Okay, so I know I’m biased. Not only am I a Lib Dem, but I’m one of the (relatively few) bloggers who supported Ming Campbell for the leadership.
But I was by no means uncritical. And one of the chief concerns I had was how Ming could deal with the demands of front-line leadership in the 'telly age'. I remember in particular on interview he gave to BBC1's On The Record during the leadership campaign: he looked stiff, awkward, and uncertain.
Yet his performance on Andrew Marr's Sunday AM today was top-notch, best telly interview I’ve seen him give: calm, relaxed, and authoritative. At last, he looked sublimely comfortable as leader.
True, Mr Marr is not the fiercest of interrogators - to be fair, 9 am on the Lord’s Day is no time to do a Paxman - but his questions were perceptive and to-the-point. Ming urbanely answered them all, highlighting the key themes he wants this conference to address: the environmental agenda, fairness in taxation, and rolling back the layers of New Labour over-centralisation.
If you think I’m just brown-nosing, you can watch the interview by clicking on this link, and judge for yourselves.
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4 comments:
Did you spot possibly the first ever protest at a Lib Dem conference earlier? Hundreds of football supporters angry that a Lib Dem council is trying to kill their club? You should write something about it. Might help you win blog of the year or something....
(And yes, I think you are brown nosing, for what it's worth)
First of all Stephen, congratulations on winning...
And secondly, I didn't see the interview, but I had a resident who phoned me up last night and was very (favourably) impressed by it
Well done on winning.....BUT.
Andrew Marr didn't pick up on what Ming Campbell said about taxing air travel. MC said, "we will take the tax off the individual and move it to the airline." He went onto say that this would not necessarily be passed on to the consumer. This is loopy logic. Can anyone seriously see Ryanair et al just absorbing the tax? No, because they would go bust in a month.
I'm all for doing something about the levels of airtravel but it's no good having a headline grabbing policy that doesn't deliver. The whole point is that we need to reduce air travel!
Mr Tall, congratulations on being a strong voice for Headington. A weak voice in the hubbub of Headington would surely be as useful as a faulty ear-trumpet for Ming Campbell.
I believe you won an award. Mr Asquith tells me he admires your work.
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