Post offices, pavements and FOCUS

The Liberal Democrats have a long tradition of local campaigning on post office closures. The FOCUS leaflet about saving the local post office has become enough of a cliche that I chose "saving post offices" as a metaphor for the things the Liberal Democrats do which have nothing to do with Liberalism when I was writing my speech for the launch of Young, Free and Liberal.

This was a mistake - post offices are important, and well worth saving. What I meant to object to was not saving post offices, but standing outside post offices you have no intention of saving for the sole purpose of taking an action photo. The problem with Liberal Democrat campaigning on post offices is that we had neither the power to save them, nor any ideas as to how to save them if we did.

That changed last Saturday. The post offices motion passed at Conference calls for the Post Office to be separated from Royal Mail and to be given the freedom to build new businesses, including working with other postal providers. By selling off 49% of the shares in Royal Mail, we could raise over £2 billion to plough back into the post office network. The Liberal Democrats who wanted to save post offices, including all three leadership contenders, supported this.

The opponents fell into two groups. There were a few genuine lefties who think that privatisation is evil and bad. The second group of opponents didn't argue on the merits, possibly because they knew they would lose. Instead, they were worried that Labour would tell lies about our policy, and punish us on the doorstep for "wanting to privatise the Post Office". This kind of behaviour gives politicians a bad name, and gives us a particularly bad name becuase we have more of a reputation for campainging than we do for governing anyway.

If the purpose of Liberal Democrat policy on post offices is to generate Focus stories about "Local Liberal Democrats in battle to save village post office" then I don't want anything to do with it. Fortunately, Conference voted for a policy about saving post offices.

I have often grumbled on this blog about pavement politics not being liberal. That doesn't mean it isn't important. But it has to be about actually fixing the pavement.

Congratulations Ming

Menzies Campbell wins the Lib Dem leadership election.

Congratulations to Menzies, and may you be truly merciless towards the forces of illiberalism.

While I was backing Chris Huhne, I said at the start of the contest that the important thing was that the next leader of the Liberal Democrats be someone who thinks that Liberalism is more important than local campaigning. I have no doubt that Menzies Campbell is such a person.

What happens next? I imagine that there will not be major changes to the shadow ministerial lineup - Ming was always a continuity candidate, even if he does now have a mandate that a coronation would not have given him. Chris Huhne has gone from nobody to heavyweight as a result of his campaign and 32% voteshare, but there isn't an obvious vacancy for an economic heavyweight that is senior to his current position. I expect Nick Clegg to get Ming's old job as Shadow Foreign Secretary, which is a position he is eminenetly qualified for. Alexander Carmichael was Menzies Campbell's choice as acting leader to replace Oaten, so no change expected there. Paul Burstow presumably gets a prize for being the winning agent, but I would expect that to be leader's PPS rather than a shadow cabinet post.

I imagine that any attempts to change the direction the Party is going in will wait for the Meeting the Challenge report to come out (in time for Autumn Conference). In any case, Menzies was never the candidate who was going to rip up the Kennedy plan and try something new and different - and didn't have to be, given that the old Liberal Democrats worked just fine as long as the leader could be kept off the booze.

Thoughts on the Cambridge leadership hustings

I spent tonight watching the three leadership candidates at the hustings in Cambridge. This wasn't as much fun as leadership events should be, because all three candidates agreed about everything. There were some significant differences in tone though, which can be summed up by looking at what each candidate started their speech with:

Simon Hughes began with a history lesson about how the Liberal Democrats almost disapperared and fought our way back by hard work and local campaigning.

Chris Huhne began by talking about the big ideas he wanted to focus on: protecting civil liberties, sustainability, and decentralisation.

Menzies Campbell's first substantive point was that we needed more women candidates. He then spent about half his speech talking about his career and the varied experience he would bring to the job.

This just confirmed the conventional wisdom that Simon is the Focus-freaks' candidate, Chris the intellectuals' candidate, and Ming the establishment candidate with the golden CV.

One advantage of seeing all three candidates together like this was that it gave you a good idea of their relative talents. Simon Hughes is by far the most charismatic of the three, both at the rostrum and when you bump into him in the foyer. I'm still not voting for him - there is too much of a danger that a Hughes-led Party would stop being Liberal and become the Post Offices, Local Motherhood, and Community Apple Pie Party.

The other thing I noticed that surprised me is the degree to which Ming is tacking left. He devoted a large part of his speech to the need to reduce poverty, certainly more time than his relatively standard policy positions on the issue merited. In response to questions about the public services, Ming (who has the support of most of the Orange Book crowd) was careful to say how wonderful public servants are, and how good it is that Brown has spent so much money on them. Chris Huhne is less afraid to sound right-wing (althouh he actually agrees with his opponents on most policices) - particularly when he was saying that most of the new money in public services has been wasted.

All in all, nothing much unexpected, and certainly nothing that would make me reconsider my support for Chris Huhne.

On political judgement

So the Scum have found proof that Simon Hughes is less than completely straight. Count me unsurprised - it has been pretty well-known among active Liberal Democrats that he was bi since before I joined the Party in 1997. For the Scum, homosexuality is sufficient to condemn him - although fortunately this is unlikely to affect any election results, since this particular rag is trusted by the public even less than politicians.

All the other papers have, of course, jumped on the story because sex sells. Unfortunately, they need a non-homophobic excuse for printing scuttlebut about a politician's private life. The least lame attempt comes from large numbers of Lib-Dem hating lefties such as these Guardian newsblog commentators. They tell us that Simon ran a homophobic campaign against Peter Tatchell in the Bermondsey by-election. This is still pretty lame, because he didn't. The infamous "straight choice" leaflet did not describe Simon as a straight choice, it described the election as a straight choice between Tatchell and Simon - an implicit squeeze against the "Real Labour" candidate John O'Grady (who was responsible for most of the homophobia). On the other hand, it isn't that lame, because it's easy enough to falsely claim that Simon ran a homphobic campaign and rely on the fact that the public won't understand the facts.

For those who aren't prepared to lie, they are left with the standard lame trick used to nail politicians in sex scandals - the "it's not the sex, it's the lying about the sex" line. Unfortunately, Simon didn't lie either. He has never claimed to be straight, never gone campaigning with his wife and kids, never made sexuality an issue in his political career beyond being the unwitting beneficiary of a homophobic campaign run by other people. Fortunately for the muckrakers, he had however just denied being gay in an interview. While he isn't gay, he is bisexual.

This isn't actually a lie. Simon is a lawyer, and knows this. It isn't even particularly Clintonian - gay has a definite meaning, and Simon is not gay. But nevertheless I cringed when I heard that he denied being gay. What people want from their politicians is honesty, not legalistic truth. Simon's denial was (deliberately) misleading, and was therefore a political misjudgement for which he is now paying the price. Had he given the correct answer of "I'm not married, so it's my business who I sleep with." then the speculation that inevitably surrounds a single man in his 50's would have continued. But there wouldn't have been a story the respectable papers could print about the outing.

How will this affect Simon's leadership chances? In my view, a major lapse of judgement should be held against a candidate. We need a talented politician who knows when not to leave hostages to tabloid fortune. On the other hand, it isn't a resignation issue. Mark Oaten unfortunately had to go because he had become a national laughing stock. (Within the Party he was a laughing stock before the rent boy story broke, but that's a different matter). Simon Hughes is just a politician who was outed as gay. He is still perfectly capable of doing his job.

Go away Polly: Response to comments

My post on Polly Toynbee's Guardian column has attracted an interesting comment from Paul Leake which I thought deserved a response on the main site.

People who aren't members are entitled to a view, and those who as members are entitled to more than a view (ie. a vote) would do well to consider opinion outside the party, even if ultimately rejecting it - at least if you want the Lib Dems to be successful. Of course you can still disagree with her conclusions :)

Non-member supporters are entitled to a view, as are potential supporters. The members would do well to take their views seriously when we cast our votes. Analysts and commentators are entitled to offer advice, although as voting members we should take the advice of people who don't share our values with a pinch of salt. Supporters of other parties can (and should) take views on what the possible result of the leadership election means for them, something that should be only marginally relevant to us.

That isn't what Toynbee is doing. Her thesis is that a Hughes victory is a good thing for left-wing Labour supporters such as herself because a Hughes-led Lib Dem party will put pressure on Labour from the economic left and force Brown to move further left than he otherwise would when he becomes leader. But she phrases the article as advice to Liberal Democrats. Our political aims are not the same as those of left-wing Brownites (if they were, we would be left-wing Brownites and not Liberal Democrats) and we should not be choosing our leader with the interests of left-wing Brownites in mind.

Since her advice is based on the assumption that we want something which we don't, we should know better than to follow it. She should know better than to offer it too. An article about how a Hughes leadership victory would be a boost for the Brownite left of the Labour party is a useful contribution to the political debate in the UK, but to phrase it as advice to Liberal Democrat members is just rude.

Chris moves into second place...

... according to The Telegraph:

Chris Huhne, originally a rank outsider, yesterday overtook Simon Hughes, the party president, to become second favourite behind Sir Menzies Campbell, the acting leader.

Gunning 4 Chris

You'll note that I've just put a 'Bloggers4Chris' box up on the blog.

I've blogged at length about why my first and second choices are going to be Chris and Menzies but in summary...

The Lib Dems are portrayed by our opponents as ideologically woolly and not to be trusted on the economy. The other parties are competing on the basis of being the best manager. We need to set ourselves apart and take on our critics by showing that we are 'the ideas party' and that we have a clear and coherent vision of what we want a future liberal Britain to be like.

Chris has excellent credentials both as an economist and also devising some of the party's most innovative and liberal ideas (e.g. the Huhne report). He also has experience as a journalist and can communicate our ideas to the media - a third party is not guaranteed to be listened to by the press.

He's said very sensible things about the fallacy of the endless media debates on our left/right positioning:

"I don't think it's useful to be talking in left/right terms when you are looking at liberal issues where we are very distinct from both the Conservatives and from Labour..."

About avoiding increasing absolute taxation and the environment:

"Of course, if we put green taxes up, other taxes can and should come down."

And about the highly centralised state.

The rest is further down the blog...

Go away Polly, the leadership contest is members only.

A friend just pointed out this column by former Owenite, now Brownite, and general witch Polly Toynbee. Like most of the Guardian's columnists, Toynbee begins by assuming that the real story is entirely internal to the Labour party, and devotes more than half her space to discussing that. In the middle third of the column, she does deign to talk about the Liberal Democrats. Her advice is more than usually asinine.

This is now the question Lib Dem would-be leaders must answer. It may maximise their vote to dance about saying "neither right nor left", but what is the point of merely existing in nothingness? Labour die-hards call them no more than a franchise - a painfully accurate accusation. Collect up their literature and they face quite different ways according to their local opponent.

We don't dance about anything. "Neither right nor left" is not a piece of tactical postitioning, it is an indictment of the state of British politics. With both Thatcherism and Footism discredited, everyone sane agrees about the big economic issues. The big issues of 2006 are questions about national identity, the management of public services, and how to deal with what used to be called noisy neighbours and is now apparently "anti-social behaviour". On all these issues, the division is between right (i.e. Liberal) and wrong. And yet morons like Toynbee still insist on talking about right and left - no wonder the electorate get turned off.

But times have changed since the SDP. Where once there was a great savannah of available political space, now the air is too thin to breathe between New Labour and Cameron Tories. Both parties have stolen Lib Dem land: all now preach the new localism.

We don't have to be between New Labour and Cameron's Tories. We are liberal, they are illiberal. The Liberal Democrats don't just preach the new localism, we actually do it - try googling for "most improved Council". While the other parties (more specifically, the Monster Raving Loony Party) may have stolen David Owen's political turf, they is still plenty of space for a principled Liberal party.

But there is a need for a party more radical than Labour, a party that says no to war and no to wasting billions on new nuclear weapons or nuclear reactors, that dares to talk of the greed of the rich, of boardroom kleptocracy and the duty of top earners to shoulder a fairer share. Already the Lib Dems alone own civil liberties, and they are the pluralists who would rebuild council and Commons chambers in horseshoe shape under proportional representation, offering the one crucial "choice" that Labour and Tories refuse - the choice to vote for any party in a fair election.

Quite right too. Didn't you just say that we danced with nothingness, and were a franchise and not a party? The issues you just mentioned aren't perpheral. Civil liberties matter - right now people all over the world are being arrested, tortured, and shot for writing columns like yours.

They will never win; that's not their function.

Our function is what we say it is, not what a Labour-supporting Guardian columnist says it is. We say our function is to form a Liberal Democrat government, with Liberal policies and Chris Huhne as a Liberal Prime Minister. You want to see a Labour government, with socialist policies. So we really don't care what you think we should be doing.

Oaten in (alleged) rent boy shocker

Seriously, you couldn't make it up...

The means of removing Kennedy was compared to Tory removals of their leaders but surely this an emulation too far? I suppose it could be worse...

[Addendum: The papers are full of Mark Oaten this morning. Not entirely sure why he had to resign. I think that the only time sexual affairs should lead to a political resignation is something that directly compromises the job of the candidate, e.g. the classic MP/Russian agent scenarios during the Cold War or if it's something that is (and should be) illegal. It's obviously going to be very difficult/upsetting for his wife and family if they had no inclination that he was interested in sexual exploration, because it's a huge breach of trust in a marriage. People do change over a lifetime and become interested in investigating different sides of their character (and sometimes sexual desires) and I think the best way of dealing with that is being upfront and open about it to the people around you so that no one feels betrayed. The original Screws of the World article is here].

As an aside, I've never really got the whole 'football kit' fetish... It's not like football kit is figure-hugging or has a sensual texture. It must be a David Mellor tribute (although that was found to be a fabrication).

Oaten runs out of ideas, tries Liberalism

Mark Oaten has finally discovered the virtues of Liberalism, it seems. From the Guardian:

Mr Oaten also warned that some Lib Dems were failing to live up to their liberal belief in individual freedom by falling in with "nanny state" proposals to ban smoking or outlaw foxhunting.

He said: "A lot of my colleagues would support a ban on smoking, but as a liberal I'm uncomfortable with that, so I do challenge the party to be tough about its liberal values and stick to them even when it challenges something we believe in."

Glad to see you come round to our point of view, Mark. I would be a bit more impressed if you hadn't

• Tried every other political ideology except Liberalism en route.
• Lectured the radical liberals in the Party about how unelectable they were.
• Waited until you were running for the leadership of a liberal party to discover Liberalism.

You never know, if you hadn't taken so long you might not have been reduced to getting rent-a-mob MP's to sign your nomination papers.

Mark, even the Conservative Party abandoned Conservatism a month before you did. So I'm still not voting for you.

Why I support Huhne over Campbell

1. Chris Huhne has more hair than Menzies Campbell.
2. Chris Huhne is more intelligent than Menzies Campbell.
3. Chris Huhne went to the same school as me.

This is all a bit trivial, granted. But the important decision is the one I explained in my long and serious post - why it is important that the next Liberal Democrat leader be someone who emphasises hard thinking about policy more and campaigning less. I will be voting for Campbell second preference, and it seems that the vast majority of Campbell and Huhne supporters will be swapping preferences.

The real divide in the Liberal Democrats - not between left and right.

Press coverage of the leadership election is already focussing on the "split" in the Party between "social liberals"/the Beveridge group/paid shills for the public-sector unions and "economic liberals"/the Orange Book crowd/people who belong in Cameron's Tory party. The choice of candidates will fits the pattern nicely, with Simple Simon on the left, Mark the Muppet on the right, Ming the Merciless in the centre, and Chris "Who"ne as the dark horse that everyone wants to avoid. Plus we have four very different personalities, so when the media stop talking about the left/right split, they can talk about personalities in a last ditch attempt to avoid mentioning Liberalism.

In fact, the left-right division is insignificant, at least with regard to values and policies - it is a bit more significant viz-a-viz presentation and tactics. Young, Free and Liberal was written by authors from all political tendencies within the Party. The only section that was controversial within the authorial team was the one on foreign policy. There is a disagreement about how to reform public services, but when Chris Huhne produced a detailed compromise in 2002, both sides were happy to support it.

There is a more serious split in the Party, which causes genuinely bad blood and allegations that people should find another party. That is the split between those who think Liberalism is important and those who do not. Those of us who take our Liberalism seriously tend to think about it, write about it, discuss it, and ultimately produce policies based on it. Sometimes these policies are unpopular with the Daily Mail - we don't care. We believe that the purpose of a Liberal Party is to offer the electorate a Liberal alternative - something the other parties are unable to do, but which is and always will be sorely needed. If they want a government that is in the business of telling people what to do, they should vote for one of the illiberal parties.

There is another faction in the Liberal Democrats, which doesn't see Liberalism as important, except for the bit about empowering local government. This group sees the unique selling point of the Liberal Democrats as our distinctive style of local campaigning, based on talking to individual voters, finding out what they want, and promising them it. They choose their policies based on how they look when explained in half an A4 side of 14 point type on a FOCUS leaflet. Policies which sound bad on the doorstep get dropped, or at least kept well hidden. The Liberal Democrats seek to appeal to everyone, because everyone benefits if the dog-muck is removed promptly from the pavements.

Both Hughes and Oaten are from the focus-freak faction. Oaten is a particularly interesting case, because he understands the consequences of extending "community politics" (which has very little in common with the radical democratic proposals made in the old ALDC pamphlet The Theory and Practice of Community Politics) nationally and wants to do it anyway. Arguably, Kennedy leans towards this view as well. Simon Hughes is at least an instinctive Liberal, but he isn't someone who sees Liberalism as especially important, or spends much time thinking about it when he could be delivering leaflets instead.

Menzies Campbell, on the other hand, is a committed Liberal - a "gut Liberal" in the words of David Howarth in the Guardian. Chris Huhne is one of the parties foremost intellectuals, who has written various book-length Liberal screeds. There is no shortage of intellectuals and Liberals on either wing of the party: think Holmes and Webb on the left, or Cable and Laws on the right. But they are not standing: we are faced with a choice between Hughes, Oaten, Campbell and Huhne. That means that we can't vote for an intellectual and settle the left-right question with one vote, but then nobody inside the Party really believes in left and right anyway.

The logical extension of community politics to the national level is some form of Blairite populism. The heavily-spun press release replaces Focus and the focus group replaces door-to-door contact, but those are only necessary compromises to take into account the fact that Mark Oaten can't knock on every door in the country the way a hard-working councillor can knock on every door in their ward. Given that what the voters say they want is all-too-often based on that morning's Scum, it will all-too-often lead to illiberal policies. We have seen this already- the LDYS forums have chewed out local campaigners acting like (illiberal) local campaigners despite holding national office on several occasions, notably over housing and drinking. We need a leader who will discourage this tendency. With the current crop of candidates, that means a choice between Menzies Campbell and Chris Huhne.

Simon Hughes changes track on tax (and public services)

Just an addendum. This morning's Observer (15/01/06) reports that:

"Simon Hughes signalled... that he was ready to ditch the party's proposal for a new 50p top band on income tax... rather than focus on raising the top level of personal income tax, his main aim would be to remove the poorest people from paying the tax altogether. There were areas where additional revenue might be raised, including environmental taxes and possible windfall levies, he suggested"

On public services he said that:

"Though he remained committed to state-provided health and education for all... there was also a need for diversity and 'choice.' The test of delivery, he said, had to be what was best for local communities - to whom health, education and other services must ultimately be accountable. 'There has been a proper appreciation that the public service was too stagnant, not responsive enough - too monolithic'"

This suggests that even if the Orange Bookers don't win the election, they've won (some of) the argument. I have the impression Simon is a principled guy so I doubt he's cynically 'positioning'.

It's interesting what effect this might have on his votes. Many of the fervent Hughes supporters (on the LDYS forums, at least) are strong advocates of his perceived position on public services and tax and may feel betrayed. They don't have any other candidates to go to on policy but if they decided to switch then (paradoxically to journalists who see things in left/right), the favoured alternative candidate to many of these Hughes supporters is Mark Oaten. Simon may attract some Menzies/Huhne supporters who were tempted by Simon's reputation for activism and campaigning but who were afraid he would take unimaginative policy positions.

Simon in Speedos: why perception is everything except substance

Another day, another government proposal that sounds vaguely plausible until you start thinking about it... I wonder if they do research sometimes, or whether they just devise some proposals in the bathtub and release them to the media to see if they float.

The idea is that having a national day (you know - bunting, street parties, binge drinking...) will cause people to realise the "united shared sense of purpose" of Britishness. Incase you're unsure what that purpose is - Britishness is apparently, erm, not blowing people up (perhaps I'm oversimplifying here). On the other hand, that's better than the government's previous attempts at defining Britishness which included the famous question about pint spilling (the correct answer is not 'prepare for a fight in the car park'). I hope not blowing people up is something that humanity in the main should be able to agree on, regardless of whether they are British citizens or not. Further, if you are deadset on carrying out a bomb attack then "the July 4th celebrations in the US and the common practice of many citizens having a flag in their gardens" are unlikely to cause you to embrace an integrated sense of Britishness and relinquish all thoughts of martyrdom.

How does this relate to the Lib Dem leadership election? Well, the take home message is that your sense of purpose and identity is important but you've got to decide what it is before you can promote it, and it's got to be about substance and not just stylistic things (like encouraging people to hang flags or knowing about brands of tea). Otherwise, you just look silly. In this election, we need to think about what identity we want to be promoting. And one of the best ways of doing that is deciding what's wrong with the identity that we're consciously or unconsciously promoting now. Here are some public perceptions:

First up, the Lib Dems are nice. Or, in the words of the Daily Mail (it's ok, I haven't sullied my browser by visiting the website. My parents used to get the Mail and I enjoyed shouting at it - kinda therapeutic): "Is the nice party turning nasty?". Being nice is a good thing - the Tories were the 'nasty party' for years which is why they brought in David "dolphin tattoo" Cameron and are trying to sound lefty.

Second up, the Lib Dems are in favour of higher taxation. This seems to be quite a common perception and not just in the Telegraph which writes about the "party's high-tax reputation". It's also mentioned here by Vince Cable MP who says that "Many voters still...associate us with high taxes and big spending." Higher taxation to fund public services/tackle inequality was an entirely fair position to take pre-1997 but the political debate has moved on. Labour "has increased a wide range of taxes" including National Insurance and a wide range of 'stealth taxes' such as fuel and tobacco taxes. The government has put money into public services like the NHS. The battleground is no longer ever-increasing absolute funding levels but devising novel ways to make that money work more efficiently. The government has attempted to address inequality but the mechanisms for doing so are complex meaning benefits are not claimed by those who most need them. It is for this reason that I think Simon Hughes' approach to discussing inequality and taxation are behind the times. And since he is perceived as being in favour of tax- and spend then he won't help us lose that reputation. We need to ensure that it's clear that when we want to increase some taxes, we want to bring others down.

Third up, the Lib Dems are woolly. A charge that gets levelled at us repeatedly by our opponents is that we have no ideology. You only have to take an article written today to get a bilious dose of the usual tired rubbish:

Very little unites Lib Dems other than a desire for power. They will be pro-European at Westminster but Eurosceptic in Eurosceptic seats; pro-cheese in Cheese, anti-cheese in Ham. Given that their vote is dependent locally on local issues, and nationally on how many people are fed up with Labour and the Tories, who leads them is irrelevant.

Oh, get real you silly person. This is so obviously utter underwear it doesn't even deserve the dignity of a detailed rebuttal except to make the very obvious point that if individual Lib Dems were THAT crazy about power they'd never have joined the Lib Dems since we haven't been in government for, erm, less years than Mark Oaten thinks. They'd be in the Labour party or something. But if you throw enough mud... so it's an image we want to lose at every opportunity. We need to avoid looking like we're writing down a "fairly random list of blandishments" and be serious about ideology. Having clear values and beliefs will make us stand out from the other parties since "there isn't space for three management companies in the centre of British politics" and will allow us to define a clear vision of the Britain that we want. It was the promise of a new vision and reforming zeal which captivated the imagination of voters and brought both Tony Blair (the Third Way) and Margaret Thatcher to power. It can break the Lib Dems through the 'third party' barrier in British politics.

I think that Chris Huhne or Menzies Campbell can give the right image of the Lib Dems. Which I vote for first and which second depends on how I think an STV election is going to play out. I'd recommend you all do the same...

Tie fighters! The wardrobe strikes back!

The first hustings of the campaign (you can see the entirety of the speeches on grainy video).

I have one question - where did Menzies, Simon and Chris get those identikit shiny (blue) ties from? Why blue? And, more importantly, why did Mark Oaten miss out? Was it a group decision or was there one of those uncomfortable 'we're all wearing the same outfit' moments?

Mark Oaten's nominees

Mark Oaten's nominees are revealed to be:

Lembit Opik, his campaign manager
Bob Russell
John Leech
Paul Rowen (also nominated Simon Hughes)
Mike Hancock (offered to nominate anyone who thinks they have a chance)
John Hemming (wanted to stand himself but offered to nominate people in interests of a competitive election)
Paul Keetch (supporting Menzies Campbell but also offering to nominate others)

Chris Huhne launches a campaign website

Chris Huhne formally launches his campaign and sets up a campaign website. Full list of supporters on Wikipedia. He says things like:

"Of course, if we put green taxes up, other taxes can and should come down."

"Liberalism has also about reforming a gargantuan centralised state...The parliament of one of the largest countries in Europe should not be discussing housing targets in Hampshire or the cleanliness of hospital wards in Northampton. Those decisions should be for local people."

He also (very sensibly) agrees with me on Menzies Campbell's interview:

And he rejected the idea that the party needed to position itself to one side or another of the other parties. Sir Menzies has said he would lead a party that was to the left of Labour.

Mr Huhne said: "I don't think it's useful to be talking in left/right terms when you are looking at liberal issues where we are very distinct from both the Conservatives and from Labour... On some issues, for example, our opposition to the war in Iraq, we are to the left of Labour; on other issues we are clearly to the right of Labour. You have to look at the whole package...That's why it doesn't really make sense in my view to talk about right or left in those terms."

Interview with Menzies Campbell

In today's Grauniad:

Some good stuff:

"What I am in favour of is using the tax system to maximise opportunity - not to penalise initiative or aspiration. "

[On David Cameron] I know liberals. I have worked with liberals. David Cameron is no liberal. [I discuss David Cameron not being a liberal here]

"one of Blair's legacies will be that he has squeezed values out of politics. Along comes Cameron and says essentially 'I can do what he's doing but I'm a better manager'. One thing is certain: there isn't space for three management companies in the centre of British politics. What's required for us is a return to values, accompanied by an openness of mind...This is not self-indulgence. It's got to be accompanied by intellectual rigour."

"I would want Lib Dems to be consistent. We can talk about Shetland or the Scilly Isles - if we are serious about being a national party we need national consistency"

Some not so good stuff:

"Look at his voting record - he voted for Iraq. Some parts of my [Scots] Presbyterianism have stuck; by their works shall ye know them." [I know some pro-Iraq Lib Dems - silly man]

"Blair began to move... To the right." [Blair did not begin to move 'to the right' - Blair began to demonstrate authoritarian and centralising traits which are part-and-parcel of old Labour socialism and are retained today in Labour. Stop talking about right and left... agggggghhhhhh]

Some stuff that given he wrote the FT article in 1999 was made irrelevant by events but worth hearing it from him:

[On 'the project'] "Blair began pretty well after that [1997]. You could argue that when Ashdown went [in 1999] Blair was free, but Blair began to move in a way which would have made it impossible to sustain any kind of arrangement"

Some more on Chris Huhne MP

To help you make up your mind (as many of my stories - thanks to the power of the LDYS forums for the links):

A speech he gave to a Green Fair in Aylesbury when an MEP explaining why environmental decisions are often best taken at a European level [Thanks to Richard Huzzey for the link]

A link to the initial press release on the Huhne Commission report on Public Service provision, his conference speech on the report and a further article on public services and public service devolution [Thanks to Richard Huzzey and Gareth Epps for the links]

At the time of writing I haven't read all of these links but they are collected here with the intention of helping people make up their minds - my duty is but to serve and all that stuff and nonsense.

It's also worth mentioning the Apollo Project thinks Chris Huhne has a 'reassuringly deep voice'. I'm hoping he means a 'reassuring, deep voice' but either way it gives him gravitas on the radio and such-like. It's also a definite personal plus since my boyfriend also has a reassuring, deep voice!

At least 5 reasons to vote for Menzies Campbell (or Chris Huhne): No.5

John Thurso MP is no longer standing... Correction - John Thurso MP was never standing but there was a spoof website 'Thurso for PM' doing the rounds. It wasn't anything to do with John Thurso MP as a person or an MP - I think the authors just felt at that point in the leadership contest that we had a glut of bald candidates and needed one with a moustache (who also happened to be a Viscount).

It couldn't have been mistaken for anything but a spoof.... except by the BBC who used a quote from it:

"has never taken drugs (except the odd pinch of snuff, but who doesn't nowadays?)"

In their "Quote of the Day" (obviously it's gone now) as a quote from "John Thurso MP".

News reached John Thurso MP who was not well pleased (displaying a SOH malfunction IMO), the author felt everything had got rather out of hand and the website has now (sadly) been taken down (Boo! Hiss! Shame! Resign!... And all that...). Which means we can no longer think upon the inspirational suggestion that to generate electricity we should ban coal-fired power stations and instead have serfs (misspelt "surfs", which suggests guys in wetsuits with boards) running on treadmills...