Everybody accepts that it wasn’t a great start, that he’s improved considerably,
this conference speech went really well and he knows all the time that the party
has to do better, that’s my job, collectively, and the leader obviously has to
do better, get better at getting the message across better, at getting the
policy out better, at making sure that out there people understand that Labour
and Tory are often the same on policy, we offer a difference. Now, he will do
that, I’m confident he’ll do that...
You have to indulge in a bit of translation in this interview. For example...
“Ming has the capacity lead us strongly” – i.e. he’s not doing so now.
Hughes says party is strong on policy and organisation – which leaves leadership as the reason why they’re tanking, presumably.
I love the bit where he says he didn’t come into politics to “down people” – apart from Ming Campbell, that is!!
19 comments:
I dont think this is coded at all. He has said the same thing before. Everyone in the Lib Dems DOES have to do more and do better and that must START from the top.
This doesnt mean that the top is necessarily to blame, it's just realistic.
It's sloppy journalism to try and make this in to some sort of Ming bashing.
Good post - but Guido has one v. similar, are you both spinning from the same spin sheet? Thanks for blogging Iain, really enjoy reading your stuff.
Obviously, you weren't on This Week, which had a bit about age in politics.
It turns out that Tony Blackburn is the same age as Ming.
Now, your favourite straight man, ol'Portaloo, reckons its all in the mind and all about perception.
On that score, Ming is rogered, and rogered hard by the Highland Light Infantry, without lubricant.
Poor old Ming comes over all old. He looks like Dumbledore and acts like Dot Cotton. Perception is all, and I perceive that poor old Campbell is a paradigm of prehistoricity.
I watched Simon Hughes last night.
He was obviously wielding a fishmonger's gutting knife.
Simon's eyes made a dead fish on a slab appear alive by comparison- the man appears to have as much personality as a 10 day dead turbot..
I used to enjoy Ming when he was deputy minister for? during the Iraq war days. He was full of fire and go.
Nowadays it looks as if the cares of leadership are bearing down hard on him.. not as bad as on GB... but a care nevertheless.
It's not sloppy journalism to blame Ming for the LibDems travails. the man bottled it on a referendum - which would have had popular support .. and appears a Brown supporter.
These Scots MPs are a real pia how they stick together (they may not but that's the impression Ming gives)..
Surely Ming has learned from his stitch-up of chatshow charlie that as soon as there is dissension in the ranks it has to be quelled. By firing squaddies if necessary.. But Ming will not do that because firing these people will give them to much freedom on the back benches, and loads of time to indulge in further plotting.
Portillo also made the point that though Ming is perceived as performing badly because of his age, the reality is that Ming performs badly because he's not up to the job.
I quite like Ming and regard this age thing with the same contempt I regarded the Hague baldness thing.
Simon Hughes on the other hand is a world class anus ( medically speaking ).
The straight choice for Bermondsey ?
A fellow Islington Conservative who works for Willets ( or did ) most inadvisably grew a beard. He met Simon Hughes in the lift who assumed he was a Liberal and was gushing until my chum got out at the Tory floor .
The second Hughes discovered he changed his attitude stuck his nose in the air and woud not converse.
He is a real slime ball and I hope Ming tells him to stick it up his ...except he`s enjoy that. Ano 2.12 ;grow up ,of course its Ming bashing ,he`ll be out before the next election. Its a shame but on the other hand I think CLegg might be someone with whom we can do business against the authoritarian Brown
( If it is Brown ...!)
Hughes is rattled. On present poll ratings he loses his seat, and that's ignoring how tired of him and his party's behaviour on the Council voters are round these parts, the momentum of the Labour campaign, and the return of Conservatism to a key demographic in the East of the constituency which has previously voted 'tactically' for the Liberals.
Very shoddy piece of advertising from messagespace and 18 Doughty Street on your site Iain.
Clicking the pause or sound off button on the Jeffrey Archer video takes you to 18 Doughty Street.
An error or naff marketing ?
Will Hughes stick the knife straight in?
Never mind no comment on LibDemVoice it seems like no LibDemVoice period to me.
Has it been taken off?
But it couldn't happen to a nicer party. Hughes thinks they are strong on policy and organisation?
What policies? In Scotland all they've become are the parrots for the Labour party - cue for a Monty Python sketch there.
Organisation? They only have about 4000 members in Scotland and they are mainly concentrated in the seats they hold - well the ones they weren't losing in Maym
All in all a joke of a party full of careerist snobs jumping on anti other party votes.
Did you know that a greater proportion of the LibDems MPs are from Oxbridge compared to the Tories?
Clearly not the only person to have noticed the uncanny similarity between this and Guido's post:
Damning Ming with faint praise, Simon Hughes has just done an interview with GMTV for broadcast on Sunday:
Simon Hughes …the leadership is always an issue in all of the parties, we live in a presidential system and therefore the leader has to continually do well and better and he had a good conference, he did a very good speech, it was meant to be the best conference speech he’s made since being leader, and Ming knows that and there’s no sign that he’s not up for that as a task.
Steve Richards So just to clarify, he has to do better?
Simon Hughes Well, of course, because he started, everybody accepts that it wasn’t a great start, that he’s improved considerably, this conference speech went really well and he knows all the time that the party has to do better, that’s my job, collectively, and the leader obviously has to do better, get better at getting the message across better, at getting the policy out better...
Later on Hughes says, referring to Cameron, he didn’t come into politics to “down people”. Well apart from Ming...
Labels: libdems
at 10/12/2007 01:41:0
What's the point of the LibDems anyway ? A refuge for pissed off Labour people who would never switch to Conservative ?
Both Iain and Guido aren't reporting the bigger story here.....
Both Iain and Guido are failing to report bigger story here....
2 things.
First, about all the sneering at Ming's age, appearance etc. Ming had serious prostate cancer only 5 years ago and that really takes the energy and stamina out of you. Permanently.
Second, John you muppet, Simon Hughes is not about to lose his seat. In all probability Simon Hughes will only lose his seat if murders the queen or takes a bribe from osama bin laden. His personal vote plus liberal vote plus tactical vote = safe seat.ygr
the reason why iain and guido did the same story is because they both receive the pre-release transcripts from GMTV, presumably. it's a story - do you people slag off The Times because they cover the same story as the Daily Telegraph? actually, don't answer that.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats are finished as any serious political force; and it was done by themselves and an immature reaction to the election result.
By being in coaltion with Labour in Government in Scotland they are now widely seen as being in coalition with them in opposition.
The Conservatives and Gnats will make hay with this at election times. Vote LibDem get Labour. So any anti-Labour votes they used to get are now lost. Hence why their poll ratings are abysmal up north. Worse than they are in England.
Labour won't care if the other parties do that because it'll just mean the soft Labour vote that votes LibDem will go to them in such a squeeze.
They've also destroyed their Unique Selling Point of being the continual party of Government. The party which keeps a break on the excess of the other two.
By failing to even and sit with the Gnats about coalition discussions they've allowed them to set up as a minority Government and show that it can work. No one cares Parliamentary votes are lost. It's become part of the political landscape in Scotland.
By doing that they've even destroyed any comeback they could have with Labour. They'll just establish a minority Government if they ever become the largest party again. But the LibDems are so sore they haven't realised they are being used as useful idiots by Labour.
The Conservatives have a new lease of life in Scotland as the party sitting between Labour and the Gnats. Chastising both whilst backing either on policies where they agree.
Any policies the LibDems have are also held by all of the other parties so why would people now vote for them when they have now established that there is a Scottish Parliamentary system which means many of these policies will now be put into effect by alliances across the three others.
It's all going to get rather messy for them come any election since they have now elevated that question of what they really stand for to the level where ordinary voters are asking it.
It's unbelievable crassness by the LibDems but why should I care.
I don't think they are "strong on policy & organisation" (not unless the organisation has improved considerably since my expulsion). The policy on which they, quite properly did well was opposition to the war, but this was Charlie's position, both Ming & even moreso, Ashdown at best equivocal on this.
The LudDims overriding policy is "environment, environment, environment" as Ming said with characteristic originality. The problems with this are firstly that environment consistently posts last in any poll list of what people consider important issues & secondly that their position that we can survive getting all our electricity from windmills, other largely intermittent renewables & things that "haven't been discoverd yet" (Huhne) is obviously literally insane & will lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths in blackouts.
No leader could sell stuff like that.
It even makes Cameron's environmentalist twaddle look reasonable.
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