Teaching an old Minger new tricks

Olly Kendall in the Grauniad reads a lot into Menzies Campbell's use of the phrase 'centre-left'. I'm not convinced that it's anything more than the use of old terminology by an elder statesman. I agree that Menzies use of this term will be a red rag to the press but it's just a word. To see the real differences between Campbell and Kennedy, we'll need to wait and see. Olly writes:

One of the main accusations levelled repeatedly at the Lib Dems is political ambiguity. This is highlighted in the alleged conflict between the economic liberal and social liberal wings, which both Charles and Ming deny exists.

By our opponents who can't get their head around liberal ideology... and it doesn't exist. The real division in the Lib Dems is between the pavement politicos and the philosophical liberals (as per numerous posts by LibertyCat). If anyone ever believed in a left/right split in the Lib Dems then the numerous outbreaks of consensus during the leadership hustings between Chris "Orange Book" Huhne and Simon "lefty" Hughes should have convinced them otherwise. He continues:

[Defining the Libs as right-wing] also allows the Lib Dems to begin an assault on the Tories as the party of the right - something they couldn't do under Charles's leadership.

But there's no point in talking about the Tories as a party of the reactionary right with Cameron discussing micro-generation and Letwin discussing redistribution. Accusing them of dumping their principles, being unsure of what they believe, echoing Blair, going for managerialism, yes... Claiming they're secretly reactionary whilst Cameron lays scorn on Tebbit and columnists like Heffer - not going to be convincing. If that's the purpose of Menzies use of 'centre-left' then it's a bit of an odd strategy. Olly continues:

To confuse matters further, in the young Turks you have a group of ambitious MPs, many of whom would quite happily sit around a cabinet table with Cameron and Osborne, but not Brown.

Most of our allegedly 'left-wing' and aged MPs and activists would rather sit around a table with David Cameron if he looked to be serious about opposing ID cards, control orders, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act and promoting decentralisation... This government's distinguishing factor is its authoritarian control-freakery and this is one of the main areas in which the Lib Dems are crucially distinct. Menzies made this obvious when he devoted the 1st substantive 1/3 of his speech to discussing topics such as Guantanamo Bay yet Olly Kendall doesn't mention this axis of the political compass at all.

Will Menzies' use of 'centre-left' have an effect? Yes, on the media. Will it have an effect on strategy? Undoubtedly not.