At the tail end of the leadership campaign, I wrote for Lib Dem Voice about what our new leader should do during his first 100 days. That boiled down to a media blitz – hitting the ground running, etc, etc. Never mind shadow cabinet appointments or internal party anorakking, the new leader had to be on the front foot with the media before he got consumed by them.

I am delighted to report that I think Nick Clegg deserves 10/10 in the hitting the ground running/media blitz stakes. Therefore by the key measure I set (and still set) Nick Clegg has started his leadership brilliantly. He and his team deserve pats on the back and triples all round.

For evidence to back up this, I could do no better than point you to Fraser MacPherson’s excellent round-up of positive coverage for Nick. There was also a glowing leader article in The Guardian.

Basically, Nick has shown that he has sharp elbows and has managed to wedge himself into many media stories on an almost daily basis. Just take the last week. He championed the cause of the Gurkhas. This almost brought tears to my eyes. Normally, championing the cause of veterans would be the exclusive preserve of the Tories. That well known too-smooth operator and law-breaker David Cameron would normally have been presenting the Gurkhas’ case. So well done Nick for turning that old paradigm on its head.

Then, later in the week, Nick managed to get liberally quoted on the subject of Derek Conway MP and the scandalously lax House of Commons expense rules. Another example of sharp elbows. It looks easy, but I am sure there have been sleepless nights and long hours for Nick and his team in order to achieve his high level of media visibility (for a Lib Dem leader).

Of course, the Lisbon treaty thingy has been the main test of Nick’s leadership. Call me an old-fashioned leader sycophant if you like, but I think he rode out that storm with considerable élan and skill. All party leaders face that sort of week. The crucial test is how they handle it. Nick handled it on the front foot, with considerable grace, humour and equanimity. I was particularly impressed that he did the media rounds on the day of the vote (eg, a particularly energetic appearance on Channel 4 News) and appeared relaxed, rational and human.

You only have to look at what hasn’t happened to see what a great success Nick’s first 100 days have been. Read more »

In a week or so’s time, the Lib Dems will have a new leader - either Nick Clegg or Chris Huhne will have succeeded Ming Campbell. Lib Dem Voice is inviting party members to tell us what you think should be his top priorities. First up, is noted Lib Dem blogger, Paul Walter…

Without doubt, the priority for the new leader is to have an almighty media blitz in the first 100 days: Visits, interviews, tours, articles….you name it, the new leader should suddenly appear everywhere 24 hours a day for 100 days.

Can’t be done? Oh all right then, but it should be done as much as possible. If the new leader appears invisible, even for a couple of days of the 100, or falters in any way shape or form, he will be pounced upon as “not as good as Vince Cable” and then that will be it. The new leader will be history. Toast.

I am particularly thinking along the lines of Paddy Ashdown’s ‘Listening to Britain’ tour…or whatever it was that he described in his book that I fell asleep in the middle of.

I am not proposing something exactly like Paddy’s tour, when he rolled up his sleeves and stayed or worked with normal people. But something like that which gives the new leader maximum ‘macho’ visibility for 100 days.

It has to be breathless and, by the way, forget about Christmas – the new leader has to be visible all over the holidays. In particular the new leader should be like a greyhound out of the trap to criticize the government about any events which occur. Shameless hijacking of events should be the order of the 100 days. And if it means the leader muscling in on some of the front bench briefs then so be it.

On PMQs, the new leader will have to be just as good, if not better than Vince Cable. A tough job, I know, but it’s got to be done. Plenty of humour, particularly.

Oh, and, cribbing an idea from Ming and James Graham, the new leader MUST have a web site which says where he is at any given time. A map of the country with ‘he is here’ on it and videos of what he’s up to. We cannot afford to have another leader who appears to have gone AWOL for large chunks of time.

Shadow cabinet changes? Who gives a monkeys’? I don’t, and I don’t think most voters do. We actually have a very talented front bench and I don’t think much change is necessary.

Policy – we’ve got it – but we need to insert it into the public’s mind via issues as they arise. In particular I would like every person in the country to have etched onto their grey matter the fact that we want to knock four pence off the basic rate of income tax.

Internal structures – most of all we need a proper media grid for each day to ensure that we are hitting the media virtually everyday. To do this we will have to break some sort of paradigm to pass the “so what?” test. If you don’t break a paradigm, for some reason the press aren’t interested.

Goodness knows what paradigm we are going to break… Perhaps the first 100 days of the new leader should be sub-titled ‘Search for a paradigm (to break)’. Except that the search for that paradigm will have to be over within about three seconds of the announcement of the new leader.

It’s a tough job, isn’t it?

* Paul Walter blogs at Liberal Burblings.

If you would like to submit an article for publication on LDV answering the question, ‘What should the new leader do in his first 100 days?’, please click here.

Should we be worried by food riots in Mexico and West Bengal, empty shelves in Caracas and Mexico and warnings of hunger in Jamaica, Nepal, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa? After all, we’ve got so much food in the UK that we throw away a third of it.

Well, yes. Something is radically wrong and if we don’t take positive steps to help the situation, we’ll end up reaping the whirlwind.

There is a “last days of the Roman Empire” feel about the UK and food. The “Love food hate waste” campaign is urging us to save food, not buy too much, not cook too much and not to throw away so much. Yet, much of the rest of the world is in a food crisis, or more accurately, a lack of food crisis. There are 854 million hungry people in the world and 4 million more join their ranks every year. There are severe shortages of and rising prices for basic foodstuffs like grains and rice. The West is not helping the situation by hastily switching grain-for-food crops to grain-for-bioethanol fuel crops, thereby taking the food out of the mouths of the third world to stick it in our fuel tank.

It’s an imprecise allegory but John Donne’s “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee” seems relevant here. We have to help our fellow human-beingss to be fed, or we will end up being badly bitten in the end. We cannot live in a separate world from the hungry. Strife, poverty and crisis will end up devouring us in the end.

Nice as it was to chew the fat with our esteemed leader, with the other LibDem blog of the year shortlisters, in the Margaret Thatcher Near-death Experience Suite on Sunday, it was all a bit too cloistered for my liking.

All right, fair enough. Dear old Ming gave up 30 minutes of his time and was very friendly, charming and, when pressed a bit, animated. As Mark Webster, LibDem communications confirmed, Ming is best when he is under pressure.

So, let’s have him head-to-head with Laurence Boyce, Nich Starling and Linda Jack then. (With acknowledgements to James Graham, who has written this several times – I added Linda).

Those are three of his most vocal detractors in the (yuck!) blogosphere.

You see, I have this theory.

A vast amount of keypad bashing in the world is completely pointless. If only some people would actually just talk to each other, then endless millions of words written wouldn’t be necessary.

The LibDem blogosphere is a case in point, bless us. I am sure I am just as bad as anyone else. Many of one’s theories and rants are probably completely unnecessary. If only we were able to talk to the object of our ire we would probably have a completely different, no less interesting, view. In some cases, we would still fire off that rant, even having spoken to the object of our ire – in which case, fair enough.

But, really, it is sad, pathetic, not to pursue all possibilities to have engagement with the leader while ranting away at him.

So how to engage?…. Well, one way not to engage successfully is to hold an “interview” with four or five bloggers every 14 months (which is what has happened with Ming so far). To give Ming and Mark Webster their due, they have both cheerfully encouraged further engagement opportunities.

There are a few options. My own preference is for a completely open online Q&A to take place regularly – I would suggest bi-monthly. There are plenty of examples of on-line live chat software. The BBC have regular “live chats” with stars.

The attraction of this method is that everyone can offer questions and ask supplementaries. Getting Ming to do a “live chat” would be an excellent way of opening him up to everyone with an interest (although that would include Grant Shapps using one of his 1234 password accounts, I am afraid), If last Sunday was anything to go by, Ming would thrive in such a forum.

Another option would be a live phone conference call, although this doesn’t immediately leave an accessible transcript (unless someone writes it down – obviously).

Whatever method is used, it is clear that Ming and Mark want to expand and regularise Ming’s contact with the blogosphere. It is in the party’s best interest that this is followed up.

It is nice for us LibDems to be heading towards our holidays with a bit of a spring in our step, due to a couple of reasonably sanguine by-election results.

We do have reason for confidence in the long-term due to robust structures in our party which mean we are “bomb proof” in three areas where the Tories have just received three direct hits.

Firstly, there is candidate selection.

We have a local selection process bolstered by independent returning officers. The process is sacrosanct. No Lib Dem leader is going to override it. If they did, there would be mayhem. The leader would be found hanging upside down from a lamppost in Cowley Street with his sandals stuffed into his mouth.

In sharp contrast, David Cameron overrode the Conservative candidate selection process at the Ealing Southall by-election, with shattering consequences for his reputation and that of his party.

Secondly, there is the policy-making process.

Again, the LibDem policy-making process is laid down in concrete in vast detail. Those of us who have attended conferences know that the debate and voting process is painstakingly democratic. For those of us who have tried getting to speak or proposing a motion at conference, we know that it is not a process which can be hijacked.

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