"And then he said..."

Strip number two: meanwhile, out in the desert somewhere…

Built using Witty Comics

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I don't have the resources (or the body) to try video blogging, so I thought I'd try an older style of satire: the cartoon strip….

Built using Witty Comics

I'm not wholly surprised that this letter wasn't published in Lib Dem News - there must have been a backlog building up while the paper was “off the air”, so to speak. But since I was cross enough to write it, I reckon I'm cross enough to post it here…

I note with some dismay that the reception for Parliamentary candidates at conference in Brighton will be sponsored by Tesco. Would this be the same Tesco that is busy destroying jobs and small local shops across Britain, siphoning money from local communities to its shareholders, clogging roads with traffic and filling landfills with excess packaging materials, and bullying farmers and suppliers into accepting ever-decreasing prices? The Tesco whose planning applications are being opposed by Lib Dem activists in Focuses up and down the country? If this is what constitutes professionalising the party, I'd rather stay an amateur.

I also spotted with a fit of giggles that Iain Dale has selected this as the 35th best Lib Dem blog in the country - apparently not noticing that until a day or two ago I had gone a month without updating it, and that in the almost four years it's existed in its various forms I've spent about six months in total writing about politics.

But, hey, it was still a nice thing to discover - because, you know, my life was so hollow without validation from the man whose commitment to liberalism is so great that he was able to transform a Lib Dem majority of 483 into one of 10,606, just by standing there for the Conservatives.

Tesco and Iain Dale - it's like being back at school, where the greedy fat kid and the spotty loser always follow you and your mates around in the hope they'll look cool too.

Over in the US at the moment, a bitter battle is reaching a climax.

Joe Lieberman, Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 Presidential election, is being challenged for his seat representing Connecticut in the Senate - and not by the Republicans (yet), but in the primary election for the right to be the Dems’ official candidate. Lieberman’s not the most popular congressional Democrat with the grass roots of his party because of his habit of supporting President Bush and criticising fellow Dems, and a wave of bloggers is among many people backing his opponent Ned Lamont.

Joe hasn’t taken this unexpected opposition terribly well and has threatened to run as an independent if he loses the primary (which is far from impossible). He’s also run a furiously negative campaign attacking Lamont, who’s a bit raw and lacks the polish of a professional politician.

No bad thing, that lack of ingrained hackery, and it’s probably the reason the Lamont campaign is relaxed enough to answer the attacks with this TV commercial, which uses humour to brilliant effect in undermining Joe’s attack ads.

I have some practical advice to anyone who believes the best response to teenage yobbos is to hug them, as David Cameron currently seems to be suggesting - and that advice is, don't.

My attacker wasn't wearing a hoodie - this was back in 2000 and fashion in those days ran to a baseball cap and black and white camouflage Moschino trousers - and I don't think the rest of his gang were either. But undoubtedly their younger brothers are out tonight wearing them.

His first couple of blows with the bottle opened up a wound by my eye that would later need six stitches and another on my hairline that would need two. 'Sod this for a lark', I thought, and tried some sort of action to stop him.

I closed up on him and leaned forward in an attempt to trap his arms against his body by hugging him. It didn't work - I got the hug in, but his arms were still free and he now had an easy target in the shape of the top of my head. Three more blows with the bottle, each one needing three more stitches, and all the while I continued to hug the ungrateful little bastard.

Trust me David, it doesn't work.

During the Dunfermline by-election, the Tories put out a leaflet quoting David Cameron saying: “Issues that once divided Conservatives from Liberal Democrats are now issues where we both agree. Our attitude to devolution and the localisation of power. Iraq.”

In other words, he was saying that the Tories now accepted it was right to oppose the Iraq war, which at the time they had supported.

Now we learn that in an interview with Jonathan Ross, to be broadcast tonight, Cameron backs the war.

The BBC reports:

Cameron backs Blair on Iraq war

Conservative leader David Cameron has said he still believes going to war with Iraq was the right thing to do.

In an interview for BBC’s Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, he said the war had been “very unpopular” and some bad decisions had been made since it began.

But Mr Cameron said “those of us who supported” the military action should “see it through”.

[snip]

On the issue of Iraq, he told Ross he supported Mr Blair’s decision to go to war.

“The world has got smaller and we have to recognise that what happens in other countries has a bearing on us,” he said.

He added: “You’ve got to do what you think is right even if it’s unpopular, that’s the only thing you can do.”

So which statement was the truth in this astonishingly blatant reversal of position?

Or does he think we’re all so stupid that no-one will notice?

For ease of reference, I decided to compile a page containing all my posts on about politics and the Lib Dems since I started writing about the subject back in January when the leadership stuff kicked off. There’s nothing new here, it’s just for reference.

Nailing my colours to the mast

7 January 2006

That photo of me and the boss taken during the 2001 general election, when we both had fewer chins, should illustrate where I stand in the madness that’s currently gripping a miniscule proportion of the Liberal Democrat party, namely the ones with the letters “MP” after their names. I post it not to show off, but simply to make it clear that, during a period when most of Charles Kennedy’s supposed allies are retreating from him faster than an Italian tank regiment, some of us are proud to have been associated with him and don’t mind who knows it.

Strange days

7 January 2006

Ah, bugger it.

Grey today, gold tomorrow

13 January 2006

I’m working from home today - a real delight after a pretty grim journey on the Tube yesterday. But I can’t believe how cold and gloomy it is. Midday and I’ve got the light on, even though I’m next to a window, and a fan heater blowing. Tomorrow should be interesting - we’re going to the Lib Dem “Meeting the Challenge” conference / workshop, which was supposed to be a big get-together to discuss the philosophical underpinnings of party policy and to re-examine whether we were going in the right direction. Of course, it will now become a beauty parade of the leadership contenders.

Meeting the Challenge I

14 January 2006

First batch of thoughts from today’s Lib Dem Meeting the Challenge conference at the London School of Economics, where the four leadership candidates spoke.

Meeting the Challenge II

15 January 2006

Here’s the second post on Saturday’s Meeting the Challenge conference - this one’s on the leadership candidates’ speeches.

Alas, poor Mark

19 January 2006

So Mark Oaten has departed from the Lib Dem leadership race, his campaign having been met with a certain amount of derision and rather a lot of underwhelmed silence. While some people clearly have a lot of faith in him and others were out to get him from the start, most gave him a fair shot and were simply unimpressed.

Answering the question

20 January 2006

Last night Ming Campbell was on Question Time, a programme that generally drives me barmy because I find myself wanting to hurl abuse (and chairs) at the screen.

It never rains but it pours

21 January 2006

I’m no fan of Mark Oaten, as I think I’ve made clear, but this is rather a shame. The thing I’m saddest to see is him apologising to his family - immediately revealing the furtive sordidness of it all.

Extra time follows own goal

22 January 2006

Went out again today taking more photos for a Lib Dem leaflet (we don’t call them ‘Focus’ around here, unlike the rest of the country, we call them ‘Democrat’ - historical reasons).

What the public wants

23 January 2006

The last 20 visits to this blog from Google used the following search terms, just so you know what the world is interested in… depressing, isn’t it?

Small earthquake in Southwark - not many dead

26 January 2006

So Simon Hughes is bisexual, is he? Never would have guessed it. Next week in your Soaraway Sun: fire bad, tree pretty.

Better than badminton

27 January 2006

Finally have time to write up my thoughts about the Any Questions leadership debate, from the perspective of being in the audience.

The numbers game

27 January 2006

For me, the most interesting thing about today’s dismal poll figures in the Telegraph is the way they bear out the analysis offered at the Meeting the Challenge conference by a psephologist whose name, alas, escapes me.

Here we go round the bloody mulberry bush again

29 January 2006

Isn’t it completely predictable? Having knocked down CK, Mark Oaten and Simon Hughes (not exactly difficult tasks, admittedly) it’s now time for for the guns to be turned on Ming.

My crystal balls

30 January 2006

I believe that two things are going to happen in British politics over the next few years.

Ming Campbell’s Achilles heel

5 February 2006

I was phone canvassed by the Campbell campaign yesterday and the combination of that and some conversations I’ve had with members in my local party suggest exactly why my favoured choice for leader isn’t waltzing home unchallenged - why, in fact, he is quite likely to lose to Chris Huhne.

Well done, children

8 February 2006

There now - see what happens when everyone plays nicely?

Way-hay for risk-taking

8 February 2006

We’d better win the Dunfermline by-election - I just nipped into William Hill during my lunch hour and put a tenner down at 10-1. If it all turns out to be spin I shall be demanding a refund from Chris Rennard. :o)

Ming tells it like it is

8 February 2006

Well said that man!

Things always look brighter after the storm

10 February 2006

Well stuff me sideways with a yaffle iron, as the man once said. We won in Dunfermline. I’m frankly astonished and delighted - I thought in the end that it was going to be a near miss, which would have been a great result in itself. Suitable donation on its way to party funds.

Job vacancy

12 February 2006

It’s a little-known fact that Dr Vincent Cable - the Lib Dems’ grimly northern, silent-movie-villain Shadow Chancellor - is actually rather buff when stripped to shorts and t-shirt.

Chris Huhne: Just say ‘no’

14 July 2006

Whole books have been written on the ideal qualities of a leader: the ability to inspire - coolness under fire - broad strategy combined with tactical nous - high principles tempered by low cunning - luck, as well as judgement. Fewer have been written about the failings that leaders must avoid - even though one failing can trump a whole hatful of qualities.

Poor old Lembit

16 February 2006

The man was just born unlucky - what were the odds of this?

Crick on Huhne: He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy

18 February 2006

Ahem. In recent days I have made it pretty clear that I don’t want to see the election for the leader of the Liberal Democrats won by Chris Huhne. From this, readers may have drawn the conclusion that I want to him to lose. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Coming from behind with a late surge

24 February 2006

I have finally allowed my name to be included on Ming Campbell’s list of website supporters - somewhat late in the day, I admit, but it seemed the right time at last. Anyone who’s been following this journal right through from when I stopped writing about buttocks, dead people, shopping trollies and the North Circular, and started writing about politics, will remember it took me quite a while to decide to vote for him.

It must be true - it was in the paper

25 February 2006

Chris is winning! No - Ming is winning! Bloody hell - just count the votes already.

Winners and losers

2 March 2006

With the result of the leadership election just hours away, it’s time to look at the winners and losers from the campaign.

Golden boy

14 March 2006

I’m taking part in a discussion at the moment that asks people why they first joined the Lib Dems. I got so many good memories writing my answer that I thought I’d cross-post an expanded verion of it here.

Going for Goldsworthy

18 March 2006

The first installment of Channel 4’s The Games has just ended, with Cornish Liberal Democrat MP Julia Goldsworthy placed third of five in the women’s contest after suffering a dunking in the white-water kayaking despite being the pre-contest favourite.

Tories shoot themselves in the foot in Bromley

4 June 2006

The shiny new Tory Party looks a little less shiny today, after its Bromley members last night rejected two high-fliers from David Cameron’s A-List as their Parliamentary by-election candidate in favour of a middle-aged white male Freemason from Tower Hamlets who seems to represent everything the Tories are supposed to be moving away from.

On Mingness and Cameronality

8 June 2006

So Ming scored a direct hit at PMQs today, then. He must have done, because everyone’s saying he did. And that rather highlights the problem with this leadership business. Ming’s success today was partly because he left Tony Blair gasping like a newly-landed haddock, and partly because people were prepared to report that he did.

Ming pulls it off

8 June 2006

It’s a funny old world when the replacement of a media-conscious young leader with a silver-haired patrician is the cue for the first ever free-for-all interview between a party leader and a bunch of bloggers.

The Mingterview, part one

9 June 2006

I’d been a critical supporter of Ming in the leadership contest, grown increasingly worried over the months that followed by the ease with which he was undermined by the opposition, but greatly reassured by his performance a couple of hours earlier as he made his big speech. I wasn’t in a mood for Paxmaning him, as I might have been if he’d fluffed the speech, but I had some questions I badly wanted to know the answers to.

The Mingterview (part 2)

11 June 2006

We return to find our hero still in conversation with the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Menzies Campbell, following the Mingster’s keynote speech last Thursday. Will he ask a difficult question or will he roll over and have his tummy tickled? Read on to find out…

We return to find our hero still in conversation with the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Menzies Campbell, following the Mingster's keynote speech last Thursday. Will he ask a difficult question or will he roll over and have his tummy tickled? Read on to find out…

So far, the three bloggers interviewing Ming had covered the leadership, Prime Minister's Questions, conviction politics vs management, the aspirant middle classes, the non-voting socially disadvantaged, the political sea-changes of 1979 and 1997, and the likelihood of a general election in Autumn 2007 if Gordon Brown gets an opinion poll bounce when he takes over. The atmosphere was conversational and informal, with some humour thrown in.

The mention of a possible election gave me the chance to ask about one of my current convictions: that the best way to deal with the Tory revival is to kneecap David Cameron. Puncture his bubble and the whole party slowly deflates. Unfortunately, half way through asking the question I realised I didn't actually know what the question was, beyond 'have we got a strategy to nobble Cameron?'

So that, shorn of all polite language and political subtlety, was essentially what I asked - although I did turn it into a joke about having seen Paddy Ashdown at the event earlier (for those not familiar with British politics in the 1990s, Ashdown is a former Lib Dem leader who used to be in the Special Forces: he's always carefully avoided denying lurid rumours that he'd killed with his bare hands).

I have to say that I was a bit disappointed with the answer - possibly because I'd managed to start the subject off with a laugh, preventing it from becoming the serious debate about political tactics I'd hoped for. Mea culpa.

We do have a strategy, as it happens. Our strategy is to pile pressure on the Tories if circumstances allow - the Bromley by-election is a case in point - but otherwise to sit back and watch while Cameron self-destructs under the weight of his own contradictions.

Ming said: “The shine is coming off. How he's going to get through 15 months without any policies I really can't imagine. If he tries to, I think he will begin to come under a lot of pressure.” He said this wouldn't just come from the media, it would also come from Tories with views similar to those on Conservative Home: “So much of what he's driving them towards, the membership don't accept. There's only so long he can get away with that. A point will come where that tension will present itself.”

He was also scathing about Cameron's media blitz: “He makes a speech a day about bugger all - did you hear the last one? About happiness? It was like listening to Ken Dodd. But seriously, at some point he's going to have to submit to a 20-minute interview, and what's he going to say in it?”

There's no doubt that Ming believes Cameron will crash and burn some day before the next election, and he seems quite happy to wait and watch. I think he's right. But I was hoping for something a little more proactive, a little more aggressive, to bring forward the day of the Great Combustion. Well, to be honest, not a little more - a lot more.

In parentheses, I should add that some people - the admirable Mike Smithson among them - have asked why some Lib Dems are obsessed with Cameron when they should be concentrating on attacking Labour. The way I see it, there are four main reasons:

1. Beating Labour often means keeping a lid on the Tory vote: a tight two-way contest gets much harder if anti-Labour people are pottering about randomly voting Conservative.
2. As said before, the prize for a successful attack on Cameron is huge. Labour, on the other hand, are being attacked by everyone else so why waste the ammunition?
3. If you're the third party you can't just concentrate on one of your opponents: trying to is like taking part in a particularly combative orgy - you might be able to shaft one of them, but the moment you turn your back on the other you're buggered.
4. Politics isn't just about cold calculation, it's also about emotion. For many of Thatcher's children, splatting the Tories is a patriotic duty. Plus, it's fun.

I might have liked to pursue these points a little further, but a disadvantage of the interview format kicked in, and not for the first time: the three of us asking the questions were operating an unspoken turn-and-turn about. No-one liked to hog centre stage for too long but, not knowing how much time we had available, no-one wanted to stay silent for too long either.

The effect of this was that points didn't get followed up very far and there was no flow or narrative through the interview as the subject changed often. In that sense it was more like a press conference than an interview - but a very polite press conference with no pack mentality among the questioners. Earlier I'd had more - and tougher - questions to ask about his leadership, but the opportunity to ask them passed and I didn't like to rewind the discussion and risk leaving other subjects unmentioned.

So, while more might have been said about attacking the Tories, we went off in a new direction as a question about free trade and globalism let Ming talk about the likely effects of Indian and Chinese growth on the economy, society and politics of Europe.

And then suddenly we were running out of time. No immediate pressure to stop, but just an awareness that we ought to start thinking about wrapping up somewhere in the not too distant future. I had two questions from members of my local party exec still to ask, so I jumped in with those.

During the leadership election, Ming allowed himself to be trapped into agreeing to get rid of his beloved vintage Jaguar in the cause of greater environmental purity. As a Triumph Spitfire owner, I didn't think it was his finest hour - classic cars are rarely state of the art and green-as-green, but they also get driven a lot less than road cars and therefore have a smaller environmental impact. Nevertheless, the die was cast and the question I was asking came from one of my more green-minded colleagues, Andrew Dakers, who wanted to know why he hadn't just converted the car to bio-fuel in order to demonstrate that environmental consciouness could also be fun.

Ming's eyes lit up when he heard about my Spitfire and he eagerly asked questions about its engine - ones, I'm afraid to say, that I wasn't terribly well equipped to answer as I'm no expert on car innards. Unlike him, it would seem. When I asked the question his face had to be seen to be believed as he boggled at the idea of a bio-fuelled Jag. At length, when his voice returned, he admitted that the short answer was that he didn't think of it in time.

The longer answer is that the car had a 12-cylinder engine, a piece of classic engineering that had potential purchasers 'oohing' and 'aahing', and he wasn't at all convinced it could have been converted. He said he kept fobbing off potential buyers and eventually donated the car to a museum where he visits on Sundays to stroke it. He said it with a smile, but there was an upsetting undertone of longing in his voice and I got the feeling that nothing the Tories could do to him could possibly hurt as much as this wound, inflicted by a supporter of one of his rivals in the leadership election.

From the politics of motoring I moved to the politics of race and international relations with a question from my good friend, and successor as Hounslow Lib Dem chair, Harjinder Singh. At the time of the French ban on religious garb in schools, Harjinder had lobbied for the Lib Dems to treat this as a human rights issue, with initial success that was ultimately squashed flat when the party (and Ming as foreign affairs spokesman) decided to treat it as an internal French matter. My questioning of this decision caught Ming somewhat by surprise - partly because I didn't have sufficient grasp of the subject to explain it well and partly because it had come so completely out of left field.

Rather caustically, but not unreasonably, he suggested Britain needed to be careful when preaching about human rights to other countries when we had work to do on that front ourselves. He then suggested a letter on the subject would get a more measured response.

By now, time really was running out. A question about what came next after this pretty successful few days was met with a cheery “business as usual” - a rather chilling answer when placed in the context of the 97 or so days that had preceded them. He maintained that even hostile political journalists could see perfectly well that his first few months as leader couldn't possibly be compared with those of David Cameron, who had had a transition period to get used to the job during a quiet time of year. It was tempting to reply that people who benefit from coups rarely get a soft landing and should be prepared for that fact. Tempting, but rather against the spirit of the occasion.

Meanwhile, Will Howells was eliciting some trenchant opinions from him on which was the best Doctor Who - so I gave up and switched to a different form of participatory democracy, asking who was going to win Big Brother (Pete, obviously). This morphed into a discussion of sport on TV and an assurance that he'd support England in the World Cup (but Great Britain in the Olympics, Europe in the Ryder Cup, and I think some Scottish sport as well).

And that was that.

If you need any better illustration of the promising effect of Thursday's Lib Dem announcements, it's the way it's suddenly open season on the party on certain right-of-centre blogs, such as Guido (no less than three knocking posts in quick succession) and Iain Dale (the rather comical assertion that the announcements represent the most left wing agenda since Michael Foot - they really ought to get their stories straight, as Guido is calling it Thatcherite).

But obviously, I would say that, wouldn't I, as a Lib Dem?

The question of impartiality has been vexing me rather, since someone whose opinions I respect greatly looked at my last post and said it sounded like it had been written by the party press office. I'm not convinced it does, and it's an accurate record of my opinions, but even so.

I'm not a journalist any more, so I'm not obliged to be impartial. But I'm not a politican these days, either, and have no need to push a particular line - the only obligations I have remaining are to be honest in what I write and to apply a little critical intelligence.

It's with that in mind that I come to write up the interview that I and two other Lib Dem bloggers, Peter from the Apollo Blog and Will Howells, had with Ming Campbell earlier.

I'd been a critical supporter of Ming in the leadership contest, grown increasingly worried over the months that followed by the ease with which he was undermined by the opposition, but greatly reassured by his performance a couple of hours earlier as he made his big speech. I wasn't in a mood for Paxmaning him, as I might have been if he'd fluffed the speech, but I had some questions I badly wanted to know the answers to. I also had a couple supplied by members of my local party, and they weren't exactly simple either.

I won't dwell too much on what Will and Peter asked, as they have both supplied excellent write-ups in their respective blogs. My own agenda was largely about campaigning prospects and techniques rather than about policy.

The leadership

Will kicked things off with the obvious question - how would Ming characterise the first 100 days of his leadership? The answer was simple: “Challenging.” He elaborated by explaining how he'd been pitched straight into a party conference and a local election campaign, with no meaningful handover period, and only now was he able to settle down and get organised. Some the transitions had been difficult, not least getting used to Prime Minister's Questions, where he was likely to have almost 600 MPs actively opposing him. This was an unpleasant contrast with questions to the Foreign Secretary when he was deputy leader and shadowing that brief - in that role, he usually had half the House on his side as he bashed the other lot.

I asked one of the points I made on this blog last Wednesday after his success in PMQs - did he think he'd been successful that day because he'd picked a subject that was considered to be one of his specialist subjects and strengths? He agreed, emphatically, and explained that it was always difficult to plan a killer question on a hot topic because there was real chance that someone would ask it before it was his turn. On Iraq, though, he knew he was on safe ground - the Tories wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

Communicating

It's one of my hobby-horses that we communicate well with educated types who read the Independent and have degrees, but not at all well with the huddled masses. What, I asked, were we going to do to change that?

I wasn't wholly convinced by the reply, though part of it was very good. The less-good part was a rallying cry to repeat the successes achieved on local councils in Liverpool and Newcastle at a Westminster level in the great northern cities - a very fine aim, but lacking in detail as to how it might be achieved. He floated the need to communicate with more people over the internet, before correcting himself that we were probably talking about a lot of socially excluded people with a lower-than-average online prescence. Then he hit his stride talking about crime.

He'd already gone into some detail about the need for a robust but liberal approach to crime when answering one of Peter's questions. Now he returned to it and linked it explicitly to the question of how to talk to the socially excluded, the people with no stake in politics and precious little in society.

He said: “The people on the council estates are the ones whose houses get broken into and have to dodge flying bottles on Saturday night or who have neighbours from hell.” I'd been deeply suspicious of many of the details of his recent law and order announcement, at the same time as welcoming the fact he was speaking out on this issue. I remain suspicious, but am reassured to find there's more to it than knee-jerk right-wing populism. Crime is a powerful issue for connecting with people who don't want to be connected with.

And now it's pushing 2am and I need to sleep. The rest of this interview will have to wait. But as a teaser, I leave this quote from Campbell about his opposite number in the Tories: “He makes a speech a day about bugger all - did you hear the last one? About happiness? It was like listening to Ken Dodd, all he needed was a tickling stick.”

It's a funny old world when the replacement of a media-conscious young leader with a silver-haired patrician is the cue for the first ever free-for-all interview between a party leader and a bunch of bloggers. Admittedly, we were Lib Dem bloggers and therefore house trained, but our 45-minute session today with Sir Menzies Campbell explicitly had no preconditions attached, no advance notice of questions, no no-go areas, and no requirement for copy approval afterwards. Is this the future? I'd like to think so.

To deal with the important stuff first, Ming has a genuine petrol-head's love of talking about car engines, will be supporting England in the World Cup, accepts that Pete will probably win Big Brother, and has strong opinions on Doctor Who (which I'll let Will Howells write about as they are his scoop). I didn't ask about his ties.

There was also a lot of other stuff about cutting income tax, penalising environmental polluters, reducing the number of MPs and breaking up the Home Office to make it operate better. Stuff like that.

And I have this to report: Ming has a spring in his step and he's looking and sounding sharp.

The thing that has worried me in the past - and I've alluded to it from time to time here - is that he seemed to be carrying his years badly. He sounded frail, looked pale, and at times seemed slack-jawed and confused.

Not any more.

Today's speech was billed as his vision for the future of the party. Unkinder souls called it a relaunch after an initial tenure as leader that had been somewhat underwhelming. It could have gone either way - the ghost of Iain Duncan Smith could easily have stalked Millbank - but in fact it went well. Better than well, actually. The relief on the face of Nick Clegg as he congratulated him afterwards was palpable, while Jo Swinson - who looks so young in the flesh that she should surely be presenting Why Don't You? rather than representing East Dunbartonshire in the House of Commons - looked on him as one would a favourite grandfather who's just outsprinted all the dads in a parents' race at a school sports day.

The Atrium at 4 Millbank is an excellent location to make an announcement - I have argued before that because Ming looks traditional he should choose modern settings - but its acoustics are dire. It was difficult to follow everything he said, but that was OK because he was actually saying it mostly for TV and they'd made the proper arrangements. The speech touched all the right buttons, speaking of the greater professionalism he's introducing to the party's workings and of the policy areas he considers the most important.

It ended with a rallying cry:

“I want a Britain where opportunity is the birth right of every child, a Britain where ambition is nurtured and aspiration encouraged.

“I want a Britain to be proud of.”

That provoked a frenzy of nods from all the MPs standing on the platform with him - only Vince Cable and Saj Karim MEP refrained. Previously, while he was speaking, the cluster of senior colleagues around him had all practiced their best “listening seriously” faces, with Swinson and Ed Davey winning by miles. Each, as their own policy area came up in the speech, nodded on cue - Michael Moore with a slight look of puzzlement, as if he'd just been airlifted from the Big Brother house and wasn't quite sure why he was there, Chris Huhne emphatically, as if he was checking off the points to make sure he approved.

As Ming left, the acoustics of the Atrium started to work in his favour. The applause was loud and genuine - but the vast chamber magnified it and as he walked up the long sweep of steps to leave, pausing to shake hands and wave, the sound seemed to carry him upwards. One Lib Dem staffer later reported hearing a woman's breathless voice saying “I touched him! I shook his hand!” Most people stopped short of that level of adoration (no-one threw underwear) but spirits were clearly high. The event had succeeded.

Media reaction has so far also been broadly positive. It's hardly headline news on the day when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi died and Wayne Rooney's foot was reborn, but it's had an encouraging response and the proposed cut in income tax has been picked up as a story. The Beeb's Nick Robinson stood at the back looking thoughtful as Ming spoke, occasionally sipping from a tall glass and checking the pre-supplied text of Campbell's speech with the words he actually delivered. His blog has nothing to say about the event.

Unlike this one, and the Apollo Blog, and Will Howells. The future, you see, unfolding in front of you.

A second post, with the actual interview, will follow soon. The full text of the speech is here.