Time to go
All the newspapers (e.g., tomorrow’s Herald) are now publishing similar articles reporting that most of the LibDem party seem to be begging Sir Ming to step down.
I must admit I agree. I’m sure he has good intentions, but he’s just not effective.
Back in the leadership election to replace Charles Kennedy, I gave my first vote to Chris Huhne after listening to all three candidates in Edinburgh. I still remember that it worried me that Sir Ming seemed to get slightly confused at questions, a quality that I thought would prove disastrous in Parliament (as it did).
Since then, I’ve been worried by his apparent closeness to Gordon Brown, and especially by the party’s total lack of grasp of proportional representation politics in Scotland and Wales (which he might not be ultimately responsible for, but which I also find it unimaginable that he wasn’t involved in).
So it’s time for him to go. Who the best replacement is, I don’t know. It needs to be somebody who has the personality to do well in Westminster and on TV, and it has to be somebody who has the friendliness and ruthlessness to do well when there’s more than one way to form a majority. Chris Huhne did impress me, but other candidates might be even more promising.