Nick Clegg or Chris Huhne: no one can change the Lib Dems’ failure to find a niche

The past week has seen history repeating itself, skipping the tragedy and moving straight to farce. Two weeks ago a Scottish MP, tipped from his first days in the Commons as a future leader of his party and hyped for years as his party’s one true statesman, stood exposed as a leader with a reputation built on so much hot air, and took a decision which plunged his party into chaos.

On Monday a Scottish MP, tipped from his first days in the Commons as a future leader of his party and hyped for years as his party’s one true statesman, stood exposed as a leader with a reputation built on so much hot air, and took a decision which plunged his party into chaos.

The hype surrounding both Gordon Brown and Sir Menzies Campbell has always been puzzling. The Prime Minister is the most overrated politician of the past 30 years: a prosaic thinker, a dreadful strategist, a terrible speaker and — just to ensure his unsuitability as a leader — with a personality which repels rather than attracts.

As for the former leader of the Liberal Democrats: his political career has merely shown the embarrassing extent to which we remain in thrall to men with an easy patrician air. His Commons performances were embarrassing, a strange mix of pompous and clueless. He is at sea in most areas of domestic policy. And although repeatedly referred to as a foreign affairs ‘expert’, nothing in his writings or speeches has shown him to have even a basic understanding of the realities of 21st-century geopolitics.

Both Sir Menzies and Mr Brown’s parties have reason to be grateful that the two men were not quite the dynamic titans that the hype would have had us believe.