The Poliblogs 21st September 2007

Ming's zinger

Knowing what she can do to those who mess with Ming, I wouldn't presume to speculate about what Lady Campbell gave her husband for breakfast. But it worked a treat. It's been a bad week dominated by leadership rumblings. Yet the moment he stalked onto the stage, dropped the niceties and got stuck in to the state of Britain under Labour, the Lib Dem leader reminded his party why they had chosen him 18 months ago, and why they would be mad to drop him now.

Ben Brogan

Ming’s Moment

This was a business-like Leader's speech from Sir Menzies Campbell.

He kept his audience applauding for all 50 minutes (too long), because they liked what he was saying not because they were propping up a dead-man.

Adam Boulton

Has Ming answered his critics?

The Lib Dems who’ve been returning home this evening after their Brighton conference should have been absolutely delighted with the closing speech by Ming Campbell. After days of being questioned about his age and his fitness to lead his performance, judging from the playbacks on the computer, appeared excellent and, more significantly, undid much of the damage from his last major speech to the party at the Harrogate conference in March.

Political Betting

My Two Cents...on a referendum

Gordon Brown is denying the voters of Britain a chance to vote on the draft EU reform treaty even though it is over 90% the same as the EU constitution – the same constitution the government had promised to allow us to vote on.

Blaney’s Blarney

Labour conference: right only with the party?

‘I know that one must not be right against the party. One can be right only with the party, and through the party, for history has no other road for being in the right.’ – Trotsky at the thirteenth congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1924

Back in the early 1990s, the political conference season often used to see me embark on a four-week tour of British seaside resorts. TUC, Lib Dems, Labour, Tories. In some years I went to the lot.

Dave’s Part

Libdemologists: Say Ming Was Fantastic, They're Fibbers

Sadly I missed seeing Ming's magnificent speech. Somehow walking the dogs seemed more pleasant and more important. Lib Dem Voice have a bit of a review and some comments. The first of these is anonymous. Possibly from Ming himself and refers to "Dave".

Chris Paul: Labour of Love

Warwick Lightfoot: 'Naive' Boris has the wrong policy on Livingstone's too costly PFI schemes

The Conservative Mayoral Primary and its hustings have shown the Greater London Conservative Party in a good light. We have shown that we are open to debate and argument and we know that as a party we have to address the concerns of everyone living in Greater London. Common themes have emerged about tackling crime, improving transport and getting greater value for money from the £10.7 billion spent through the Mayor of London’s budgets.

Conservative Home

Confusion reigns

From viewing the video of yesterday's House of Commons Treasury Committee hearing, there can be absolutely no doubt about what the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, wanted to say.

EU Referendum

Slow progress

Lib Dems 07: The third party could set the agenda. But their aversion to power-sharing solutions means they may never be in that situation.

Sunder Katwala

In Support of Tim Ireland and Craig Murray

Tim and Craig Murray (former Ambassador to Uzbekhistan) recently wrote something about the Russian/Uzbekh billionaire, Alisher Usmanov, who is trying to buy Arsenal FC. As I am writing this on my Blackberry I can't go into all the details but suffice to say not only his site, but those of Craig Murray, Bob Piper and Boris Johnson have all gone too, as they are run from Tim Ireland's webhost's server.

Iain Dale

What's really in the Brown proposals

We are hearing such a lot of noise about the sacred cow of "Contemporary Resolutions" being slaughtered that the other aspects of the "Extending and Renewing Party Democracy" have been ignored.

Luke’s Blog

Is a switch to UKIP behind the Tory decline?

The above is part of the detailed data from yesterday’s ICM poll in the Guardian and has figures which should be deeply worrying for the Tory leadership. The section I reproduce shows the current voting intentions of those who said they voted for the three main parties in 2005 and the figure that stands out is the proportion of 2005 Tory voters who now say they will switch to UKIP. From a quick scan through the records this is the highest this has been.

Political Betting