A new home

If you've spent the last eight months wondering if this blog is dead, the answer is yes, sort of. I'm no longer blogging here, but you can find all my writings - whether from Lib Dem Voice, or elsewhere - over at my new site, stephentall.org: The Collected Stephen Tall. So go on, bookmark it: you know you want to.

Okay, okay, I admit defeat... here are my 25 random things

I've succombed to what my mum always warned me against: peer pressure. I've resisted the 25 random things meme-craze sweeping across Facebook as long as possible. I attempted to deflect it by blogging 25 random things about the Lib Dems over at Liberal Democrat Voice, but tonight I finally put egotistical finger to self-obsessed keyboard and wrote up my own, personal 25 random things...

1. I have a double-barrelled surname (the only one in my family born with it - figure that out). I never use it.

2. The first album I bought was Kylie's first eponymous one.

3. I had attended five schools by the age 8. In Epsom, Bristol, Cardiff, and Liverpool.

4. In my first live TV apearance a lady fainted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5bl32COCy4

5. My favourite film of all time is Love Actually, actually. I've watched it more times than is healthy.

6. My video collection treasures include Bob Monkhouse Live (x3), a 3-hour compilation of party political broadcasts (thanks Iain Dale), and The Box of Delights.

7. I had never set foot in the Oxford city council ward I was to represent for eight years until 2 months before I first stood for election.

8. I can't drive (well I guess I might be able to, but I've never had a lesson and haven't got a licence). I have, however, bought a car and sat-nav.

9. I had never been on a plane or been abroad until I was 23. (I've made up for it since).

10. I would be happy only ever dressing in frock coats. Preferably made of velvet.

11. My greatest embarrassment is that I have tried and failed to learn Spanish for the past three years (despite my girlfriend being Spanish).

12. I am currently reading four books: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

13. From the age of 8 (til I was about 11) I wrote and designed my own daily newspaper, The World. I was a weird kid, tho - my favourite TV programme was Yes, Prime Minister.

14. I was the youngest deputy Lord Mayor of Oxford (probably, haven't actually checked, but I must've been).

15. I once stripped for a vlog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoCH2MAMtL4

16. Though I enjoy editing Lib Dem Voice - www.libdemvoice.org - I much preferred writing my own blog, A Liberal Goes A Long Way - http://oxfordliberal.blogspot.com.

17. The last three DVDs I bought were: the Complete Cadfael, Complete Skins and Victoria Wood Live (1997).

18. I was once a Fellow of an Oxford college, but have never been an academic.

19. I have always had a phobia of dogs (tho I'm more or less okay around them now).

20. My ideal meal would be roast beef with all the trimmings, washed down with a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé.

21. The last batch of CDs I bought were: The Killers, Pink, Will Young, Kaiser Chiefs, The Streets and Girld Aloud. Make of that what you will.

22. My perfect relaxation is a bath, glass of champagne, and the latest Economist.

23. I joined the Labour party, aged 16, have read all Tony Benn's Diaries, and voted for Tony Blair as leader. I resigned my membership in 1999 after Labour flunked Freedom of Information, reckoning if they couldn't get it right on such a minority-interest issue what hope was there of them getting it right on the big issues?

24. I got my first ever pet last month (thank you, Noa): a terrapin.

25. I hope that my first child will be an adoption.

One roast swan short of a Banquet

I know that citing the Google searches that resulted in people accidentally stumbling across one’s blog is a bit clichéd, but... hey, trite-and-tested is my motto. And I did like the idea of someone keying in the phrase:

Tony Blairs Lord Mayor Blanket speech

It sounds like rather a good idea: forget the white tie and tails, just bring a sleeping bag.

Because criticism should be fair and factual

That fearsome right-wing triumvirate – Robert Halfon for ConservativeHome, The Spectator’s Stephen Pollard and The Times’s Daniel Finkelstein – all repeat what they consider to be a terribly clever point about Gordon Brown’s tainting of David Cameron as a ‘shallow salesman’.

Here’s Mr Halfon:

Far from being used as a political insult in which Mr Brown can attack the Prime Minister [sic], salesmen should instead be celebrated for their hard work, entrepreneurial spirit and for providing services that many people could not do without. Mr Cameron should wear the salesmen badge with pride.

And here’s Mr Pollard:

I think it says a lot about the outlook of our wonderful PM that he should regard the word 'salesman' as an insult. … [he] appears to have an instinctive loathing of capitalism, and to regard it merely as something to be tolerated for the benefits it can bring.

(Mr Finkelstein confines himself to commending their "brilliant" insights).

But hang on a just a second. Gordon Brown didn’t condemn all salesmen. He condemned shallow salesmen, which is actually quite a big difference. Here’s a tip for Messrs Halfon, Pollard and Finkelstein: adjectives are usually quite handy clues to discerning what someone means.

I’m no apologist for the Prime Minister, as I suspect this article makes clear. But distortion for argument’s sake is just a little – how can I put it – shallow. And it’s as tedious from right-wing commentators as it is when left-wing agitators condemn money as the root of all evil (forgetting that it’s the love thereof which is responsible).

One thing I just don’t get about David Davis

I don’t doubt for one moment the sincerity of David Davis on civil liberties. He has proven himself to be an articulate, passionate, resolute opponent of Labour’s unceasing efforts to subjugate the ordinary man and woman to ever more draconian laws for the greater good.

And yet he is also an advocate of the death penalty, saying in his first interview as the Tories’ shadow home secretary back in 2003:

“There is really no doubt, if you have got DNA evidence in multiple murders there will be absolutely no doubt," he told BBC's World this Weekend. "That is one of the great concerns historically about capital punishment, that there will be doubt about it.

"Secondly, that it is obviously pre-meditated. If somebody plans to carry out a series of murders, often against children or young women, or elderly people. These people pick their victims very cynically I'm afraid. Then this is obviously an evil and pre-meditated attack and in that case, there could be there a deterrent effect. We are talking about lives here."

For many in the Tory party they will see no ideological conflict in holding such views: it is partly what separates the libertarian wing of the Tories (who are generally also on the ‘social right’ of their party) from Liberal Democrats.

Yet for true liberals there can be no more terrifying prospect than that the state should hold the power over the life or death of its citizens. It is why the declaration of war – and the knowledge that young women and men will die at the behest of the state – is something which should only ever be contemplated in the most serious circumstances, and as a last resort on the basis of unimpeachable evidence.

That the state should consider aggrandising to itself the right to extinguish the breath from one of its citizens is the height of arrogance and hubris. No-one who truly believes in the rights of the individual, and in the limits of state power, could ever condone the re-introduction of the death penalty.

David Davis has many admirable qualities: but he is not and never will be a liberal.

Local paper in earth-shattering headline bid

This was the leading headline on the Oxford Mail website this morning:

"No One Injured In Shed Fire"

A whole city breathes a collective sigh of relief.

The perils of choosing a Lib Dem Voice poll

It’s an odd experience, sometimes, editing Lib Dem Voice. Last night, we were chided – quite rightly – for keeping up on the site an out-of-date poll. So, today, as I cycled into work I resolved to stick up a new poll for readers pretty damn smart.

The question was: what to ask? I toyed with ‘How long has Gordon Brown got?’, or ‘Who do you think will succeed him as Labour leader?’ But too many other folk are asking that. Besides, the truth is the Labour party is far too servile to sack their leader just because he’s not up to the job. They’ll hang on to Gordon simply because he’s there, and they hate to challenge authority.

So I settled on a more interesting (I thought) question: what do you think will be the result of the next general election? But what answers to offer? Obviously, the four most plausible choices – outright Labour/Tory victories, or minority Labour/Tory victories – and I briefly contemplated adding a ‘Lib Dems win’ choice, too.

And then I decided not. After all, the chances of a Lib Dem victory at the next general election are Posh Spice-slim, at best. It also occurred to me that loyal Lib Dem Voice readers, bless ‘em, might feel compelled to chose the ‘Lib Dem win’ option – which would render the poll pretty nonsensical, as I was more interested in finding out what fellow Lib Dems really think is the most likely eventuality, not what they dream of happening.

A couple of commenters on the thread have expressed their disgust at the exclusion of a ‘Lib Dem win’ option. Fair enough, they’re entitled to their opinion. But what intrigues me more is this question: would it actually be a good thing for the Lib Dems if we found ourselves the elected government in two years’ time?

My answer would be: absolutely not.

The idea that the Parliamentary party could grow overnight from 63 to 330 and provide a stable, sustainable liberal government is too far-fetched for me. Even if that quintupling in numbers were to occur, I find it hard to believe the party would be ready for the challenges of government. And that’s no criticism of the party, its prospective MPs or the leadership: simply the reality that gradual growth provides a stronger basis for future success than a meteoric rise without trace.

By all means be ambitious. But also let’s be realistic: for example, by doubling our number of MPs in the next seven years, as Nick Clegg has declared to be his aim. And let’s work for the party’s long-term success, not a short-term flash-in-the-pan.

The week after the eight years before

So this is what it feels like to be a normal person again... After eight years, I am no more; I have ceased to be; I am an ex-councillor.

Chatting to two fellow councillors last week, I could sense a faint trace of pity in their looks, as if, by standing down, I was tossing away the holy grail. They asked why I was leaving, and consoled me that I could always (try and) get back on the Council soon enough.

Then conversation turned to the commitment involved: the incessant evening meetings, the weekends catching up with casework, the tensions it causes at home. My turn to give them a pitying look: “And you asked me why I’m quitting...?

I keep on waiting for an epiphany, a moment when I suddenly realise my life is my own again, and not shared with 4,000 residents. It hasn’t happened yet, and I doubt it will. Life has a habit of adjusting itself remarkably quickly to our changing rhythms.

Besides, last Saturday morning saw me cycling to the Town Hall to chair the Oxford Lib Dem group’s annual meeting, at which – I’m genuinely delighted to say – my former ward colleague, and fellow blogger, David Rundle was unanimously elected leader. He will now be the leader of the opposition to Labour’s minority administration, a task he will relish and for which he’s custom-made.

David’s already commented on the Oxford results here, and there’s little to add. For some bizarre reason, the local paper keeps referring to the party’s “miserable” election-night performance, despite the Lib Dems gaining a seat – pretty impressive for a group which has been in minority control for two years, and has had to grapple with a City Council only slowly recovering from Labour’s appalling quarter of a century running it down.

Yet there’s no denying Labour did better: they gained four seats, including one from us, bucking the dire national trend for their party. They will reap the benefits of a Council which is now on the mend and on the up. Fingers crossed they don’t screw it up... again.

For us, the results were more frustrating than anything else. The Tories trail a long way behind the Lib Dems in Oxford East – but they did just enough this time around to split the anti-Labour vote, and hand a lifeline to the Labour party. The message here is clear: vote blue, get Brown. The challenge for the Lib Dems is to make sure the public – determined to get rid of Labour at the next general election – understand the message, too.

Well, I guess I have a little more spare time now to lend a hand with that.

Is there a life after politics?

So, today marked my last Council committee. Though, a la Frank Sinatra, I will have many more such ‘farewells’ in the 21 days which remain of my life as a councillor. (Last area committee, last civic occasion, last Full Council, etc.).

I took the decision a few months ago to stand down from Oxford City Council when my third term expires but have kept schtum about it – chiefly because I hated the idea of being a lame-duck councillor whose pleas to council officers were ignored because “he won’t be around for much longer”.

There’s lots of reasons for my retirement... a new house, a new job which deserves my full daytime attention, and a partner who deserves my non-work attention, a new niece... above all, a feeling that I don’t want to turn into one of those councillors who hangs around in the hope of one day becoming Lord Mayor, rather than because they have anything fresh or energetic to offer their residents. After eight years, and three election campaigns, it’s time for me to make way for a Lib Dem campaigner with the vim and vigour to tackle the issues I have been grappling with in my ward since 2000.

There are things I will miss – my Council colleagues, and, especially, the residents I’ve got to know so well – but, if I’m honest, more that I won’t. My pet hate is meetings of Full Council: five hours of torpor in which councillors grand-stand to no purpose in the unrequited hope of being quoted in the local paper.

Its an oddity of Oxford politics that most councillors rub along together pretty well, and can find more to agree on than disagree... until they sit in the Town Hall council chamber. At which point, some form of collective guilt takes over in which councillors fear they’ve betrayed their principles by cooperating with opponents, and decide to turn into mindless, partisan morons.

Never say never and all that – and I’ve not ruled out a return to the City Council at some point – but if I never attend another meeting of Full Council, it will be too soon.

But there are things I’ve achieved, a fair number, for my residents over the years; and I will miss not being able to achieve similar such things in the future. And there are things I’ve failed to achieve, more than I’d like, for my residents over the years; and I regret I won’t be in a position to try and put that right in the years ahead.

When I finally, finally finish – on 1st May – it will be distinctly odd. The Council has been so much a part of my life for eight years that I’m curious to find out how I’ll manage without it, as I re-discover a life beyond politics. I know this is the right time to leave. But I don’t regret a moment of it. Truly, it’s been a privilege.

This is how far A Liberal has gone

“It’s a funny old world,” said a former PM. She was right. In my day job – the one that pays my mortgage, and keeps me well away from politics – I am responsible for fundraising for the University of Oxford’s libraries, including the Bodleian. Within which is located the Conservative Party Archive. For which I am now actively seeking money. Oh, the irony.

For the record (and in case my employers are watching) I should stress I have absolutely no philosophical problems with any of this. The Archive is an historical record, and a fascinating one at that. One part of it has made a splash today, with the online release of the Tory Party’s posters – the Daily Mail carried a dozen of the best in a double-page spread here.

But you don’t need to patronise the Mail’s website to enjoy a saunter through political advertising history. You can access the whole archive at the Bodleian’s website here. Which means you can also search the Archive by category, date, description or keyword. I typed in the search term ‘liberal’, which gave me the five posters, below. (Click on image to enlarge).

Interestingly - though I guess unsurprisingly - the Liberal party was deemed not to be worthy of an attack-by-name ad for three decades, between 1929 and 1959. And nothing since 1983 either. But, then, I suppose Tories are all liberal Conservatives now, aren't they?

1929:
(Posters 1929-10 and 1929-23)























1959:
(Poster 1959-03)























1964:
(Poster 1964-12)























1983:
(Poster 1983-12)

Should Chris Huhne really be leader?

That’s the allegation by the Indy’s political editor, Jane Merrick:

According to one authoritative account of the leadership contest last December, Chris Huhne would be Lib Dem chief were it not for hundreds of ballot papers being held up by the Christmas post. Mr Clegg beat his rival by just 511 votes out of more than 41,000 party members in one of the closest-run races in political history.

Yet as many as 1,300 postal votes arrived after the deadline of 15 December – and an unofficial check of the papers showed that Mr Huhne had enough of a majority among them to hand him victory. The extraordinary claim could spark demands for a rerun from Mr Huhne's supporters.

I’ve not come across Jane Merrick’s journalism before, so I’ll take it on trust that she does bother to check her sources, even if she doesn’t feel the need to cite them. But I find the story barely plausible.

For sure, the gap between Nick and Chris was a wafer-thin 511. But for the result to have been overturned by ballot papers received after the closing date would mean that Chris would have had to have picked up 70% to Nick’s 30% of the final 1,300 ballot papers. Given how close both candidates were running throughout the contest, this stretches credulity.

Not impossible, then. But highly, highly unlikely. And you might have hoped the Indy would reflect this in its coverage. Hoped, but not expected. For British political journalism is rarely troubled by the need for facts to substantiate a story – just throw together a load of allegations, and see what sticks.

Dave, you're fired

It's a delight to welcome back The Apprentice into my living room each week. Such a shame that David Cameron looky likey, Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, should be first man overboard. Still, I bet Dave would know you can't get lobster for £4.90 a throw.

Ed Balls-up: crisis, what crisis?

Back in June 2007, when Ed Balls was appointed secretary of state for Children, Schools and Families, I did suggest he might come a cropper some day:

I’ll be interested to see how long it is before Balls’ tone-deaf touch lands the Government in hot water.

That day came on Wednesday, with his heckling of David Cameron’s budget response, when it is alleged he shouted “So what?” when the Tory leader argued this country’s tax burden has never been higher.

Such tone-deafness would be enormously embarrassing for Labour. Indeed, PoliticalBetting.com’s Mike Smithson today argued it might lose the party the next election.

But fortunately for Mr Balls, anarcho-blogger Guido Fawkes has proven himself to be Mr Balls' true friend, coming to his rescue by uploading to YouTube the House of Commons exchange.



Watch carefully – and impartially – and it can clearly be seen that M Balls does not bawl out, “So what?”. In fact what he says is just as is recorded in Hansard:

Mr. David Cameron (Witney) (Con): ..As this country enters troubled times, it could hardly be worse prepared. We have the highest tax burden in our history.
The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (Ed Balls): So weak!
Mr. Cameron: “So what?” says the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. I know he wants to be Chancellor so badly it hurts. I have to tell him that another Budget like the one we have just heard and he will not have to wait very long.”

But the damage is done for Mr Balls – and personally I’m with Lynne Featherstone: serves him right for indulging in such boorish behaviour in the first place.

Rather like Jim Callaghan – who famously never said, “Crisis? What crisis?” (it was The Sun’s paraphrasing) – or Peter Mandelson – who never mistook mushy peas for guacamole – or Gordon Brown – who never said he liked waking up to the Arctic Monkeys - I suspect “So what?” is a legendary remark which will stick to Mr Balls like dirt to a shoe.

Proof political journalists don’t understand opinion polls, No. 94

Much scratching of heads tonight among some hacks confused by the latest Populus poll in The Times showing “the Tory poll lead shrinking fast”. Here’s Sky News’s Jon Craig:

Voting intentions, according to Populus, are now Conservatives 37 per cent (down three), Labour 34 (up three) and the Liberal Democrats 19 (up two, despite last week's Lisbon Treaty vote shambles). That's right, the same Populus poll on February 3 was Conservatives 40, Labour 31 and Lib Dems 17, a very different story. That was one of the bigger Tory leads in opinion polls this year.

Except it’s not necessarily “a very different story”. As any fule kno – or at least as any foolish hack should know – opinion polls are accurate only to within a margin of error, commonly +/-3%. Which means that it’s perfectly possible, and certainly statistically possible, there has been no change whatsoever in voting intentions in the last month.

But let’s allow for the possibility that there has been a significant change within the month... to what does Mr Craig ascribe this tightening of the political maths?

[Gordon Brown] has hired new staff in No 10 to beef up the Downing Street operation, he is performing better against David Cameron in Prime Minister's Questions and he appeared more relaxed when he spoke at Labour's spring conference in Birmingham 10 days ago.

Gordon’s backroom reshuffle, moderately better PMQs, and a conference speech. Apparently, according to Sky News, that’s what it takes to shrink a Tory poll lead. It says much (too much) about the claustrophobically introverted microcosm that political journos inhabit that any of these might seriously be put forward as reasons for the Tory downturn.

Sclerosis of the Liverpool

What’s in a word? A lot, it seems, if the current debate on Nick Clegg’s use of the word ‘Sclerotic’ is anything to go by. Myself, I think the British public can handle learning a new word if they don’t know it already.

Perhaps I can refer those who are dubious to The West Wing, and a discussion about whether the word ‘torpor’ could be deployed in a political speech:



“It's not our job to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It's our job to raise it. If you're going to be the ‘Education President,’ it'd be nice not to hide that you have an education.”

Quite so.

Delayed blogging of Question Time Extra

Okay, so this blog stutters carries on by popular(ish) demand. Many thanks for the appreciative comments left, and the handful of emails I've received. Really, I'm blushing.

For those who somehow contrived to miss my stellar appearance on BBC News 24's peak-time blockbuster hit, Question Time Extra, you can relive my 25 minutes of glory via the wonders of the web here. Rarely have I watched the whole of the main Question Time show with such dedicated concentration as last night, especially knowing that I was about to appear live on air to try and make sense of the Lib Dems' position this week on Europe. I gave it my best shot.

Actually the whole thing was made much easier by (i) Shirley Williams' barnstorming appearance to defend the Lib Dems' pro-European stance. When she wants to be she's an absolute star. And (ii) sharing the panel with ConservativeHome.com's Tim Montgomerie - I doubt there's a single issue we agree on, yet he's wonderfully polite and good company. (Tim - my mum thought you were excellent as well, by the way.)

A Liberal Goes A Long Way - R.I.P.?

Been a bit quiet around here lately, hasn’t it? Four and a half months, to be precise since my last posting. I could make lots of excuses... I changed jobs at the start of the year... I’m house hunting... I have enough on my plate as a councillor... etc.

But actually the real reason is both more practical and philosophical than that.

First, the practical bit. Acting as commissioning editor of Liberal Democrat Voice is a darn sight more time-consuming than I thought it would be, or, I suspect, than it looks. The theory is great. As LDV has, I guess, by some little way the largest readership among the Lib Dem blogs – over 20,000 unique visitors a month, and growing – you might imagine we’d get a steady stream of submissions from activists and MPs alike.

But it doesn’t quite work like that. What tends to happen is that we get a spurt of articles, which sometimes end up buried on top of each other, and then fallow periods, when no-one writes a sausage. Moreover – as any Editor knows – it’s one thing to commission pieces; quite another to receive them back by the deadline. The ratio of articles requested to articles published is probably something like 7:1.

Let’s turn to the philosophical bit. When I first took over at Lib Dem Voice from Rob Fenwick, back last summer, it felt a bit like I was house-sitting: it was a nice place to stay, but it didn’t seem right to make any changes, or put my own personal stamp on it. So I happily kept up both this blog, and LDV, in tandem: this place for my personal political reflections, and LDV for the more tribal party political stuff. In truth, I felt both sites suffered from my split affections.

In that sense, the leadership contest gave me the excuse I was looking for to rest this blog and focus 100% on Lib Dem Voice – which is what I’ve done since October. I’m pleased with what LDV has achieved during that time, in particular that we successfully covered the leadership contest in a neutral but not bland way, and that readership has grown even since the result was announced (I thought there would be a sharp dip). This is thanks, I should emphasise, to the whole ‘Collective’ which runs LDV, and, of course, to the many contributors to it.

But which do I enjoy more? That’s a different, and difficult, question. Lib Dem Voice has a bigger reach, within and beyond the party, than this blog would ever achieve. It’s also fun to be in e-mail correspondence with various folk, inside and outside the Lib Dems, and to invite them to submit articles on a wider variety of topics.

Those are the upsides. The downsides are that it’s not ‘mine’ – I feel more of a responsibility to the Lib Dem Voice readership than I ever did for those readers who turned up here. This is my blog, my gaff, my rules: if you don’t like it, don’t read it. You can’t have that mindset when you’re a member of a team website which is the unofficially official/independent party members’ website. Also, I write less than I used to, and with a narrower remit. This blog covered all sorts of topics – political, social, cultural - most days of the week. The content I generate for LDV is pretty much exclusively political, and usually to do with the Lib Dems. Sometimes I find that frustratingly constrained.

The question remains... what should I do with this blog? Do I officially admit defeat and shut it down? Or do I write very occasional pieces for it to keep up some pretence that it remains a ‘live’ blog?

Well, you’re my readers (if I have any left) – what do you reckon?

Standing easy

I’m giving this blog a rest for a short while. With the Lib Dem leadership race about to get underway, my role as commissioning editor for Liberal Democrat Voice is going to keep me quite busy enough (while also holding down a full-time job and being a councillor).

Doubtless I’ll be back at some stage, though it’s unlikely this time I will declare for any particular candidate.

I recorded a short interview for BBC Radio 5Live’s Pods and Blogs show, reflecting on Ming’s departure, which was broadcast at 2am this morning. If for some reason you weren’t finding yourself insomniac, you can listen to it here (I’m on pretty much at the beginning).

For Ming, with thanks

Yesterday was a sad day for the Liberal Democrats; but in particular for Ming Campbell, a good, decent, honourable man, and someone who - if politics and life were fairer - could have proved to be a highly effective leader. But, in truth, he never looked comfortable in the job. For a gent whose attire is always immaculately tailored, the suit of leadership hung awkwardly on his frame.

The early comparisons being made are with Iain Duncan Smith; but that is to underestimate Ming’s contribution, which was more akin to Michael Howard - a man who professionalized his party’s operation, and steadied the ship at a difficult time. Both men are perhaps too shy to find it easy either to give or receive warmth. But they earned the deep respect, if not always affection, of their parties.

It would be unnatural if Ming did not reflect with some bitterness on the mauling he has been subjected to by the gutter press (which is pretty much all of it these days); and perhaps also with the party which listened too closely to that press. In the circumstances, Ming had little option but to resign if he wished to preserve his dignity. His swift decision was, nonetheless, a brave one: to admit failure is the hardest thing in life. But it is entirely in keeping with his outlook on life that it was not one he shirked.

Public life is the poorer for his departure.

How should we respond to the media speculation?

For the conspiracy theorists among you, the fact that Lib Dem Voice has crashed on the same day as it is cited by both The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph as fuelling the pressure faced by party leader, Ming Campbell, might be just too much.

I have my own theory: the LDV servers have revolted at the misnaming of the website by both those august journals as Liberal Voice. I would have thought both the name and the url of the website would be enough for even the most slapdash and obtuse of journalists to be able to get it right. Which is a ripe lesson for me never to underestimate their incapacity.

It might also be of course that the servers have - if you believe the Torygraph report, which has since been shamelessly plagiarised by the Grauniad - become overloaded thanks to Lib Dem members “swamping” the site with anti-Ming Campbell comments:

unease has spread to the party's grassroots who have swamped Liberal Voice, the most popular supporters' website, with messages demanding the resignation of Sir Menzies.

The Torygraph’s facile Andrew Pierce is clearly reading a different website to the one I help edit. Yes, there have been messages calling on Ming to resign. They are, I would estimate (and with the site down I can’t currently check), in a clear minority and number no more than half a dozen. This may count as “swamping” if you’re writing in a Tory paper to stir up a bit of political excitement now a general election is off the agenda.

Still, at least Pierce came up with an original story. Factually flimsy, but still. The Guardian’s Hélène Mulholland doesn’t even have that excuse. Not only does she flagrantly rip-off the Torygraph piece, Hélène then has the bare-faced cheek to write:

Chatter about Sir Menzies's leadership overshadowed last month's annual conference in Brighton.

Wrong, Hélène. The only chatter about Sir Menzies’s leadership I heard was along the lines, “Why won’t the press report what’s happening here instead of banging on about Ming’s leadership all the time?”

In short, the press is talking rubbish with such casual concern for the facts that it scarcely counts as journalism at all.

And yet, and yet… As I posted on Lib Dem Voice this week, for Lib Dems to complain about the media’s pathetic press coverage is, at the moment, beside the point. The media has made up its mind: Ming must go. They will refuse point-blank to be interested in any other story, unless the party’s (and Ming’s) poll ratings perk up, and quickly.

We can moan about this all we like, and yes, it’s unfair. But that’s the situation and we’ve got to work out our response to it, or else endure another 18 months (or whatever) of the only occasions we gain any national media exposure being when the press reports speculation about Ming’s future.

It is no longer enough for Ming, or anyone else, simply to try and deflect the question, and state that Ming’s the elected leader, and he’s here to stay up to and beyond the next election. That the question is being asked is inflicting damage on the party, and becomes self-perpetuating: if the only times the public hears about the Lib Dems is because the press is reporting a leadership crisis is in itself a problem.

We cannot be a captive of the media agenda: I do not believe Ming’s leadership should be ended because the press is playing silly buggers. Journalists are already self-important enough in their belief that they can make the political weather without the Lib Dems offering them a sacrificial lamb in the hope they might actually bother to do their job and report on the state of the party fairly and objectively.

But, equally, it is no good closing our eyes and ears, and pretending all this nonsense will just go away if we ignore it. The vultures of the Fourth Estate are circling. For the good of the party, the uncertainty cannot be allowed to continue. The onus is on our MPs, I think. A letter signed by all 62 of Ming’s Commons’ colleagues expressing full support for Ming as leader is the very least that's needed. If they’re not prepared to do that, they have to work out what they are prepared to do.