In a post on Facebook on Thursday, Christine Jardine told Scottish Lib Dem activists that she wasn’t going to go for the Lib Dem leadership.
The Edinburgh West MP’s remarks were reported in the New Statesman:
“After considering all the suggestions and requests, I have opted not to go for the leadership,” Jardine wrote. “Perhaps it’s lockdown but I realise my personal and family life has taken quite a hit in the past three years, and perhaps the people around me deserve a wee bit more of my time. I also don’t have a burning desire to be leader. I got into this to make a difference and I don’t have to be leader to do that.”
The current declared candidates are Wera Hobhouse and Layla Moran with current interim co-leader Ed Davey also expected to stand.
The party’s Federal Board initially set a timetable for the election to start next week. The Coronavirus crisis initially led to a postponement for a year. However, a ruling by the party’s Federal Appeals Panel said that while the Board had the power to postpone the election in exceptional circumstances and that it wouldn’t be appropriate to hold the contest now, a new timetable had to be set as soon as those exceptional circumstances no longer applied. The Board is keeping the timetable under review.
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5 Comments
https://www.bbc.com/news/politics/constituencies/S14000026
“burning desire to be leader”
Ed Davey should be leader.
@R A Underhill: “ … Ed Davey should be leader.”
Why exactly? He lacks any democratic mandate to lead. I’m not pro- or anti-Ed, as such, but what has he actually said or done to justify members’ unqualified confidence? A proper Lib Dem leadership election, preferably accompanied by a radical and meaningful debate about the party’s future direction and strategy, will be needed as soon as reasonably possible (maybe in the autumn), so that the party can re-define its purpose and (hopefully) start to re-establish its credibility.
Ed Davey should be leader: if and only if he wins an election the post.
I like Christine Jardine and respect her reasons but I would want whoever contends for leadership to spend time gettig to know us and the situation in Scotland. Tuning in to Radio Scotland would be a start.
I also like Jardine for the way she speaks but fear of another SNP scalp would have put off many potential supporters. She did well to increase her majority against the SNP tide last year. As for Davey as leader he may still be favourite but I would like to know his views and input into many of the bad decisions taken last year and absent leadership during this crisis.