Charles Not In Charge

‘WHY is it that the Liberal Democrats have yet to become the party of first choice?

Sure, they are on the up, increasing their tally of seats at the last general election. But at no time have they looked like forming the a government.

Might it be that voters are turned off by their attachment to higher taxation? As the Telegraph reminds its readers, at the last election the LibDems proposed a 50 pence top rate of tax for those earning over £100,000 a year.

Perhaps this policy was a vote loser. The Telegraph has heard from party officials who say the LibDems are considering a reduction in their headline rate to something more in line with the Tories or Labour.

And Charles Kennedy seems to be for it. Charles… Kennedy… You remember him, don’t you? Of course you do. He’s the nice man, the human scone who will lead the LibDems to glory.

There’s a cartoon of him in the Times. There’s Kennedy, ever the wag, sticking his head in an oven and saying: “No gas! Can’t I even get this right?”

And there’s a story in the Times about The Scone, too. It seems Simon Hughes, the LibDem’s drippy party president, wants Kennedy to up his game.

“Charles has to demonstrate that he still wants it in his heart and in his mind. He has to win the confidence of his colleagues that he genuinely wants it.”

Nothing like an endorsement from one of your trusted allies. And that was nothing like an endorsement. The only thing you can say about a comment like that is that Hughes is not as simpering and artless as he appears.

But however much Kennedy says he believes, that he wants it, his days are surely numbered. It’s just a matter of how soon Kennedy goes.

Lord McNally, the party’s leader in the House of Lords, wants the leadership hopefuls to wait until after the May local elections.

“We cannot spend the months, on the run-up to polling day, endlessly talking about the leadership,” says he.

But what else is there to talk about when it comes to the LibDems, if not how useless Kennedy is? Iraq? Tax? Scones?’

Posted: 4th, January 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink