Don’t let potential blogitis build up a non-existent crisis

I was very taken by Chris Black’s posting entitled “Why this week won’t change my view of Ming at all”. Well said, Chris.

If you think about it, in a week of two by-election campaigns what is the impact of the leadership on a party? On the one hand they can really mess things up – e.g forcing a candidate with an interesting recent history on the local party. On the other hand they can be measured by the extent to which party members rally to the party flag. After all, that is often what wins elections.

So, Ming can be proud that the two LibDem by-election campaigns are going extremely well in terms of deliveries, canvassing etc – i.e “feet on the street”.

Building this all up as ‘a week to prove the leadership’ could be a self-fulfilling prophesy if the person or people making the prediction doesn’t/don’t actually help in the campaign. (Fortunately, I don’t think this is the case as I am sure all good LibDem bloggers who can’t go to either of the by-election sites have been phone canvassing and/or making donations to the campaign like billy-oh.). It could be a result of a new strain of blogitis.

I was very taken by what Paddy Ashdown said on 18 Doughty Street. He forecast that towards the end of the year when Brown’s honeymoon wears off due to “events, dear boy, events”, Ming will be in a strong position.

Thanks also to Liberal England for highlighting this Daily Pundit piece which highlights that the editor of Political Betting fancies the LibDems to win amid forecasts of dire consequences for Cameron.

All so much straw in the wind, of course, so I will continue my focus on building up my energies for a fourth visit to Ealing Southall on Thursday.

Ealing Southall: LibDems on shorter odds than Tories on Betfair

I never really pay much attention to election betting. But Iain Dale made a big thing of showing two graphs on July 10th showing increased betting on the Tories, and decreased betting on the LibDems, at Ealing Southall. The graph was from Betfair.

In fact, today Betfair show the LibDems on shorter odds than the Tories.

Expelled Russian diplomats – a taste of nostalgia

There was a time when the news always seemed to be read by Richard Baker and consisted entirely of deaths in Northern Ireland, a negative balance of payments (remember what that was?) and the tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats between Russia and Britain.

So, it is somewhat of a throw-back to the Cold War to read that the UK has expelled four Russian diplomats after Moscow refused the extradite the suspect in the Alexander Litvinenko murder case.

Things have got to a pretty serious stage when this sort of action is taken.

Don't let potential blogitis build up a non-existent crisis

I was very taken by Chris Black’s posting entitled “Why this week won’t change my view of Ming at all”. Well said, Chris.

If you think about it, in a week of two by-election campaigns what is the impact of the leadership on a party? On the one hand they can really mess things up – e.g forcing a candidate with an interesting recent history on the local party. On the other hand they can be measured by the extent to which party members rally to the party flag. After all, that is often what wins elections.

So, Ming can be proud that the two LibDem by-election campaigns are going extremely well in terms of deliveries, canvassing etc – i.e “feet on the street”.

Building this all up as ‘a week to prove the leadership’ could be a self-fulfilling prophesy if the person or people making the prediction doesn’t/don’t actually help in the campaign. (Fortunately, I don’t think this is the case as I am sure all good LibDem bloggers who can’t go to either of the by-election sites have been phone canvassing and/or making donations to the campaign like billy-oh.). It could be a result of a new strain of blogitis.

I was very taken by what Paddy Ashdown said on 18 Doughty Street. He forecast that towards the end of the year when Brown’s honeymoon wears off due to “events, dear boy, events”, Ming will be in a strong position.

Thanks also to Liberal England for highlighting this Daily Pundit piece which highlights that the editor of Political Betting fancies the LibDems to win amid forecasts of dire consequences for Cameron.

All so much straw in the wind, of course, so I will continue my focus on building up my energies for a fourth visit to Ealing Southall on Thursday.

Ealing Southall: LibDems on shorter odds than Tories on Betfair

I never really pay much attention to election betting. But Iain Dale made a big thing of showing two graphs on July 10th showing increased betting on the Tories, and decreased betting on the LibDems, at Ealing Southall. The graph was from Betfair.

In fact, today Betfair show the LibDems on shorter odds than the Tories.

Expelled Russian diplomats – a taste of nostalgia

There was a time when the news always seemed to be read by Richard Baker and consisted entirely of deaths in Northern Ireland, a negative balance of payments (remember what that was?) and the tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats between Russia and Britain.

So, it is somewhat of a throw-back to the Cold War to read that the UK has expelled four Russian diplomats after Moscow refused the extradite the suspect in the Alexander Litvinenko murder case.

Things have got to a pretty serious stage when this sort of action is taken.