Politics

Sir Menzies Campbell will either be sacked or will end up in the Cabinet

Wednesday, 12th September 2007

There is just one consolation for Sir Menzies Campbell as he prepares for his second and probably last conference as Liberal Democrat leader: they will not come after him in Brighton.

If today’s polls were tomorrow’s election results, Sir Menzies would be leading his troops into a massacre — from 63 seats to just 35, according to the latest YouGov research. That would be the sharpest retreat since Jeremy Thorpe lost half the Liberal party’s seats in June 1970. Such a prospect will give extra fervour to the Lib Dem prayer groups which normally start each day’s conference meeting: the end may indeed be nigh.

By no means all of this is Sir Menzies’s fault. At the last election, his party was alone in campaigning on the environment and against the Iraq war. Now the Conservative party logo is a fuzzy green tree, and the Iraq debate is now simply about when to withdraw troops from Basra. The Lib Dems have remained ideologically steady, while others have changed. This is the problem. The voice of the party, once distinctive, is drowned out by the Cameron v Brown screaming match.

Without any of the ultimatums or drama that attended Charles Kennedy’s downfall, the party has decided that Sir Menzies is for the chop. The battle to succeed him has already started. There are two frontrunners: Chris Huhne, the ambitious environment spokesman, and Nick Clegg, the party’s affable home affairs spokesman. Both have featured with suspicious regularity in the gazette pages of the Liberal Democrat News, giving speeches to distant constituencies.

As next week’s conference may be the last before a party leadership election, both will be setting out their stalls at fringe events, so the party can size them up. Both are Westminster School alumni and both have two years’ experience in the Commons. Mr Clegg looks younger than his 40 years, and sounds like a Tory without being on the party’s right wing. ‘But he is not quite battle-ready,’ says one supporter. Mr Huhne, 53, came second in the last leadership campaign, but critics say he is too grey a character and entered politics too late to lay a serious claim to the party’s leadership.

It is hard not to pity Sir Menzies. At least Iain Duncan Smith had to face a real rebellion. The Lib Dems are carrying on as if their leader is already finished. While Sir Menzies will be at the podium shouting his two key messages (‘tax the rich, not the poor’ and ‘Cameron isn’t really green’), his party will be focused on whether Mr Huhne is too dull or Mr Clegg too lightweight.