Hughes team “fairly 100% certain” of Deputy Leader victory

PoliticsHome.com reports:

Simon Hughes already has the firm commitment of 30 of the 57 Liberal Democrat MPs that they will vote for him to be Deputy Leader of the party in the vote on 9th June, his spokesman has told PoliticsHome today. …

Only some of the MPs have publicly declared their support for Mr Hughes, which the spokesman explains as follows: “We haven’t had that many people coming out publicly … because many of them are senior party officials, government officials and they don’t want to be seen to be supporting anyone at this stage.”

So is there any chance they are wrong? How confident are they?

“Well, there are people as well who said ‘we’ll probably support you’ and we haven’t included them, so we are fairly 100% certain that those (30) people will vote for us.”

The Simon Hughes for Deputy Leadership campaign today announced the public support of three more MPs. Paul Burstow, David Ward and the new Scotland secretary, Michael Moore, have all thrown their weight behind Mr Hughes.

Update: Team Hughes have just been on the phone to the Voice noting that the comments given to PoliticsHome weren’t intended for publication (which probably explains the “fairly 100% certain” quote), and stressing that though they are very hopeful of winning, they are certainly not wanting to sound in any way triumphalist.

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17 Comments

  • Andrew Suffield 4th Jun '10 - 6:14pm

    Fairly slightly perhaps probably definitely certain?

  • “noting that the comments given to PoliticsHome weren’t intended for publication”

    What other reason is there for a politician to give a comment to a political news website?

  • ROB SHEFFIELD 4th Jun '10 - 7:16pm

    If so: GOOD stuff.

    Time for the majority of ‘social liberals’/ ‘Beveridge Liberals’ and ‘social democrats’ to have a clear bulwark against the minority opinion within the LD’s that is ‘orange bookism’/ ’19th century classical liberalism’.

    SH winning the DL will- inevitably- be very good for LD’s politics specifcally and wider centre left politics more generally.

  • @ROB SHEFFIELD
    “Time for the majority of ’social liberals’/ ‘Beveridge Liberals’ and ’social democrats’ to have a clear bulwark against the minority opinion within the LD’s that is ‘orange bookism’/ ‘19th century classical liberalism’”

    I’m confused Rob, as a Labour supporter, how you come to that conclusion?

  • ROB SHEFFIELD 4th Jun '10 - 7:32pm

    Ryan M

    What conclusion !?

  • @Rob

    That the so-called “Orange Bookers” are a minority in the party.

  • “I’m fairly 100% sure” that I disagree with Linda Jack.

    Actually, having seen and heard her at the NEC, you can delete the “fairly”.

    Ryan M – how do you know that “Orange Bookers” are in a minority?

  • matt severn 4th Jun '10 - 9:51pm

    Simon Hughes is a great guy, but I really think that Tim Farrron would be the best man for the job, and the best at engaging with the grassroots and the public at large.

  • ROB SHEFFIELD 4th Jun '10 - 10:38pm

    Ryan M

    You really think the Cleggy tendency is the majority ? I don’t think so.

  • @Rob

    What makes you think so? My local home party very much is the Orange book mold, and returns a Liberal Democrat MP in that vein also.

    Methinks you generalize far too much.

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