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"Ming Campbell Resigns"

A bit weird, really. Well, ok, not that weird. But he's used Gordon Brown's decision not to hold an election as the excuse to step down as Lib Dem leader.

It's obvious that the comments have finally got to him, that he's too old and not dynamic enough to run a political party. Still, the Lib Dems can only move forward now, after the last disasterous set of figures.

Any comments?

I think it's good for the party he's gone and hopefully they'll elect a young leader with plenty of energy to take them into the next election.

Sarah Teather would make a good leader in my opinion, I've heard her speak a lot, which in itself puts her ahead of a few other candidates who like most of the Lib Dems are perceived to be too quiet. She knows her stuff and is very confident; she'd put some life back into the party. I'd still vote for Cameron though at the moment...

David "Dr Death" Owen? Oh, God no!

Although bringing back Spitting Image and the puppets of them wouldn't be so bad an idea!

Bring back David Steel and David Owen I say.

Black Glove wrote:
> We're turning into America again.

Politics of personality comes along everywhere; you need a magnetic personality but also the policies. In the States, for example, Perot had the money and the charisma, but not enough policies to be taken seriously in 1990. Dole was seen as being too old in 1994. Just random examples of how it may/may not happen in the States. Look at Australia; the Labor party leader has seen his standing rise after admitting (Quite the nerdy chap he is to have drunkenly visited a strip club, as well as being an alternative to John Howard's seemingly now stalling government. but this may be a little unconnected...

I wouldn't say so in another way, as in the States there aren't effective party leaders; majority and minority leaders in Senate and House, and of course Presidential candidates or leaders of national committees, but not one true overall party leader.

But in any system you can't have someone speaking for a party who doesn't come accross as being at least a relatively strong politician; though I've no large doubts to Campbell's intelligence, integrity or claims to have built up the Lib Dem election machine, he just didn't seem to be completely the man for the job.

Or it's getting American in the sense that it's going to be an election for a candidate? You could compare it to a closed Primary, but with fewer candidates, and even fewer voters! :)

I liked the fact that he was called Ming.

Oh how I used to wish that Brian Blessed led the Conservatives.

But now, my dream is dead.

I quite like Ming, though he didn't make a strong leader. As a shadow foreign secretary he came across as a wisebeard, but as a party leader, no, not quite. Then again, isn't it the policies which are supposed to be important not the personalities? - We're turning into America again.

The question is, who to replace him? I'd personally like to see Simon Hughes or Nick Clegg take his place.

Yeah, there were the age jibes - he's the same age as Lord Ashdown, but far more doddery, which of course hasn't done him any good; a decent politician, but seemingly not the sort of man to lead a party. But then, Lord Ashdown does also know how to kill a man with his bare hands.

And remember, the Lib Dem position in polls has gone down for all manner of reasons; among them, the (I'd think largely Labour) voters who switched alliegance to them in 2005 as a result of the Iraq war.

Lets hope things go well for the lib dems. They haven't been that great ever since ming replaced kennedy. Hell, i didn't know that ming was leader of the lib dems until a few weeks ago. Watching the wright stuff.

So rising in the opinion polls and overtaking the Conservatives at a fair few points is dead, is it?

For a start they have the most logical policies of the 3 parties (in my opinion, of course) and, as with any party, given a good leader and some positive spin they could start back on that road again.