I can't begin to imagine the pressure on a party leader over the last three weeks. Rather like being the hapless 3 coconuts on a coconut shy - the challenge is to be the last man (and of course they are all men!) standing! So, what kind of coconuts do we have? We have the old, beleaguered specimen - slightly calcified, attempting to appear heavyweight to avoid attack - Mr Brown. Then we have the fresher looking specimen - untouched, perky, but lightweight - the fact that the inner coconut "water" has dried up or has never even been there, invisible to the human eye - ah yes - Mr Cameron - clearly incredibly easy to unbalance, if anyone is willing to take a shot. Then we have the third "coconut" also under fire - but more resilient. Smaller yes, but heavier. Full of the "water" of values and convictions that the others either have lost or never had in the first place - Mr Clegg.
OK - I am drifting off into sycophancy again (!) but I am SO impressed with Nick. This crisis is a huge test for anyone, but he has totally kept his nerve, continued to challenge and remind everyone that it is our party that has consistently pressed for the reform now so desperately required.
When we elected our leader 18 months ago our considerations were around policy and who could best lead us into the next general election. None of us had any notion of the political maelstrom our chosen leader would be required to navigate - I for one feel totally vindicated that we chose the right man.
1 comment:
"None of us had any notion of the political maelstrom our chosen leader would be required to navigate".
I think you will find my comments around the time of the leadership election centred on it, and the way I felt the leadership election should be about that rather than about the relatively trivial things it was about. It should have been about how we could deal with the huge crisis in confidence over democratic policies, and the economy which was obviously going very wrong and going to hit a big mess soon. I said that, and I didn't like Nick because he didn't seem to have much to say on the matter, not that Huhne was much better on it.
Nick has done ok, he could have done better. He is still too right-wing economically to have had proper answers to the economic crisis. His response to the political crisis has been rather feeble, witness failing to realise now was he time to push STV rather than the useless AV+ which does little to solve the problem (and that's a fairly minor example of not really getting it right).
He's done well because, well the others are really, really crap. But, as I've said, if we'd played this better we'd be soaring in the polls right now, not fighting it out with UKIP.
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