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?

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.

The greatness of Denis Healey

Regular readers of this blog might by now have cottoned-on to the fact that Denis Healey is one of my political heroes. This week he has been showing why.

Interviewed by the BBC's Andrew Marr on Sunday, he said Tony Blair should quit now in favour of Gordon Brown, a course of action which I have been urging on the Prime Minister for some considerable time.

Now, in his Daily Telegraph column, Marr has revealed the delightful story of what Healey said in the studio afterwards to Ruth Kelly, the youthful Education Secretary who was also being interviewed.

You can read it here.