Clegg & Cable
Jennie writes here of the Liberal Democrat’s strength due to the presence of Vincent Cable. I would agree with her that a strong shadow cabinet in waiting leaves Clegg in a strong position, but the fact that there are three individuals who would obviously do a far better job than the charisma devoid rightist bluster he is producing (Cable, Kennedy, Opik) is not something which is either to his credit or helpful in his efforts to present the Liberal Democrats as a viable party.
I fear that Clegg may be even worse for the Liberal Democrats than was his elderly predecessor: as well as being roughly as skilled at getting the LDs into the news and dominating the agenda (that is to say: not at all) he has the additional pressure and importance of leading them while the Labour Party is in an obvious and increasing state of collapse as well as the disadvantageous attribute of being too steady a pair of hands to have torn off of the bridge. But there are a number of candidates who he should be dislodged in favour of, meaning that he is a good enough leader to save himself (thus condemning the party) but not a fine enough one to lead them on to claim the position which they could easily take. In this way Clegg’s limited but undeniable talents result in him being just wrong for leadership. The perfect anti-Aristotelian candidate.
Clegg is, in short, lithium for a party in dire need of amphetamines.
LMAO!!!! See, this might have been a good post. Might have been. Were it not for your choice of examples.
Cable, yup, probably would be a better leader than Nick. Except he doesn’t want it. Kennedy, maybe, except he is so wrapped up in his little one right now, and rightly so. But Opik??? Seriously? Lembit is a lovely guy, but he’s more gaffe-prone than anyone else on the political circuit, bar none. Which is why the thought of him as party president terrifies most of the activists, even those, like Steph Ashley, who know him personally and love him deeply.
God forbid someone perform a gaffe and the Liberal Democrats actually obtain some media attention…
I am perfectly aware of his tendency to mess up horribly, its a hard one to miss. But at the moment the amount of people who know anything at all about Nick Clegg, except perhaps how many women he’s slept with, is unsettlingly low. He hasn’t led the Liberal Democrats into the spot-light and yes, I think that the considerable charm of Lembit would outweigh his occasional amusing oversight.
Because the amount of caustic cynics who are immensely fond of him is quite remarkable. Including the editor of this blog. (EDITOR SAYS: I’m fond of him because he amuses me. I wouldn’t want him leading my party, both on policy and competency grounds.) (JG SAYS: Funny, that’s not what you said when there was a leadership election. I found you rather mournful of the absence of Opik then. Why the shift since, Mr. Johnson?) (EDITOR SAYS: How long ago was that? You know I’ve shifted somewhat since then, in general; more definitely socialist, at any rate now. On Opik, though - at the time, I thought that his particular brand of charisma and charm might make him a more media-competent leader under whom the party might actually stand a chance of replacing Labour. Since then, he’s done much to damage his own public profile by making a fool of himself, undermining that one quality - presentational - that initially made me consider him. And I’ve realised just how much I disagree with him on certain matters, mostly economic. And Segways. I’m still deeply fond of the man as a figure, but I wouldn’t vote for him.)(JG SAYS: Alright then. Personally I still think that he’d be great. Sort of along the lines of Boris but with a far greater grasp of what he was talking about.) If he can win them over then he’s not going to struggle with usual people.
Although, of course, he doesn’t want it either. Which makes it 3/3 of my prospective list of better would-be leaders who don’t desire the role that they’d excel in. Have you ever known any other party to be hamstrung by a lack of personal ambition amongst its senior members?
“Gravitas” is a word that doesn’t appear to be in the Estonian dictionary; Lembit is a liability, a laughing stock, and a loose cannon. If I were living in Montgomeryshire I’d have left the Party and joined Plaid ages ago. Shagging Cheeky Girls and wibbling about aliens and Japanese motorcycles may be fine and dandy behaviour for some geek at a convention but I fear the Great British Public would see things rather differently. Hell, he makes Simon Hughes look like a statesman in comparison. Yes, I’m sure Lembit is great company and the kind of guy whom it would be fun to have a few beers with, but then again so is Boris Johnson and I wouldn’t want him in government either.
With you all the way regarding Vince and (especially) Charlie though; the only real heavyweights we have with any of that all-important charisma that a leader needs in this shallow mass-media age, and actually liked by the voters.
surely endless arguing and internal wrangling about who would be a better leader is best left to Labour at the moment - they seem to be doing a pretty good job at that if nothing else.
gaffes may lead to publicity, but not all publicity is good publicity - lembit would be a major liability and destroy any hope of the lib dems being taken seriously. leave the boris johnsons of this world to the tories, or preferability to obscurity and irrelevance. im sure lembit is lovely, but not as leader, or even party president.
so the media havent suddenly rolled over and gone - oh, a new leader, time for lots of nice, balanced, lib dem friendly coverage. Instead they ask him how many women he’s slept with. What a surprise. Why do people seem to be so amazed the media haven’t instantly changed tune?
sod all this charisma vs personality nonsense, lets have some policy, and someone who gets stuff done, backed up by a cabinet full of people who know what they’re talking about. and leave the backstabbing, muttering, ‘were doomed were doomed’ idiocy to Labour.
Perhaps 5-10 years ago, Lembit was leadership material, but he’s become a parody of himself.
Cable may have the status to be leader, but 1) he doesn’t want it and 2) he’s at his best as Shadow Chancellor. If he became leader, he’d be out of his depth, much like Gordon Brown.
Other than Clegg, who I think is doing better than I expected when I voted for him, the only others who’d be good, effective leaders are in my opinion:
Charles Kennedy (should never have got rid of him, but that was before my time)
David Laws (like Clegg, but with Cable’s intellect)
Steve Webb (appeals to the grass roots on the left and right, though doesn’t alienate people as much as Huhne can sometimes)
I’m afraid your entire argument is blown out of the water by the Luntz newsnight focus group last night where floating voters including Labout leaning voters massively preferred Clegg and the LibDems to Cameron/Tory and Brown/Labour. These are the floating voters, the least likely to recognise names etc. They found Nick extremely persuasive. So that description of him not being good enough simply doesn’t wash.
Fun blog. It would be even better if you’d actually watched the conference or seen the Newsnight interview with floating voters who overwhelmingly said Nickers played a blinder.
Go back to your keyboard and prepare for obscurity.
“Go back to your keyboard and prepare for obscurity”
That, coming from a LibDem? Pfft. You find one focus group that agrees with you and conclude that you must be right. Never mind the fact that, with Labour almost collapsed, you should really be closer to 30 or 40% in the polls, rather than 12-22. Wait for an election and continuing insignificance before you gloat.
I will hold my hands up and admit I thought Clegg would be a good LD leader. I assumed, because he had been vocal on civil liberties issues, that this would characterise his leadership, and that the Lib Dems would focus on attacking Labour from the left, as they did in 2003-2005. Alas, he appears to have caught the bug going around the leadership teams of all three major parties: a complete lack of personality, of substance, of the skills, instincts and qualities to lead our country when it so bloody desperately needs some leadership.
Nick is great with people, comes over as genuine and warm and look at how overwhelmingly popular he as with that Newsnight group - the results are worth repeating: Brown 4 Cameron 3 and Clegg 17.
He has also brought about a fairly major shift in emphasis in the Party with hardly any pain - you have to be quite clever to do that.
I think he’s doing really well as leader and this is only the beginning.