In this soundbite age, where people's attention span is getting shorter and shorter, politicians have a very short time to stamp their mark on the political world. Iain Duncan Smith reckoned if you hadn't made clear where you were going or connected with the public in your first hundred days, you were done for - and perhaps he should know. So as Ming Campbell's leadership approaches its fortieth day, some LibDems can be forgiven for asking: WHERE IS MING? In the three weeks I have been doing my conventional wisdom index I have struggled to think of a single day in which Ming Campbell or his Party have been in the news. Ming's said little, done nothing and been almost completely invisible. What's he up to? Or, rather, what isn't he up to? In fact it's worse than that. He has allowed himself to be caricatured as a doddery old man. If that image isn't countered soon that's what the LibDems will have to contend with for the next four years. Forty days into his leadership he has still to appoint a Press Officer. Isn't this something he might have thought about during his leadership campaign? Journalists at the Tory conference in Manchester were telling me that he's impossible to speak to, that no one in senior LibDem circles knows what the strategy is, or even if there is one, and that one or two of the younger LibDem turks are already muttering about the hueg mistake they's made in electing Ming in the first place. However, let's not get carried away. The Dunfermline by-election shows that just when you write the LibDems off they come back to bite you. On May 5th Ming may get a second chance. According to Rallings & Thrasher the LibDems are likely to gain 200 seats in the local elections. Ming will no doubt claim that as a triumph. If that proves to be the case (and I have my doubts) then he should treat May 5th as Day 1 and an oppportunity to jump-start his faltering leadership. Because if he doesn't, there are people in his Party who will be just as ruthless with him, as they were with his predecessor.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Where on Earth is Sir Menzies Campbell?
In this soundbite age, where people's attention span is getting shorter and shorter, politicians have a very short time to stamp their mark on the political world. Iain Duncan Smith reckoned if you hadn't made clear where you were going or connected with the public in your first hundred days, you were done for - and perhaps he should know. So as Ming Campbell's leadership approaches its fortieth day, some LibDems can be forgiven for asking: WHERE IS MING? In the three weeks I have been doing my conventional wisdom index I have struggled to think of a single day in which Ming Campbell or his Party have been in the news. Ming's said little, done nothing and been almost completely invisible. What's he up to? Or, rather, what isn't he up to? In fact it's worse than that. He has allowed himself to be caricatured as a doddery old man. If that image isn't countered soon that's what the LibDems will have to contend with for the next four years. Forty days into his leadership he has still to appoint a Press Officer. Isn't this something he might have thought about during his leadership campaign? Journalists at the Tory conference in Manchester were telling me that he's impossible to speak to, that no one in senior LibDem circles knows what the strategy is, or even if there is one, and that one or two of the younger LibDem turks are already muttering about the hueg mistake they's made in electing Ming in the first place. However, let's not get carried away. The Dunfermline by-election shows that just when you write the LibDems off they come back to bite you. On May 5th Ming may get a second chance. According to Rallings & Thrasher the LibDems are likely to gain 200 seats in the local elections. Ming will no doubt claim that as a triumph. If that proves to be the case (and I have my doubts) then he should treat May 5th as Day 1 and an oppportunity to jump-start his faltering leadership. Because if he doesn't, there are people in his Party who will be just as ruthless with him, as they were with his predecessor.
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9 comments:
I don't think it really matters. The Lib Dems are a protest vote party and as long as people have something to protest about (ie always) they will continue to get around 20% of the vote no matter who their leader is or how bad they are.
From what I have seen he is going for a more local approach- he has been to Hornsey, Bristol and other cities in the last week or so, launching the campaigns there. But yes, you are right, he is nowhere..... which is why we were meant to have got ready of Charles as our leader, isn't it??
...and depressingly the Lib Dems will still win more council seats from Labour than the Conservatives in the local elections on 4th May enabling them to claim (1) another glorious victory (2) that the Tories are going nowhere.
It will also enable those cracked records Heffer and Hitchens to drone on about the Tories being "useless".
Rubbish, but extremely tiresome.
Glass houses and stones, Iain...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2125559,00.html
Inamicus. Rubbish. The point here is that Cameron is proving to be a very active leader and som epeople are bound not to like some of the things he's doing. But at least he's doing it. Unlike Ming Campbell, who seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet.
I agree with Richard. The Lib Dems have a very fuzzy, indistinct but generally cuddly image they like to project. They don't do policy tracts, just vague intentions to do something about liberty or social justice or the environment. They rely on drifting slowly up in the opinion polls, not clawing their way through. They'll never win big, but they will con enough people in tory consituencies to screw us.
I think the answer to your question is
1. sorting out cowley street. the stables are being cleaned
2. below the radar campaign launches across the country. hes getting round plenty.
3. generally well received reshuffle carried out with more care than usual.
now that the RPA has kicked in his election campigning should get more publicity. However who really needs a high profile when the other parties are imploding over loans? remember jennifers ear?
Well, on 22 April, Sir Menzies will be installed as Chancellor of the University of St Andrews, so that should be one obvious sighting.
I've not seen anything so far to dissuade me from my original view that the party was foolish to get rid of Charles Kennedy, or that, having done so, it would be foolish not to elect Chris Huhne as his succeesor.
Ming Campbell does not project any sort of modern image for the Lib Dems. He is an old-style gentleman politician who would have been at home in the era of Harold Macmillan and Hugh Gaitskell but is completely at sea in this more media-dominated age. I don't think any good can come of it for the party, and it would not surprise me in the least if there were another leadership election before the next GE. On that score, it is interesting that some of the young turks have started muttering to the same effect.
Grim Reaper - I think you owe us a better explanation than that for taking down what was proving to be a very entertaining site with a serious and important underlying message. Just because the party is in a cathartic state doesn't mean us bloggers have to be!
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