Many happy returns, Ming
Happy Birthday Sir Menzies!
Actually, I suspect this is one birthday the Lib Dem leader would rather everyone ignored. Ming became a pensioner today which hardly helps his image at a time when Dead Ringers is portraying him as an old boy sat in an easy chair and when the media is reporting persistent grumbling about his performance since getting the job.
Clearly he's not had the most comfortable of starts in the Commons and has admitted that he has to do better in Prime Ministers' Questions. It's obvious that the Lib Dems would have preferred to have maintained their record of permanent electoral momentum in the local elections. But I wonder if people have forgotten the key thing about Ming.
A number of those close to the Lib Dem leader believe that their party is entering a period of maximum challenge and maximum opportunity - a period well suited, they believe, to Ming's political skills.
The challenge comes from Labour's troubles and the rise of the Tories. As one Lib Dem put it to me, "history shows that when the tide goes out for Labour, it goes out for us too". The opportunity stems from the growing sense in Westminster that a hung parliament is more likely than ever. Ming is respected by both the big parties. Both men who would be PM are already wooing him and his supporters.
David Cameron's claim to be a "liberal Conservative" is, in part, a bid for Liberal votes but it is also a bid to lower Lib Dem opposition to a parliamentary arrangement if the Tories need them to form a government ().
Gordon Brown's new-found interest in constitutional reform - some even wonder if he'll back electoral reform - is, in part, driven by his desire to keep the Lib Dems sweet in case he needs them. Ming Campbell and Gordon Brown often get the chance to chat on planes and trains on their way to and from their Scottish constituencies. It's worth recalling too that Vince Cable wrote a chapter in the Red Book edited by Gordon Brown many years ago.
The thing about Ming may turn out to be his capacity to form alliances even with a smaller number of MPs than he has now. The biggest obstacle to that though would be if his party regards this ambition as defeatist and insists it could and should win many more seats - perhaps with a different leader.
I'm 
Comments
This is rather a unique opportunity for the Lib-Dems. With Ming reaching retirement age they can ask him to step down and elect some-one who will be more effective when it comes to PM's PQ's. No need for a putsch and all that nasty back-stabbing. Simon Hughes gets a second bite and will not be tarred with the flag of disloyalty.
You've more confidence in Ming than me if you think he'll still be around after the next election. If he's taking this much criticism in the press and from the party during his honeymoon period, what chance has he realistically got in the longer term?
The Liberal Democrats have started to taste victory for the first time in 100 years and quite like it. I'm not sure they're ready or willing to settle back into accepting a third party role.
Merciless Ming as he was dubbed after
the recent Election as Leader was an error..it should be Meciless Lib Dems.
Already that perpetual loser Simon
Hughes is voicing opinions to be slapped down by Ming. I have follwed Elections since 1962 when Eric Lubbock now Lord Avebury won Orpington for the then Liberal Party
a new dawn was announced..oh sure!I
lived through the Grimond years then
that cheeky chappie Jeremy Thorpe
David Steele Ashdown et al. All saying the same thing like go back to your consituencies and prepare for
government..David Steel..more like prepare for oblivion. Thorpe could have suppoted Heath in 1974 and had a cabinet post but he decided Wilson was a better bet. All through the long years the Libs SDP Lib Dems have whistled in the wind always on the edge of a breakthough and then blaming first past the post for their failures. We have heard it all before. Now Ming says the same. There wont be a hung parliament I am betting on a small Tory win say 4 -12 seats and then lets see the Lib Dems try and bring them down. My forecast is that Ming wont be there
come the next election anyway
either fatigue or more likely a coup will see him off. Lets say enough of Lib Dems being about to break through with a resurgent Tory party
challenging Blair or Brown New Labour cannot win next time. Many Lib Dems would serve under Cameron
they are hungry for a share of power but they wont want the public to see them propping up a tired New Labour
government. All is in flux but Ming ?
Sorry but wrong choice. Who else
they should have stuck with Cheerful
Charlie Kennedy at least they knew what they were getting. Ming yu tried but sorry your seel by date is near.
I think the MP's plus the rank & file who toppled Charlie must be as sick as parrots. Whether they like it or not its all about image and persona these days and "Grandpa Ming" and the "Poisoned Dwarf" who stabbed Charlie in the back do not have either.
Ming must be rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of the Tories foisting an 'A' list candidate on Bromley. Some of us are ancient enough to recall next door Orpington's 1962 by-election when Central Office's faceless Peter Goldman was graciously imposed on the safe Tory seat resulting in a 14k majority being overturned by a local Liberal toff called Eric Lubbock. It took eight years to get him out!
Nick
It seems to me that the lack of despatch box, the smaller number of questions and their distance from the Prime Minister will always combine to make it harder for ANY 3rd party leader to perform 'as well' as the main opposition leader.
What the LibDems need to do is accept this and have a clearer and more realistic collective idea of what they want to achieve with their questions.
Sorry Nick I totally disagree with the Liberals. Ming Campbell is a poltician I have respected for a lot of years but he is no good as a leader and I hope he soon realises this. I looked at Ming and Vince Cable during a PMQ's they both looked tired old men who are still capable of doing a good job in the Commons but are no longer Leadership material. Ming should step down for a younger man and do it gracefully before he brings disaster to the Party altogether. He is simply not up to the job and would never stand the pace of a General Election.
"Clearly he's not had the most comfortable of starts in the Commons and has admitted that he has to do better in Prime Ministers' Questions."
Is this a subtle reference to the much-mentioned "dual premiership"? Do you know something we don't, Nick?
"Ming Campbell, the only party leader likely to offer you a werthers original" said last weeks dead ringers. I couldn't believe it when all those lib dem MP's forced Charles Kennedy to go and then I couldn't believe it even more when Emporor Ming was elected as party leader. Whether you think it is a good thing or not, image is improtant in poilitcs now and we need to get young voters voting and many I believe would have gone Lib dem but I think Ming campbell has detached himself from this group now, not because he isn't a clever and good politicain but simply because he is too old to appeal to these people. I think it is a real shame that the Liberals didn't get a bright young leader like simon hughes or even somebody like David Laws because that would have helped the party a lot- Nevertheless Happy Bithday Ming!!!
Is it not the case that Simon Hughes has now been defeated twice in his attempts to become leader?
Once by Charlie and once by Ming?
I always feel rather sorry for the Lib Dems, in PMQ the Lib Dems leader does not have a Dispatch Box, only has two questions, and has abuse from every side and all the best questions are taken from the Tory leader. Also even if Ming asks a good question i.e. the week when asked about Iran (the differences between Blair's and Straw's public statements on military action) it got no media exposure.
Also I wonder what role do the media play in how the Lib Dems are perceived to the wider public? Perhaps you could goto into more depth Nick?
It seems to me that very rarely does the Lib Dems get much positive news coverage. Let’s take for example last week when they announced some new environmental policy's ´óÏó´«Ã½ news bulletin did not cover this nor did the Daily Politics. But today the ´óÏó´«Ã½ was happy to cover Cameron's speech that made no policy announcement both on the 1 O’clock news and on the Daily Politics. Not a major thing but a small example of how the Lib Dems are playing catch up all the time. Perhaps I am being very very naive in thinking that politics should be about policy especially when we seem to be in the cult of personality at the moment.
Even thou I am not a Lib Dem supporter I wish Ming well because I think he is a strong character. No better example than a few weeks back when he had a very difficult week he was prepared to still go onto Question Time in front of the public and gave a top notch performance, outperforming Cameron's new lover Piers Morgan.
Ming has a tough job, I suspect it would be just as difficult for anyone in Lib Dem to take the helmet at a time when the concepts of big state and over-regulation become unattractive.
Ming appeared on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Question Time the week after the local election results. It was clearly going to be a tough ride for him, but he represented his party and did a brilliant job. I thought he is very determined with tremendous courage. I believe he will improve and improve so long as his party holds on to their patience and support for their new leader. Any back-stabbing resonating what had happened with Charles Kennedy would just make the party seem harsh to the general public.
Minger's 65th birthday this week makes inaccurate Simon Heffer's amusing column in the Saturday Telegraph where he refers to Minger as "the 114 year-old Lib Dem leader"!
He could just as easily done the job of alliance building from Deputy Leader. Surely the leader of the party should be someone that evokes popular feeling and holds the party together. At the moment Ming just isn't doing that at least Charles Kennedy did the former reasonably well.
I STRONGLY SUSPECT that there will be a new leadership contest next year after another set of bad elections for the lib dems and Chris Huhne will lead the party into the next general election.I think they allready realise they made a mistake choosing Menzies as leader.
I think that the 2005 general Election will prove to be the high water mark for the Liberal Democrats; the resurgent Tories will take parliamentary seats from them next time, but a hung parliament is still very unlikely. So we'll see a Labour government with a much smaller majority in 2010 (or thereabouts) and probably a Conservative administration some time during the first half of the next decade, with the Lib Dems slipping back gradually to the 20-30 seat mark.