Here at Lib Dem Voice, we will of course be maintaining strict neutrality during the forthcoming contest to decide who should be the next president of the party, when Simon Hughes’ four-year tenure ends in a couple of months. Baroness Ros Scott’s well-oiled campaign launched earlier this month on the day nominations opened.
And it is now clear there will be a contested election, for Lembit Opik’s long-mooted campaign is coming to pass – the website, inevitably entitled Lembit4President.co.uk – is now up-and-running. It perhaps lacks the gloss of Ros’s highly professional effort: the text, for example, is littered with typos, including Lembit’s own campaign strapline: Experience, Stratgey, Motivation [sic]. And conference darling Tim Farron may not be too impressed to be re-christened Farran.
Still, Lembit is, as you might expect, forthcoming about his reasons for wanting to stand, and – in an interview with Henley by-election candidate Stephen Kearney – answers directly the worries some members will have that his penchant for publicity risks undermining the party’s credibility.
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Howe much difference does the Presidency really make? We’ve had Simon Hughes in that position for quite a while, but yesterday there were people on this forum celebrating the fact that we have moved from being a centre-left party to one of the centre-right.
Convince me it matters, and I’ll bother to vote. (It would be nice to see a candidate with the balls to make it a party-wide referendum on yesterday’s MIH amendment! But I suspect that both existing candidates opposed it?)
PS – Tony Greaves for President, anyone?
Yes it will be interesting to see how many actually bother to vote – and how many members we have now, 10 months after the leadership election!
Wow, what a rubbish effort.
Wow! That I’m 4 Ros website looks fab.
Talked about rushed…
I am dreading a Lembit presidency. The man has no credibility. Ros has impressed with every passing day. Lembit rides Segways and is seen in tabloid newspapers as an absolute fruit-cake.
Liam, you miss the point entirely. Opik connects. He provides the ingredient that the Clegg, Huhne, Cable formula, albeit a great trio of talent, is missing.
We could have a winning team on our hands here.The party needs to back winners and not listen to the whinnings of people who fail to see talent before their very eyes.
Wakey Wakey
Wakey Wakey? Did you see the Segway incident? He looked like a sad old man at a family wedding.
I am tired of this “Oh, it’s just Lembit” attitude. A president of the Party needs to connect, not cause shame.
Liam. People in the UK are screaming for leadership. Clegg and Cable have got it. Opik connects like no other politician and we need to harness that as a core skill. The dismissive attitude you have suggests we merely dispense with people who have served the party for years, mindless. Opik is one of the best known politicians in the UK. It is madness not to support him to effectively link the party through him to the untapped electorate. I think you could cause deep damage and division with your thoughtless remarks. Which party do you work for?
If his campaign is like his website, he’s not going to be President.
I’m sure Lembit has a role to play but he needs to get more serious about serious things and actually be more light-hearted when he’s on his celebrity things, where sometimes he comes over as wierd and grumpy.
Frankly, it looks dreadful….whoever designed it wont be winning any awards thats for sure…and it wont be winning my vote for Lembit either…he strikes me as a bit ego-manical
For me, the most alarming thing about the Segway stunt is that it was going on at the same time as the housing debate (when Lembit held housing portfolio) showing where he priorities lie.