Further to my story about Ming below I have now read the BBC report of Ming's Today interview HERE. The interesting bit is the last sentence...
"I will lead the party through this parliament, through the next general election and beyond, and no-one should be in any doubt about that."
Does it not remind you of the time in 2003 when Iain Duncan Smith bounded out of Central Office to tell the waiting media: "I'm in charge"?
It was at that point that we all knew he was not. And so it goes for Ming.
18 comments:
The Michael Howard part will be played by whom, exactly?
Dave & Hilton please note.
Some uf us lib dems are hoping hoping hoping you are right - but then would the nauseous Nick be much better?
perhaps we and the Labour Party should share Dave the Chameleon for the next decade while the Tories work out what a policy position on anyything is?
What do Ming Campbell & Iain Duncan Smith Have in Common?
They are incredibly dull fellows.
Mike
He's doomed.
Too incompetent with too many ambitious young turks under him. Also I would suggest that as Gordon's best mate it's unlikely that he'd coutenance a governing coalition with Dave in the (likely) event of a hung parliament. Clegg and Laws would have a very different idea and have already tasted blood with the knifing of the hapless Kennedy.......
i think ming is the biggest mistake made by a huge number of naive and inexperienced ambitious newly elected MPs last year. those who thought that suddenly having been elected to parliament they 'knew it all'. The problem with them and the rest of them is that the vast majority of them know nothing other than politics and sadly are very short on real life. However that said I don't think anyone should be in any doubt that even if he didn't wield the knife, he sharpened it. And i suspect he'd do so again if people get in his way. so the blood-letting continues.
never underestimate the extermination of a marked man.
You cannot have missed, Iain, the wonderful "The Thick of it", where bloggers and blogging were heavily themed throughout.
In particular mention was made of a senior politician who is pursuaded to lose the tie and get his own blog - which he does not of course write himself.
Now, I wonder who that could be?
The Minger fights on and fights to win!
Seeing as it's prediction season, I will dispense with the wise words of Glenn Hoddle ("I never make predictions and I never will") and treat you to this gem...
May will be an enjoyable month for the Conservatives (outside Scotland, anyway).
Tony Blair will step down on his tenth anniversary as Prime Minister, kicking off one leadership 'contest'.
Then, following dismal election results, Menzies Campbell will be persuaded to step down 'for health reasons' by Vince Cable, although plans for a stable and orderly transition to Nick Clegg will be scuppered when Chris Huhne, backed by Susan Kramer and, surprisingly, the 'old guard' (Simon Hughes, Charles Kennedy, David Heath, Paddy Ashdown etc) launches a leadership bid in order to 'let the members have their say', ensuring a proper leadership contest.
The changes at the top of the Liberal Democrats will also see Lembit Opik forced out as leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats on the same day, at which point, he will announce his intention to stand down as an MP at the next election to focus on his 'blossoming' media career - although rumoured appearances as a guest judge on The X Factor and as a contestant on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here amount to nothing other than a brief spell as a pixie in panto in Grimsby.
Ironically, Opik's successor as Liberal Democrat candidate for Montgomeryshire will be an intimate acquaintance who was Liberal Democrat candidate for another Welsh seat in 2005...
So, that being so, it leaves Gordon and David. Great choice.
The really funny thing about Ming Campbell is that as Charlie Kennedy's deputy he was arguably more responsible for allowing things to go on too long than anyone else was.
He should never have been elected as anything more than a caretaker leader - but the MPs were panicked 'into 'action' which was, in reality the nearest thing to inaction' going.
Actully Iain, you're wrong.
In the same way as you cannot udnerstand why the lib Dem were not interested enouygh to talk about three non-entities standing in non target seats joinging the Tories three weeks ago. In the same way as you said on the radio the other day that "even Lib Dems don't know their party's own policies", you are wrong.
The problem is Iain, for all your knowledge and links. For all your insight and contacts. For all your undoubted abilities, you don't seem to quite understand the Lib Dems.
Anyway, this wasn't mean as a personal insult to you.
Best wiahes for your business and personal (not political) interests in 2007. Nich
Hmmmm...you are rather assuming that they have a 'cameronesque' heir to Blair waiting in the wings...
After the last fiasco, I think they will just sit tight for the moment, and maybe do the 'skip a generation' thing after the next election.
Mind you, if Lembit can keep his nose clean...
I think Ming will hold on at least until the election. Ming is a bit like Hitler in that the British (ie the other parties) don't know whether to try to assasinate him or leave him where he is an can do more damage to the Lib Dems as leader.
Completely off topic but I thought this might appeal. Ok, so I'm not Beau Bo D'Or...
End of plug.
Ming? Didn't see him in This Life.
IDS united the Tories on Europe, made them the largest party in local government, and took them to parity and beyond in the polls without anything like the now-permanent 34% (pending new political formations) that has to factored out of headline figures for expressing a fixed and firm intention not to vote.
The 2005 Election looked like being a proper contest, between an economic neoliberal/foreign policy neocon, and a High Tory who played well in the areas where Elections are actually won and lost.
So the High Tory was knifed, in order to ensure that neoliberal economic policies and a neocon foreign policy continued under a notionally Labour PM, at least until a notionally Tory MP in the same mould could be found and made Leader. That has now happened, with Cameron to face the economic uber-Thatcherite, and foreign policy uber-hawk, Gordon Brown.
Which brings us to Ming. Actually, in the tardition of Gladstone, Lloyd George and, er, Ashdown, he is a lot more hawkish than his predecessor. And as an old Liberal, rather than an old SDP hand, his economic views are also much closer to the current unpopular, pernicious "consensus".
But there is something else at work here: Ming is neither public school nor Oxford (not Oxbridge, Oxford). Unlike Blair. Unlike Cameron. And unlike Chris Huhne, who read for the same degree as Cameron in exactly the same years as Blair. So poor old Ming simply has to go. And watch your back, Gordon...
"They are incredibly dull fellows."
Indeed. You'd just love to answer: "they both had a steamy affair with Angela Rippon/Carol Vorderman/John Redwood", but you know damned well you won't be able to.
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