Thursday, December 15, 2005
More on leadership
The papers today are full of articles on the so-called Kennedy leadership crisis. The consensus seems to be that he has survived this crisis but that it may well rear its head again in a few months if things do not improve.
On one blog, former Federal Executive member, James Graham says:
The bottom line is that there is no-one in the Lib Dem Parliamentary Party that is of both sufficient calibre or has sufficient experience to in any way challenge Charles; they’ve demonstrated this this week. There is no Hughes, Oaten, Davey or Campbell bandwagon rolling because the first three just don’t cut it and the fourth one is just too old. A serious contender right now would already have at least a dozen identified supporters behind him and could afford to release at least three of them off their leashes to publicly attack Charles. Palpably, this is not the case.
Of course supporting a leader because there is no alternative is not really satisfactory either. On balance my judgement, and I suspect that of others, is that Charles is still an asset to the party and that no matter how many times senior Liberal Democrats MPs bare their egos they cannot change the fact that he remains popular in the party at large and amongst the public.
The misjudgement of these senior MPs is that they have tried to treat this matter as it would be dealt with in the Tory Party - behind-the-scenes briefing followed by a visit by the men in dark suits. That is not the way that the Party should or does work. They have upset and alienated a lot of activists and ordinary members from their cause and done the party no good at all. As for The Times, we have seen now what they are against - Charles Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats - perhaps it is time that they stopped behaving like the worst kind of tabloid and started debating the issues.
On one blog, former Federal Executive member, James Graham says:
The bottom line is that there is no-one in the Lib Dem Parliamentary Party that is of both sufficient calibre or has sufficient experience to in any way challenge Charles; they’ve demonstrated this this week. There is no Hughes, Oaten, Davey or Campbell bandwagon rolling because the first three just don’t cut it and the fourth one is just too old. A serious contender right now would already have at least a dozen identified supporters behind him and could afford to release at least three of them off their leashes to publicly attack Charles. Palpably, this is not the case.
Of course supporting a leader because there is no alternative is not really satisfactory either. On balance my judgement, and I suspect that of others, is that Charles is still an asset to the party and that no matter how many times senior Liberal Democrats MPs bare their egos they cannot change the fact that he remains popular in the party at large and amongst the public.
The misjudgement of these senior MPs is that they have tried to treat this matter as it would be dealt with in the Tory Party - behind-the-scenes briefing followed by a visit by the men in dark suits. That is not the way that the Party should or does work. They have upset and alienated a lot of activists and ordinary members from their cause and done the party no good at all. As for The Times, we have seen now what they are against - Charles Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats - perhaps it is time that they stopped behaving like the worst kind of tabloid and started debating the issues.
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Peter what makes you think the Times are !against the Lib Dems? All they have done is report the facts about your huge donation...where it came from how you got around the rules etc the background of the donor how he paid for flights using his swiss bank account which is against the law etc....all of it is perfectly acceptable journalism ....their story yesterday seems to have been accurate enough....perhaps you dont like being subject to this level of scrutiny as it exposes the party to criticism....but they do the same to the other parties whats the problem?
Actually no. They have distorted the facts to create an impression of wrongdoing when in fact the Electoral Commission are satisfied that everything is in accordance with the law and above board. There was no getting around the rules at all. Yes they do it other parties but their line at the moment is becoming a vendetta.
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