Lib Dem voice was launched last Sunday, and thanks to you the site hits have far exceeded my expectations for the first week:
We’ve even generated our first ‘story’ in the press, and (somewhat sickeningly!) it’s in the Daily Express diary column.
In full, it reads:
He stood down as Lib Dem Leader in 1999 but it seems party members still pine for the days of Paddy Ashdown. A new poll by party website, Lib Dem Voice, shows Paddy, now Lord Ashdown, as by far the most popular choice to be the party’s president, the post occupied by Simon Hughes.
“Paddy was top scorer on 22 per cent, while poor old Simon was only on seven per cent” says a colleague.
“Many feel the president’s post should be filled by someone with real experience and gravitas and Paddy fits the bill perfectly. Whether he could be persuaded to make himself available remains to be seen.”
Now, I’ve no idea who this “colleague” is, and indeed, given the reputation of diary columns, whether they exist at all! But the voting on Paddy has been interesting. It started slow, and there has been a sudden push in the last couple of days in his favour. If someone around Paddy believes he is going to stand, or is trying to convince him to stand, generating press coverage on the back of a poll of members is the way to go.
Two things to note, though – first – until this morning, ‘none of the above’ was in fact winning by quite a comfortable margin, and second – the poll hasn’t closed yet.
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Congratulations, the Brit political blogscene needs a strong and popular liberal democratic element (not least to create balance amongst the swarm of Tory bloggers).
I can see after Simon’s rather chaotic managment style we might want a dose of Paddy but given his support of the Iraq war; and his love of flirtations with the Labour party, possibly not the best person to have as President at the moment.
Also the “survey” is still relatively small: 261 (as it is now) is nowhere near a sample big enough to be the basis for a story like this IMHO.
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[...] If he doesn’t stand again, Paddy would, of course, be brilliant. I doubt whether he would want to do it, would he? Would he really want to be driving up from Somerset to chair potentially tedious meetings in Cowley Street? He’s been there, done that, got the tee-shirt and the wounds in his back from various stabbings by other party members. [...]