido Fawkes.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Will Chris Huhne run?

Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Chris Huhne has confirmed he is considering a bid for the party leadership, a story first revealed by my old mate Brendan Carlin in today's Telegraph .

I hope he goes for it. Amid all this talk of "economic liberals" on the right and "social liberals" on the left, Chris is someone who could unite both wings. Watch this space!

Monday, January 09, 2006

A personal and political tragedy

Regular readers of my column will know I am one of the few political journalists to have stuck up for poor old Charles Kennedy during his recent troubles, together with my old lobby colleague Paul Routledge.

Well, despite our best efforts, the plotters have done their worst and Charles - the democratically-elected choice of the Lib Dem membership - has now been forced to resign.

His much-publicisied alcohol problems were purely an excuse. After all, Sir Winston Churchill won the Second World War fuelled on a daily diet of champagne, brandy and claret, and even Margaret Thatcher regularly used to hit the whisky bottle in late-night talks with her advisers.

No, this was a plot orchestrated by the people around Sir Menzies Campbell who saw this crisis as a last chance to lever their man into the top job at 64.

I'll be returning to this issue of course, but for now I will confine my comments to the treachery of two individuals in particular whose behaviour has had me reaching for the sick bag in recent days.

ITN political correspondent Daisy McAndrew broke the story about Mr Kennedy's drink problem, using the inside information and extensive contacts gained from her spell as his press secretary from 1999-2001.

Equally disloyal was Sarah Teather MP, who would not have won the Brent East by-election if it hadn't been for Mr Kennedy's principled opposition to the Iraq War.

The irony is that Sir Menzies, who she is now supporting, wanted Mr Kennedy to back the war. Had he done so, Ms Teather would never have won the votes of her thousands of moslem constituents!

Meanwhile, fair play to another old lobby mucker, David Perry, for this exclusive interview with Mr Kennedy in his local paper, the Aberdeen Press and Journal.

IMHO, Mr Kennedy's obvious anger at the way he has been treated is completely justifiable.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Hands off Charles Kennedy!

The Guardian, that supposed bastion of liberal Britain, has become the latest press organ to plunge the knife into Charles Kennedy with this editorial published on January 4.

Leaving aside the issue of what Mr Kennedy has or hasn’t done to merit such treachery, the Grauniad's criticism of him for giving “no indication of where he wants liberal democracy to go next” is disingenuous in view of its own failure to do so.

As a normally astute observer of the political scene, it knows as well as I do that removing Mr Kennedy would see him replaced either by someone such as Simon Hughes who would take the party to the left, or someone like Sir Menzies Campbell or Mark Oaten who would take it to the right.

What I would like to know is why those who seek a change in the leadership think that either strategy would serve the party’s electoral interests better than Mr Kennedy’s approach of seeking to appeal to both Tory and Labour floating voters alike. I enlarged on this point in this column orginally published in December.