How do you solve a problem like Ming?
3:22pm
Last night’s Newsnight interview with Ming summed up the problems the Lib Dems face. First of all, Ming only got 15 minutes at the end of the show compared to the full length, star attraction treatment that Brown and Cameron got. Second, the interview revolved around the Lib Dem’s leadership troubles—a trend Campbell exacerbated by choosing to quibble over every piece of polling data his inquisitors challenged him with. Third, Ming’s performance was poor. (Although, to be fair, he was much better on the Today Programme this morning.)
The conventional wisdom is that the Lib Dems can’t afford to get rid of two leaders inside a parliament; especially as an election still might just be called before the turn of the year. It is also true as Steve Richards and Rachel Sylvester points out in their columns that the Lib Dems would be being squeezed whoever was leader. But it would still be worth the Lib Dems changing leader. A leadership contest would get the party noticed again and the two likely candidates, Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne, are both more impressive media performers than the current incumbent. The Lib Dems also desperately need to seem fresh again, which is about the last adjective you would associate with Sir Ming. Furthermore, a new leader would also increase the Lib Dem’s flexibility in a hung Parliament. But with Ming showing no sign of falling on his sword, the Lib Dems will almost certainly steer shy of a second coup.
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Comments
Clegg and Huhne are over rated. The media are talking them up now, but they;d rip them apart come a contest.
Anthony C
September 18th, 2007 3:58pmWhat's this big thing with Huhne? I keep encountering people who rate him, but I don't get it. In fairness, I've only encountered him through the medium of the telly, but my general impression of him is that he comes over as a bit of a prat. I thought his performance during the Lib Dem leadership contest was pretty dicey too.
Tiberius
September 18th, 2007 4:45pmThe problem with Ming is he has fire. There was a definite twinkle in his eyes last night, as he fought with his inquisitors. Compare this with Kennedy of the expressionless visage and droning Scottish burr, best put to use to cure insomnia. No doubt Huhne would attract ratings nearer to those of Kennedy. Do the pollsters actually seek out lobotomised members of the public?
cdc
September 18th, 2007 5:24pmlove coffee break... but that mercedes ad is doing my head in
MikeA
September 18th, 2007 5:25pmThe LibDems are doomed at the next election by a 3rd party squeeze unless they can differentiate themselves from the Tories and Labour. Ask youself what's the LibDem USP? I've not seen it so far other than one of economic illiteracy. Changing leader will only change the degree to which the LibDems get hammered at the polls. However Hughne has an incentive to strike for leadership as he is unlikely to hold Eastleigh at the next election....
David Lindsay
September 18th, 2007 6:32pmIt is a matter of record (if I am wrong, then let someone official come on here and deny it) that Menzies Campbell had wanted to support the Iraq War, but Charles Kennedy stopped him. Paddy Ashdown supported it, and the Lib Dems had of course pioneered support for neocon wars under him, enthusiastically cheering on the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. Along with the neoliberal economics that leads to it and which provides its only rationale, neconservative geopolitics is the coming force among the Lib Dems, along with Euroscepticism (jolly good, though incompatible with neoliberal economics or neoconservative geopolitics). And, I confidently predict, along with opposition to the former Holy Grail of the Single Transferable Vote for multimember constituencies (again, jolly good), as the penny drops about just how ill-served the Lib Dem heartlands of the West Country, the North and South of Scotland, and Mid-Wales would be by such a system. It is also possible that Highland, Island, Border and Mid-Welsh disaffection with the Central Scottish Parliament and the South Welsh Assembly, as well as the Alliance Party's disaffection with the DUP-Sinn Fein carve-up at Stormont, might turn the Lib Dems into (jolly good) hardline Unionists. All in all, the Lib Dems as we have known them are finished.
James Forsyth
September 18th, 2007 6:44pmDavid, My understanding is that what Ming cautioned Charles Kennedy on was addressing the big anti-war march on the grounds that many of the people involved in organising were motiavted more by anti-Americanism than anything else. James
David Lindsay
September 19th, 2007 9:21amJames, I blogged to the same effect yesterday (I can't again until about 5pm - I admit it, I'm on an office computer at the moment), and this morning's inbox was packed with emails from, shall we say, old friends who are now something in or around the Lib Dems, telling me that I am very bad for making this insider information public. Something similar happened earlier in the week, when media and Labour types emailed me in some numbers to say that I shouldn't have let the Great Unwashed in on the Miranda/Emily Blair business. Well, I replied then that it had been in the Spectator two weeks running, so it couldn't be all that secret anymore. And I reply now that Andrew Neil said it on television months ago, so it can't have been all that secret for quite a while, if ever.
David Lindsay
September 19th, 2007 10:51amThis morning's inbox was packed with emails from, shall we say, old friends who are now something in or around the media or the Lib Dems, telling me that I was very bad for making insider information public. Specifically, fo telling common people that Ming had supported the Iraq War in principle but been slapped down by Charles Kennedy. Something similar happened earlier in the week, when media and Labour types emailed me in some numbers to say that I shouldn't have let the Great Unwashed in on the Miranda/Emily Blair business. Well, I replied then that it had been in the Spectator two weeks running, so it couldn't be all that secret anymore. And I reply now that Andrew Neil said it on television months ago, so it can't have been all that secret for quite a while, if ever.
Richard
September 19th, 2007 11:31amDL: "neconservative geopolitics is the coming force among the Lib Dems, along with Euroscepticism". Um, what? The official anti-war, secretly socialist demogogues? And isn't it pretty much accepted nowadays that our lack of involvement in the Balkans was a mistake? (not to open a can of worms here)