"And then he said..."

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.

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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?

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.

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.

It's no coincidence that the subject he stitched Blair up on was rendition flights - part of the whole US-UK-Iraq screw-up that helped him make his name as an effective and respected Parliamentarian. If he'd caught Blair napping on, say, education his success would have formed part of the ongoing “is he any good as leader” narrative that's dominated since he took over. Because it was actually in an area he'd previously been praised for it allowed even hostile writers like Iain Dale, who wears his bitterness over his North Norfolk humiliation vividly in every well-crafted sentence he constructs, to dust off the old “Ming scores another hit on Iraq” narrative.

But it's not just Ming whose leadership is defined as much by how it's reported as by what he actually does - the same is true of David Cameron, who has so far managed to create the illusion of great success by ensuring that the very little he's actually done is reported as if he'd been handing out loaves, fishes and triple Club Card points to allcomers.

In fact, it's probably true to say that the only negative currently associated with an otherwise buoyant Liberal Democrat party is the perceived problems surrounding the leadership, while the only positive associated with a Tory Party that hasn't fundamentally changed since the fall of Thatcher is the buzz that's attached to Cameron.

In other words, if Ming scores a few more hits like today and establishes himself more solidly, then we'll be off into the distance faster than Julia Goldsworthy in a velodrome whereas, if David Cameron steered his famous bicycle under the wheels of the chauffeur-driven car that infamously follows it, the whole Tory Party would soon follow him into oblivion.

That's why the stakes are so high in the Bromley by-election - the Conservatives may live to regret their questionable decision to field a non-local, pro-Europe candidate in a constituency where the Lib Dems can attack hard and where one of the leading lights in the UK Independence Party makes his home. The late Eric Forth finished almost 30 points ahead of the chasing pack in last year's general election, with 51 per cent of the vote. If the Liberal Democrats and UKIP each manage to shave 10 points off that lead then Cameron will look somewhat tarnished - any more and he'll have some serious explaining to do.

But it won't be the end of him - far from it. There are so many people who want him to succeed that he will be able to survive not only minor blunders but also one or two thumping great ones. A whole swathe of the political and commentating classes want to see a credible Conservative Party and they'll keep Cameron propped up even if he shows signs of falling over - no matter what they think of him personally.

Because the truth about Cameron - one of the truths, anyway - is that many of his party like what he's doing to their poll ratings and are willing him to succeed but aren't entirely convinced by the man himself. Rather as Labour's Old Left put up with Blair in order to get into power, a significant proportion of the Tory Party are perfectly happy to go along for the ride without necessarily signing up to the driver's planned route to the destination. It would be misleading to suggest there's any serious resistance to his agenda at this stage, but there's certainly a lot of eagle eyes watching him even as they support him. They well remember how Labour's left ended up as an irrelevance and don't fancy history repeating itself.

Cameron's task in keeping them happy while simultaneously suggesting to the public that he's not listening to them has often been compared with walking a tightrope, possibly - if the writer is particularly excitable - one stretched over a tank of piranhas. It's not actually like that at all. It's worse.

Instead, he's like the bloke who takes the food into the lion cage.

So long as he keeps bringing them what they want - success, dead goats - they're more than happy to welcome him. There may be something slightly odd about the way he smells, something less than ideal about what he brings - surely a live goat, or deep blue water Conservatism, would be preferable - and their instincts might be screaming out to rip him to shreds, but when all is said and done a dead goat or a poll lead is not something to be sniffed at.

But, like the lion feeder, Cameron will run into trouble if he starts turning up empty-handed. They'll let him do it for a while without harming him - at the risk of flogging a dead goat with this metaphor, the possibility of future food from a proven provider is better than the certainty of none from a bloody heap on the floor. However, he must know that if he doesn't keep delivering then pretty soon the likes of the Tory traditionalists and the Murdoch press will be eyeing him hungrily. And even with them on his side, his success is based largely on his personality at the moment - he's more likeable than Labour, and that's all he needs at the moment. Actual policies could damage that and he's wise not to develop any and concentrate on general positioning instead.

Non-Labour politics, it seems to me, is currently being driven by two leadership narratives - the Tories being boosted by Cameron's positive one, the Lib Dems being held back by Campbell's negative one. It will be far, far harder for Campbell to reverse his than it will be for Cameron to maintain his, although today suggested Ming might yet manage it. But Britain's celebrity-obsessed, build-'em-up-and-knock-'em-down, culture could see Cameron's bubble burst at any moment.

And if I were a Conservative, that would scare me very much indeed.

Tomorrow, after Ming Campbell makes his big speech about his vision of the party's future, I'll be interviewing him for this blog. I may put these points to him and see what he has to say. Or I may just ask where he buys his ties and who he thinks will win Big Brother, for I am a naturally shallow person and can only keep up this analytical stuff for so long…

The shiny new Tory Party looks a little less shiny this morning, 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.

Cameron did say local associations were free to select local candidates over the A-List, but Neill's local connection (he represents Bexley & Bromley on the Greater London Assembly) is tenuous at best - no stronger than Robert Evans had in Brent East as the area's European Parliamentarian, and that did him no good at all. In fact, it's likely to become a liability for Neill as he's apparently told the Bromley Tories that if he wins the by-election he will stay as GLA member until the next elections in 2008 - drawing both salaries.

The news of his selection has already draw some press criticism and has some - not all - Tories clutching their heads at the own goal. Politics.co.uk writes: “Conservative activists have rejected leader David Cameron's latest attempt to modernise the party by trying to get more women and ethnic minorities elected to parliament”, the Indy (unsurprisingly, as it is far from pro-Tory) adds “last night, the Conservative Party put a brave face on the choice and denied that it was a snub,” the far more sympathetic Times says “the attempt by David Cameron, the Conservative leader, to get more women and ethnic minorities onto the Tory benches in the Commons failed its first test last night,” and the Telegraph reports it as the “first snub for Cameron's 'beautiful' A-list” - along with a photo of the candidate that has to be seen to be believed.

Among bloggers Guido Fawkes, broadly Tory but always up for a chance to cause mischief, writes: “So Cameron's Conservatives in Bromley and Chislehurst have chosen Bob Neill, a pin-striped, old, grey-haired, male barrister to fight the by-election. Back to the drawing board for the A-list, which hasn't worked out too brilliantly this time… UPDATE : He doesn't actually live locally and he is an opera loving Freemason (Greater London Lodge). Isn't it all just so retro 1950s?”

Comments vary on Conservative Home, where a certain sort of Tory activist likes to go and play, and many of the more hostile ones are unlikely to be from Tories. However, two of the more plausibly genuine ones say:

Sad day for the party. Our party is unrepresentative of the country we seek to govern. This is why we need the A-List to change the face of the Conservative Party. And what happens? The first test and the local association fails the party by not choosing from the A-List and electing yet another old white man. Those who wish our party ill will be delighted by this result - Gordon will be smiling…

and

Until Conservatives from top to bottom start showing some loyalty to our leader David Cameron's attempt to get the party back into power will be like running a marathon with one leg!

Of course, most of the site is rallying behind its party's candidate - but the graphic it heads the post with unwitting says everything that needs to be said. It's certainly not what its designer meant but, without intending to, it sums up perfectly the problem with the Tories once you skim the Cameroonies off the surface:

The Conservative Party - no women or darkies need apply.

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.

Now, before everyone hits the speed dial to the News of the World, I should say the reason I know this is that I once found myself queueing next to him for a machine at my gym and was able to observe that he's broadly the same shape as the fitness instructors (40 years his junior) but rather taller.

It's a good gym - quite aside from anything it might have done for Vince it's responsible for me dropping several cup sizes and developing muscles I've only ever seen in photos of wrestlers. But, admirable though it is in many ways, there is one aspect of it that makes me cringe - namely the signs and notices.

These are clearly written by someone possessing only a passing acquaintance with the rules of grammar but blessed with a compensatory creative approach towards punctuation.

This sounds snobbish, of course, and doubtless the l33t generation will sneer, but I was literally stopped in my tracks this morning by the latest example of savagery: the citation for January's member of the month, newly posted on the stairs up to the gym, included a mis-spelling of the word “tries” as “try's”.

The error almost caused me physical pain and I don't suppose it particularly impressed the deputy headteacher who had won the award - or Vince, who has a way with words. We recently saw him conclude a speech on public spending by declaring “there's always one bastard who has to say 'no' - and, unfortunately, I'm that bastard”.

More recently still, I saw this excellent article written by him in the Guardian, in which he pours scorn on the attempts by David Cameron and the Conservatives to suggest they're all fluffy and friendly and liberal, like cute little orangey-blue bunnies, and not actually as evil as we all know them to be. In it he writes:

I suspect I am not the only Liberal Democrat to have received chummy emails addressed to “my fellow liberal”, or invitations to join his shadow cabinet (albeit via the somewhat impersonal medium of the Daily Mail). These fishing expeditions are unlikely to net any more than the odd, obscure ex-candidate, but they demonstrate chutzpah.

They also demonstrate a few other things on the part of Cameron. (And in passing let me say I will not join the trend of referring to him as 'DC' - DC is a Formula One racing driver with no neck and a regrettable lack of consistency, not an overgrown schoolboy with a brass neck and a regrettable lack of ideology.

One thing it demonstrates is, obviously, that Cameron has a few lessons to learn about attracting defectors. Rather more importantly - and more creditably for him - it shows that he has identified what I think is going to be the trend that dominates British politics over the next decade.

It is different from what I wrote about recently when I said that voters would become sick of young, media-savvy politicians - that was just about personnel - but it is linked to the increasingly-obvious reality that people will soon have had enough of the Labour government, which I also mentioned.

For as long as I have been involved in politics - since the mid-1980s when I was at school - the battle-lines were simple. There were the Conservatives, who were the bad guys, and there was everyone else, who were therefore by default the good guys.

This was - as we jokingly knew it as students - the Great Patriotic Alliance Against the Conservatives, but really what it was, was the Great Progressive Alliance. It was comforting - you knew where you were at all times as the ground rules were simple. It defined who were your fellow political travellers, who you were willing to enter coalition with, whose public meetings you went to, who you argued with and who you applauded at debates, who you went to the pub with afterwards, even which party it was socially acceptible to admit to being a member of at dinner parties.

The reason the Tories stayed in power for so long was that this alliance against them was fragmented and incoherent. It contained socialists, both in and out of the Labour Party, it contained Greens, it contained Nationalists in Scotland and Wales, and of course it contained the Liberal Democrats and their predecessor parties. There were also a lot of single issue campaigners on subjects as diverse as the Poll Tax and road building.

Inevitably these people, ranging as they did from Socialist Workers to upper middle class opponents of destructive bypasses, did not always make comfortable bedfellows. For a long time the Tories were popular, but when they weren't any more they still won because of the perceived weakness or unpalatability of the progressives. The most striking example is, of course, the 1992 general election where that nice Mr Major survived as Prime Minister, even though people didn't think much of his party, because they thought even less of Neil Kinnock.

The territory over which the Tory vs progressives battle was fought was largely economic. Initially, during the first years of the Thatcher revolution, it was about jobs. Later it was about the proper provision of public services such as health, education and transport. It was very much a left / right battle and it's still the mind-set that dominates most politicians and journalists.

But for those with eyes to see - and apparently David Cameron is among them - it's rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

You can see the evidence when tactical voting works to defeat Labour candidates instead of Conservatives. You can see it when liberal and conservative bloggers (in Britain - not, of course, in the USA) find common cause against the government's civil liberties legislation, and when the Home Affairs spokespeople of the Lib Dems and the Tories are able to do a joint TV interview, as Mark Oaten and David Davis did, to celebrate forcing the government to back down over 90-day limits for detaining terror suspects.

And you can get a clue about what is replacing the progressive alliance when the leader of the Conservatives attempts to tempt over defectors by addressing them not as 'my fellow conservative' but as 'my fellow liberal'.

The new alliance which will come to dominate British politics will be the Great Libertarian Alliance against the Labour Party.

This will be partly defined by opposition to the erosion of civil liberties and historic freedoms in response to terrorism, but there will be more to it. It will tap into fears and hopes that have little to do with the government - but a government as keen to micromanage as this one will reap more than its fair share of the whirlwind.

This new alliance will include people upset about a loss of privacy in a world where advances in technology allow everything from your Tube ticket to your shopping card to track your behaviour. It will include the Open Source Movement, and also the Anti-Globalisation movement. Fair Trade will be as much a part of it as fair votes. Where once we demanded 'no more cuts', soon we will demand 'no more oppression'.

And, very likely, the catalyst to all this will be the introduction of ID cards - the point at which people see them in action and start to feel their effects. It will be the equivalent of when the Poll Tax registration forms began to drop onto people's doormats.

During the general election Chris Lightfoot created a survey to analyse people's political opinions, which he then combined with relevant data from the pollsters YouGov. The results are available for download on his Political Survey 2005 microsite and should be compulsory reading for every political strategist. Obviously, the analysis is almost a year old now but it perfectly explains why this change is happening.

In its simplist form, it shows that the biggest dividing line in public opinion these days is not economic policy. Most people fall closely to one side or the other of the centre axis, with very few lining up to cheer for either socialism or for free market economics. Any politician who wants to base the appeal of their political party on economics - be it public service provision, tax cuts or simply financial competence - will be batting on a dusty wicket. It's not what people want to hear.

Where there is a huge difference, however - and therefore an opportunity for one party to steal a march on all the rest - is along a measurement that Lightfoot dubs “the Axis of UKIP“. UKIP, obviously, has imploded since then but the point is still valid. The values that this axis measures are, broadly speaking, liberal vs authoritarian, and they cut right across party boundaries. At one end of this access are people who believe in rehabilitating criminals and in the rule of international law. At the other end are - to use a couple of stereotypical lables - the Little Englanders and the Hang 'em and Flog 'em brigade.

And guess what? There are more of us than there are of them, marginally.

It's a difficult split for Labour, which is by nature authoritarian and is currently eroding civil liberties almost daily. It's a party that likes to tell people what to do, but it has its bleeding heart wing too, and that's a recipe for conflict and strife.

But it's worse for the Tories. Socially, many of its supporters are at the wrong end of the scale. So as Cameron tip-toes towards the liberal end of the spectrum, sensing that this is where the new votes are to be found, the suppliers of his party's existing votes are looking daggers at his back. And if his strategy fails to deliver, or if he goes too far for them, the daggers in his back will become rather more corporeal.

Nevertheless, it's potentially a winning gamble for Cameron. The progressive alliance eventually triumphed because it found a leader, in the shape of Tony Blair, who people trusted with their votes - and with their hopes for a better country. Realistically, the only person who could fill that role at that time was a leader of the Labour Party. Cameron will be hoping that the only personal a libertarian alliance can rally behind is a leader of the Conservative Party. If he finds the right way to do that, if he finds the magic button to press, then it will be 1997 all over again but in reverse.

But it doesn't follow that only a Tory can become the new head of Hogwarts. In fact, for as long as the Tory Party remains the natural home of people who demand authoritarian responses to crime, foreign policy and immigration it's highly unlikely to happen.

So what does that imply?

Firstly, that Labour should be more relaxed about the next election than it probably is, post-Dunfermline. It will probably lose seats - anti-Tory tactical voting will unwind and be replaced by anti-Labour voting, for one thing - but there will be no meltdown until there is a general for the libertarian alliance to follow. And if the Tories do something stupid, as Labour did in 1992, all bets are off.

The Conservatives have hope for the first time in years. Cameron is following the only possible correct strategy. It probably won't work, but even if it fails it will be a more successful failure than any other course of action. And there's a risk, possibly demonstrated in Dunfermline: by linking the Tories with liberalism in people's minds he may drive traffic in the other direction to the Lib Dems who, it would appear from what he says, aren't so bad after all. But at the moment Cameron is holding a hand that includes a pair of aces, and no-one knows what the dealer holds.

For the Lib Dems, this is a time of huge opportunity if someone is smart enough to recognise it. The leadership election has not - as some hoped and others feared - become a platform to discuss the tensions in the party between economic and social liberals, but such differences as have emerged have mostly been on economics and taxation. This is such a wasted opportunity. I see no-one trying to stake a claim for leadership of the libertarian alliance. We have none of the baggage that holds back the Tories and are therefore well placed to build (and lead) a cross party consensus. The winning response to David Cameron e-mailing “my fellow liberal” is to say “welcome aboard, why not follow where we're leading?” Our silence could hand leadership to him by default.

And yet I hear none of the leadership candidates sounding a rallying cry for liberty. Why is no-one saying 'you know what - none of this tax stuff matters that much, what really counts is freedom'? There is a bigger job available in British politics right now than mere leader of the Liberal Democrats, and whoever snatches it will be more than half way to Downing Street. We need to make sure that person is not David Cameron.

No matter how hard he try's.

Well said that man!

“David Cameron’s flip-flops on policy expose his inexperience. He’s still a novice. A leader with L-Plates.

“So while Conservatives may think that youth, inexperience, and naivete are the answer to their problems; I say they are not the answer to the country’s problems.

“Tomorrow’s Britain needs leaders of experience, proven good judgement, who people know they can trust. That’s my territory Mr Cameron, not yours. And I can’t wait for the chance to put that choice to the British people.”

Ming Campbell today

That’s exactly the ground he should be fighting on.

In not entirely unrelated news, my leadership ballot went in the post today - and I’m more confident than I have been for some time now that the “1″ was next to the correct name.

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

Firstly, when Blair goes there will be a backlash against young, slick media-friendly politicians. Gravitas and dourness will be in, charm and twinkling smiles will be out. It's been brewing for years and it'll take just one spark for the public mood to switch. It's going to be a very bad time to be David Cameron, David Milliband, DavidNick Clegg or one of seemingly hundreds of identikit political clones.

Secondly, the change in Labour's leadership will merely delay the increasing unpopularity of the government instead of reversing it. In other words, I believe it'll be like the long, slow death of the Tory government all over again - remember how people thought John Major was basically an okay sort of bloke but couldn't wait to see the back of his administration?

For these assumptions to come true, a whole other set of assumptions have to fail to come true - most obviously, if either Brown or Cameron (or both) turn out to be electoral Viagra for their parties, then things will be very different. But I don't think they're going to be.

So where will that leave the Liberal Democrats?

Still at the crease, about to hit the ball over the pavilion, out of the ground and through the bloke next door's greenhouse into his tomato plants.

None of the three candidates for leader are exactly what you might call a fluffy media bunny. You may have seen the Question Time audience react to the idea that Ming Campbell might be too old - I've written about it before, it was the moment when I thought “he's our next leader”. If he's in charge when the backlash against smarm combines with a “get the bastards out” move against Labour, we'll be laughing. Which is not to say that Simon and Chris would be a liability under those circumstances - I think they would also be well placed to seize the moment. But not as well.

Because I think there will be a moment to be seized. The biggest thing we have to worry about right now is a blue tide washing us away, and it's not happening. Monday's Independent carries an analysis of recent polls by John Curtice of Strathclyde University. It's grim reading in one sense - but not in others.

Professor Curtice said the conventional wisdom at Westminster that Mr Cameron was hurting the Liberal Democrats, and that their problems were good news for the Tories “does not fit the facts”.

This is basically the argument I made recently - the Tories are not doing us much damage at all. We're doing plenty ourselves, but the support we're losing is drifting to Labour, not to Cameron. And if things go as I think they will, we can get it back.

Of course, this all depends on one thing: that we can haul ourselves back on track very quickly indeed - starting, ideally, from yesterday. People have been laughing at us for a few weeks now - if they don't stop soon, they may not stop at all, in which case all my theorising goes for nothing and we'll be back to the days when the Parliamentary party could meet in the back of a taxi.

Those of you with long enough memories will recall a previous cure for being laughed at that worked rather well.

I seem to remember a time when our “Social and Liberal Democrats” name was derided as “Salads” and the new bird of freedom logo was being mocked as a dead parrot. Overnight, all that stopped. And if my memory serves me right what stopped it was the Eastbourne by-election victory. After that, Lib Dems (oh, alright, SaLaDs) across the country could be heard chanting “you're not singing, you're not singing, you're not singing any more”.

So we'd better fucking win in Dunfermline, that's all I can say.