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.

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.

To the hills....

I'm off here this weekend - Llanthony Priory in South Wales for the stag do of my oldest friend for whom I'm best-manning in April. Be back Monday assuming I survive the whitewater rafting!