On a side note, if anyone else has any entertaining theories about Mings ‘ambitions’ I’d love to hear them, if only to wind up the tedious Ming defenders.

Ming in my opinion is the completely wrong person for the job and the results at the next general election will prove it, when we fall on our arses because people thought the old bugger might do a good job. As long as Nick Clegg takes over with Jeremy Browne as his number 2, then i’m happy.

WTF!? Really, Letterman, that’s just plain stupid. For a start, how does one aim for a coalition “without a care for Lib Dem losses”?

Ming just hasn’t got that X factor and the growing drip-drip of a backroom deal with Brown is damaging to electoral credibility as a party with an alternative to offer and one that is open and up-front.

Ming should scotch these rumours otherwise the groeing the perception will be that it is about his personal ambitions.

People keep saying this. It wasn’t borne out by the performance at hustings. Ming was clearly the best performer at the one I went to (no shortage of passion there)

Chris on the other hand was easily the poorest – I know at least one person who was intending to vote for him and ultimately didn’t as a result.

It might have just been an off night but the hustings I was at was easily won by Ming.

* Last year’s leadership election was a fiasco. Of the four original candidates one was a non-starter due to a sex scandal and another compromised by hiding his sexuality. The rules of the party blocked campaign teams from communicating with members. The only newspapers that covered the contest heavily endorsed Ming – No wonder the result was as it was.

* Most members know that either Chris or Nick would do a better job – more passion, better communication, closer to more families

* The only person who can can start a proper election off is Ming.

* Ming (if you read this) – Please take the party’s thanks for what you’ve done but stand down.

Then let’s get stuck into the NewCons and NewBrownies on OUR issues of freedom, democracy, foreign policy and the environment.

There is a need for proper understanding and, management by the Local Liberal Democrats Party. In relation, to promoting actual and prospective councillors, once that has been done, and then they can start focusing their efforts where they are needed, for the whole of the community and the country.

Clearly, if the Liberal Democrats wish to make significant, head way at a local and national level, there must be high calibre candidates’ who are continually active, throughout the whole year, within the local community, dealing with local issues.

Local Liberal Democrats prospective and actual councillors must adopt a robust and concise approach. Focused on local initiatives, and concerns, by using best practice, underpinned by sound policies, simply, attacking the leadership is far too easy, and certainty does address the real issues.

These were not national elections, as much as you would like to think so to advance your cause.

Ming is an intellegent, smart, considered, honest gentleman. Not a chamelon, not a spinner, not a slogan-hungry bandwagon jumper.

His QT performance was measured and reasonable. I cannot understand why so many LibDems appear hungry for another leadership contest after the howling mess up of the last one.

The power of a leader can easily be overstated. Cameron has a fantastic press – and the Tories are up about 6% in the polls since the general election. But they always were going to be up by some amount.

Sadly in modern Britain it seems that you can do without policies but not charisma.

Quickly on the local elections. In Tewkesbury we had a really good result winning six seats to go to seventeen. Pre 2003 we had I think four. Frankly the improvement is down to organisation and campaigning. The old adage of where we work we win has never been more apposite.

We hardly moved in the 2006 elections and still came behind Labour in the vote.

We are going backwards with Ming.

With Labour so unpopular we should have been making big gains and we did under Charles when we stood as an alternative to both Labour and the Tories.

Cameron is outflanking us and Ming’s less than hidden overtures to Brown are damaging us.

He has taken us up an cul-de-sac where people no longer see us as distinctive. Neither does Ming exude the confidence and energy a party requires from a leader.

After two failed national elections it’s time for him to move aside.

We’ve gone from having one of the best respected leaders in modern political history, backed by probably the sharpest foreign affairs spokesman of the second half of the twentieth century and beyond, to a middling leader and a humungous gap shadowing the FCO. Ming has clearly been a retrograde step, but it’s a matter of relativity.

We are a dynamic party, with some fantastic parliamentarians. There are a number of people who are more than likely capable of presenting a more approachable and media friendly face than Sir Menzies, most notably Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne. We have to realise that we are vulnerable to squeeze from the Tories and nationalists, and we have to fight them on their own territory and that means in the media. We aren’t appearing in the press as much as we did with Charlie and it’s hurting us.

The problem is that if we do not do something now, we are ever closer to a general election and could be saddled with a leadership contest six months before, which would likely be a disaster. There’s more than muttering doing the rounds now, and we don’t want a repeat of the “Kennedy situation”. Therefore, perhaps a move back to the Foreign brief for Ming, backed with a worthy succession? I am sick of being accosted by local members asking when we’re having another leadership election.

Ming isn’t too old, he’s just the wrong man.