Monday, January 09, 2006
Let the contest begin
Monday 9th January 2006 - What an incredible start to the new year this has been already!
When I resolved to try and maintain my blog more regularly as the fireworks exploded above my head at midnight on 31st December I had no idea that another fuse was about to be lit that would result in the resignation on Saturday of Lib Dem Leader Charles Kennedy.
Whatever your views abut his leadership style or his personal problems, there can be no doubting in my mind that Charles was a terrific leader of our Party whose legacy is best represented by the record number of MP's we now have in Parliament.
Personally I will be backing Sir Ming Campbell to become the new Leader but it is right we have a contest and Ming is given the backing of the membership as a whole and I suspect both Simon Hughes and Mark Oaten will join the race. I wish them both good luck and I know whatever the outcome the Party will unite around its new Leader when it is resolved.
Let the contest begin!!
When I resolved to try and maintain my blog more regularly as the fireworks exploded above my head at midnight on 31st December I had no idea that another fuse was about to be lit that would result in the resignation on Saturday of Lib Dem Leader Charles Kennedy.
Whatever your views abut his leadership style or his personal problems, there can be no doubting in my mind that Charles was a terrific leader of our Party whose legacy is best represented by the record number of MP's we now have in Parliament.
Personally I will be backing Sir Ming Campbell to become the new Leader but it is right we have a contest and Ming is given the backing of the membership as a whole and I suspect both Simon Hughes and Mark Oaten will join the race. I wish them both good luck and I know whatever the outcome the Party will unite around its new Leader when it is resolved.
Let the contest begin!!
Comments:
If politics is a greasy pole, as Charles Kennedy has sadly discovered, then his obvious successor, Simon Hughes, now needs to seize that pole with a very firm grip.
Hughes is respected in all quarters as decent, compassionate, urbane, witty, intelligent, principled and also vastly experienced.
More to the point, for the future of the Lib Dems, he is hugely popular with the public.
For all his personal qualities, that easy affection which people from all walks of life offer him is the most significant reason why he is the right man to lead them into a share of Government later this year.
After half a generation of a "New Labour" experiment that has ended up looking as clueless and lacklustre as the dying and dreary Conservative administration it replaced, Britain is long overdue the freshness and vitality that has always characterised the bulk of the Liberal Democrat policy canon.
That's why the Lib Dem membership owe it to the country to choose the man whose electability offers them the best chance of a serious role in Government that has beckoned many times but hitherto remained tantalisingly just out of reach.
In short: cometh the hour, cometh Mr Hughes.
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Hughes is respected in all quarters as decent, compassionate, urbane, witty, intelligent, principled and also vastly experienced.
More to the point, for the future of the Lib Dems, he is hugely popular with the public.
For all his personal qualities, that easy affection which people from all walks of life offer him is the most significant reason why he is the right man to lead them into a share of Government later this year.
After half a generation of a "New Labour" experiment that has ended up looking as clueless and lacklustre as the dying and dreary Conservative administration it replaced, Britain is long overdue the freshness and vitality that has always characterised the bulk of the Liberal Democrat policy canon.
That's why the Lib Dem membership owe it to the country to choose the man whose electability offers them the best chance of a serious role in Government that has beckoned many times but hitherto remained tantalisingly just out of reach.
In short: cometh the hour, cometh Mr Hughes.
