Lib Dem conference podcast

Can Sir Menzies Campbell shift the Liberal Democrats from being "the real opposition" to a real party of power? Only as a result of a quirk of the electoral system, I argue in my latest podcast which rounds-up last week's Lib Dem conference in Brighton.

You can listen to it in full HERE or read the text version HERE.

Decent, statesmanlike - but political valium

In the last hour - as they say on the BBC - Sir Menzies Campbell has sat down after delivering his first annual conference speech as leader of the Liberal Democrats. And first off, I have to say that the speech contained many good things, notably some judicious and well-founded attacks on the two main parties.

Yes, Tony Blair has squandered an historic opportunity to build a progressive consensus. Yes, the gap between rich and poor is now wider than it was under Mrs Thatcher. And yes, a Government which came into power to "save" the NHS is now closing hospitals.

As for David Cameron - well as Ming oh-so-rightly said, where was he when Mr Blair was allowing Britain to be sucked into its biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez? In the Government lobby backing military action against Iraq, that's where.

All good stuff. But political parties - especially those that aspire to be "serious," cannot live by attacks on the opposition alone. And as their conference week in Brighton draws to a close, I am still struggling to work out what the Lib Dems now stand for - other than not being Labour or the Tories of course.

During the last two elections, the party at least had a unique selling point. Okay, so the 50p top rate of tax was more of a symbol than a genuine instrument of redistribution, but it was a potent symbol nonetheless that put clear yellow water between the Lib Dems and the other parties.

Now the party has ditched it in favour of a fiendishly complex set of tax proposals, the main effect of which will be to take hundreds of thousands of middle-income income earners out of the 40pc bracket and into the 22pc bracket. While this might well prove a vote winner if the Tories or Labour don't nick it first, progressive taxation it isn't.

As for Sir Menzies himself, besides the palpable decency and obvious statesmanlike qualities, where was the spark, the star quality that is going to force the public to stand up and take notice as they did with Cameron a year ago?

I listened to today's speech open to being convinced that he is the right man to lead the party. But alas, I remain to be.

Kennedy could still be a contender, says White

I am not sure whether this piece by Mike White is entirely helpful to Charles Kennedy, but it does show there are other, more respectable commentators than me who think he could plausibly lead the Lib Dems again one day.

Ming's Dynasty: Where are you when we need you?

The late, lamented satirical blog Ming's Dynasty, formed in the aftermath of the Lib Dem leadership election earlier this year, would have had a field day with the current goings-on in the party.

Welsh Assembly Member Peter Black kicked it all off last week with a well-argued piece on his blog saying that Ming Campbell needed to shape up by the time of September's party conference - or ship out.

Then the News of the Screws claimed on Sunday that Charles Kennedy planned to challenge Ming in an audacious bid to regain the party leadership, leading to a spate of denial stories in this morning's papers.

Meanwhile, over at Conservative Home, they are once again talking up the leadership chances of their favourite Lib Dem Nick Clegg - the one they hope will split his party by leading the Orange Bookers into a coalition with the Chameleon.

To make matters worse, Lib Dem blogger Jonathan Calder has written a piece in today's Guardian which, while attempting to defend Ming, actually serves to highlight his real problem.

In his piece, Jonathan argues that Lib Dem image-makers should stop trying to turn Ming into something he isn't and just "let Ming be Ming."

Well, I have a fair amount of respect for Jonathan whose blog is by some way the best of the bunch as far as Lib Dem blogs are concerned, but this argument is so manifestly ludicrous that it needs to be countered.

The problem is in fact diametrically the opposite - not that Ming isn't being allowed to be Ming, but that Ming is Ming.

Oaten makes a wise move

A curious reticence seems to have descended on the Lib Dem blogosphere over the long-overdue announcement by Mark Oaten that he is standing down as an MP at the next election.

Doubtless it stems from that very British desire not to kick a man when he is down, and in some senses I sympathise with that.

In others, though, I think this has been a deeply unsatisfactory episode in terms of the relationship between politicians and the public, and the role of the media in maintaining that relationship.

It was regularly alleged that "the media establishment," or "the Lobby" had kept Charles Kennedy's drinking a secret. Well, likewise, the News of the Screws decided the great British public didn't really need to know the details of what Oaten had been getting up to with rent boys, saying only that it was "too revolting to describe."

I understand their reasons, of course, but in a case such as this, what you then end up with is a situation where the public only gets half the story and is hence not able to make an informed judgement about whether they want someone to represent them.

In this instance, the nature of the "revolting" act is and always was the story, because it is this, rather than the fact that Oaten used rent boys, which would persuade most normal people not to vote for him.

As it is, thanks in part to the blogosphere and its ability to disemminate material such as this, Oaten probably concluded in the end that enough people knew the truth to make his position untenable.

Amidst all the self-delusion that has characterised his career in recent months, including thinking that he could be leader of the Liberal Democrats, he at least deserves to be congratulated for finally recognising the reality of this.

Kennedy "twice as popular as Ming" - poll

This story speaks for itself. It requires no more comment from me really, other than to say to those Lib Dem MPs whose sheer, unparalleled act of political genius it was to replace Charles with Ming last January: We told you so!

The lost leader returns

I watched Charles Kennedy on Question Time last night, his first appearance on national television since his resignation. And he was brilliant, just brilliant.

Given by the audience reaction to him, his rapport with the public remains as strong as ever and his answers were invariably both sensible and judicious, including one to a question from Dimbleby about whether he was now teetotal.

When he was asked about a possible return to the leadership in future, Charles made clear he was not ruling it out, bringing further cheers from an audience that clearly thought he should never have lost the job in the first place.

Bring it on, I say. Besides mumbling Ming and over-hyped political teenager Nick Clegg, Kennedy remains a class act.

Progressive Disenfranchisement

I've had a fair amount to say recently about political cross-dressing, mainly in relation to David Cameron's attempts to re-occupy the centre ground and, in some circumstances, to triangulate his policies to the left of Tony Blair.

The one aspect of this I've not touched on so far, however, is the attempt by the Liberal Democrats to steal the Tories clothes by posing as tax cutters and abandoning their credentials as a progressive party by ditching the 50p top rate of tax.

Let me be honest about my own position. I believe in redistributive taxation, and furthermore I believe that people like me who are on decent incomes ought, in general, to pay a bigger proportion of those incomes in tax. "From each according to his means, to each according to his need" seems to me a basic ethical Christian principle that should underpin the way we do politics.

But no mainstream party is now advocating this sort of taxation system in any real sense. Even the Lib Dems, petrified that the rise of Cameron will deprive them of votes in Middle England, cannot any longer bring themselves to argue that people earning £100,000 a year or more should pay slightly more tax than those of us earning £30,000.

What this means is that whole swathes of opinion on the progressive left of politics are steadily becoming more and more disenfranchised, accelerating the process that begun under New Labour as a result of Blair's abandonment of anything resembling democratic socialism.

It's still not too late for Labour to do something about that before the next election - see post below - but what about the Lib Dems?

Well, sadly, I have seen nothing over the past three months to make me think I was in any way mistaken in my initial assessment of Charles Kennedy's overthrow as party leader and his replacement by Ming Campbell: that it was a mistake the party would come to regret.

From being the nice party in British politics, the one which actually seemed to stand for something rather than bending with every wind, they have now ditched both their leader and their most distinctive policy in what I believe will prove a vain attempt to counter the Cameron threat.

We read this weekend that Mr Kennedy himself regrets not standing in the leadership election which he triggered. I'll bet he does - with his popularity among the party grassroots, he would have won hands down.

Yet as Kennedy surmised and as a recent post on Jonathan Calder's Liberal England blog confirms, strenuous efforts were made by senior party figures such as Lord Steel to ensure an uncontested coronation for Ming Campbell.

Although Chris Huhne and Simon Hughes did their best to prevent that outcome, the end result of all these stupid machinations was that the party ended up with a leader far less popular than the one they had - and no more effective in the House of Commons for all that - and with policies far less distinctive or attractive than the ones on which they fought the last two elections.

Is it any wonder that some of us are considering voting Tory?

Oh no, Oaten's on Question Time...

Mark Oaten's attempts to rehabilitate himself as a serious politician continue tonight with an appearance on Question Time.

For my part, I reckon he should take Jonathan Calder's advice and concentrate on being the MP for Winchester. (NB This post is, in part, just an excuse to link to the best headline I have seen in the blogosphere this year.)

Ming's birthday blues

BBC online's Nick Assinder has become the latest pundit to question whether Ming Campbell - 65 today - is up to the job of Lib Dem leader.

"Some have started re-examining the way former leader Charles Kennedy was ousted. Mr Kennedy, remember, took the Lib Dems to historic electoral heights only last year, and appeared to have a rapport with ordinary voters," he writes.

"The question that some are asking is whether the fact that there has been a successful Lib Dem leadership coup once this Parliament means there is more, or less, appetite for more leadership turmoil before the next election."

I think I know the answer to the last question....

Jury still out on Ming

Differing opinions on the blogosphere today on whether Ming Campbell's problems have worsened or eased following this afternoon's PMQs.

Iain Dale: Ming Bombs Again at Question Time
Guido: Ming Doesn't Mess Up PMQs
Recess Monkey: Ming the Mindless
Skipper: Reading the Clues at PMQs

Unfortunately I didn't see it, so am unable to add my two penn'orth on this occasion, but I doubt there's much he could do to alter my view that the Lib Dems have made a big mistake.