We have just asked Sir Menzies Campbell when he last poked someone. The face of the Liberal Democrat leader registers utter astonishment, a flush of alarm then a hint of anger. Poking is, we hurriedly assure him, a technical term, from Facebook, which he was the first party leader to sign up to. “Ah. I was encouraged to do that . . . I’ve got someone who monitors it for me because there are quite a lot of other things going on,” he says. Indeed there are.
In the year and a half since Sir Menzies became leader, his party’s ratings have remained low, leading to mutterings about whether he is too old for the new generation of voters. There are even suggestions that his predecessor, Charles Kennedy, with his Have I Got News For You popular appeal, might make a comeback. Sir Menzies is expected to face a rough ride at the party’s annual conference next weekend. You cannot accuse Sir Menzies, or at least his aides, of failing to recognise the problem. On the table between us lies a briefing sheet for the barrister, Olympic athlete, cancer survivor and the only senior MP to have read Iraq right, from the start.
“You should assume,” the adviser wrote, “that Alice and Helen are coming into the room expecting to find someone who is old, tired and lacking in the vision that leadership requires. For the interview you need to bear this in mind by being positive, purposeful and by being relaxed when they ask personal questions.” All senior politicians get memos like this before interviews; few are unguarded enough to leave them in view...
Bless.
11 comments:
LibDems should continue to stick with "Ming"
He's by far the best leader the LibDems have lumbered themselves with in in decade or more.
The sketch of him tucked up in a rocking chair, covered with a blanket and sucking a Werther's Old Original is absolutely priceless.
Nighty night as "Ming" would say.
There's a lot of us waiting until you're 65 Iain so we can patronise you. Not that we really need to wait that long. Bless.
I love it. That memo might just as well have said, “you’re useless, please resign.”
The last gentleman politician.
"the only senior MP to have read Iraq right, from the start."
Er, Ming wanted to support the Government; it was Kennedy who persuaded him otherwise, and was partly able to do so as Ming was engaged with his health issues. Had Ming not been distracted, it's very possible the LibDems may have supported the Iraq war.
I'm glad The Times said that Ming 'called Iraq right from the start'. Indeed he did, remarking at the time of publication of the September dossier: "We all agree that [Saddam Hussein] is in flagrant breach of a series of UN resolutions, and in particular those relating to his duty to allow the inspection, and indeed participate in the destruction, of his weapons of mass destruction. We can also agree that he most certainly has chemical and biological weapons and is working towards a nuclear capability. The dossier contains confirmation of information that we either knew or most certainly should have been willing to assume."
It was only later he started to say that despite believing that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and had attacked other countries, he didn't think we should act to contain the threat of them.
So Ming doesn't know about Facebook ? So f***ing what ? I don't give a toss about ebay - it doesn't make me an old fart.
Just because some of us have lives which don't consist of spending 20 hours a day 'blogging' doesn't mean we are out of touch - it just means we have a life.
As 'Comes to us all' said, I bet you don't understand the lingo that 'yoof' in the Staines Massive use - I doubt if you would take to being patronised in such a condescending manner very well, especially as you are a 'middle-aged grumpy tubby tiger'..
A typically uninformed anonymous post. Thge reason it is relevant is that Ming Campbell has a FAcebook profile and his lackeys keep maintaining that he operates it himself. I believe one of them once said that he looks at Facebook every day. That is transparently nonsense, and if he did do that, we'd question his use of time, wouldn't we?
I spend about an hour a day on my blog by the way, probably less than you posting purile anonymous comments, I guess. Which of us is the sadder?
Laurence: the article also said '...the only senior MP to have read Iraq right, from the start.'
That's substance, and good judgement.
Blair dragged us into an illegal war, Brown bankrolled it (inadequately, according to my serving friends, one of whom reported going into Iraq with just five rounds in his rifle). Michael Howard cheerled, Cameron voted for it. Now we have a more unstable middle east.
Had the 'useless' Ming Campbell view prevailed, I think would would be a (marginally) safer place than the Blair and his imps have left it.
when you say senior MP on Iraq
you of course thought of Alex Salmond Adam Price et al
Setting aside what I think of LD policies - I'm a staunch Conservative - I did think it was very poor editorial judgement for the Saturday Times editor to allow that quote from the internal LD memo to be printed.
I can understand why the journalists wanted to but whoever was on duty for Saturday's paper diminished the STimes by using the quotes.
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