I’d been meaning to write something about the resignation of Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy and the prospects facing his party, but since I’ve been working til 3am on a consultancy report, I’m pleased to say that Andrew Bartlett has done a sterling job in canvassing the matter, so I’ll refer you to his excellent post.
6 Responses to “UK Lib Dems’ travails”
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He main crime was he repeatedly denied he got drunk!
It appears he like Curtin US Grant and Andrew and My self suffer from getting drunk from not a lot of alcohol.
I merely drink, wine, at home.
I think the LDs would have gone better if not for this at the last election.
Which reminds me why are so many Scots in political office there!
Another petty non-issue detracting attention and valuable scarce resources from the massive problems presented by the economy, Europe and the soon-to-be-nuclear armed M/E.
rog - please send me a list of approved rwdb issues for blogging. Or do I just read tim?
Mark, I am referring to the (non)issue of alcohol and leadership, the politicians in the UK appear to mesmerised by PC. They should be more focussed on performance not compliance.
Thanks Rog! An excellent example of “ruddockuling” a post. http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/01/07/saturday-salon-37/#comment-46118
Thanks for the clarification, rog. I guess the question with Kennedy is whether or not his alchohol intake affected his leadership. But I suspect it’s a bit of a smokescreen - the real problem the Lib Dems have is they don’t know whether to swing right (to pick up Tory votes - they lost seats to the Tories last time) or left (to pick up Labour votes - which they did last time). Kennedy tried to balance competing factions and tack both ways at times - and the consensus seems to be that his performance in the 2004 election (while having a net gain of seats, some were lost) was below the par given the particular political circumstances. As a number of people have said, Kennedy’s drinking was no secret, and he seems to have been tackling it, so I think it’s most likely just a pretext.