To comment on the performance of the leader of a political party – a person at the top of their game – requires gravitas, oodles of political knowledge and skill, and a good few decades experience of politics under your belt.
I have none of these things, so as I look back on Menzies Campbell’s first year as Liberal Democrat leader I can write only from the perspective of a party foot-soldier. What follows are my personal reflections on the leadership, and what it means to me – I don’t expect or consider it to have any particular weight.
First, to put this whole thing in context – how important is the leader to me personally, as a party supporter? Day to day – not very. Our paths aren’t likely to cross any time soon, and the only time I much care what he says or does is when I’m watching the TV news, or when there’s a major debate in Parliament.
Standing at the side of a conference room in Local Government House a year ago, it all seemed much more important – and personal. I’d supported one of Menzies Campbell’s rivals. A party activist sidled up to me. “Do you know who’s won?” he asked “Yep”, “And?”, “No great surprise” …… “Oh no, not MING?”.
And so it went throughout the day – ‘Ming? Really?’ Privately, never said aloud, I was expecting Chris Huhne to squeak through. On the day the result was declared I was disheartened, but I set about doing my volunteer duty on the party’s website – scrubbing out pictures of Charles Kennedy, airbrushing in Menzies Campbell. It took months for Menzies Campbell to win me, a pretty regular joe-soap supporter, around. There was no road to Damascus moment – what won it for me was the delivery of much needed stability to the party. For a short while I was grateful to him for bringing an end to a turbulent period. Now a year has passed since he was elected, and my less grateful mind is preoccupied with a different thought – “is that everything you’ve got?”
Well, here’s a thing. I didn’t think I would be rushing into print to defend Ming Campbell’s leadership of the Lib Dems.
Phil Willis, MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, has today announced that he will not stand at the next General Election.
There is a well known political maxim (or at least there ought to be) which states that, “the party faithful are the last people who should be consulted upon their choice of leader” – the point being that it is to crucial swing voters that the leader must appeal, not to committed party members. Of course the membership may attempt this calculation themselves, but the result often comes out a little skewed. So it was that the Conservatives made a whole series of amusing blunders and misjudgements regarding the leadership, largely on account of an internal obsession over Europe, before finally settling on the undeniable charms of the boy Cameron.
Steady on before you leap in to the comments and cut my head off straight away – it’s a question plenty of people will ask, and it needs an answer. This is my personal attempt.
Andrew Duff MEP has been elected Leader of the Liberal Democrat European Parliamentary Party (LDEPP) in a vote yesterday evening. The contest was triggered following Diana Wallis’ resignation as Leader after she was elected a Vice-President of the European Parliament.
Liberal Democrats will hear two words often over the next few days – ‘Annus Horribilis.’ The general consensus is that we’ve had happier times, better years.
All round love walrus John Thurso MP is currently heading a poll to be crowned sexiest man in the Liberal Democrats on the 
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