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The Daily Telegraph seems to have changed both its internet connection service and the way it handles readers comments, neither of which seems any kind of improvement. The consequence of which and perhaps was the underlying intention, is that it is easier to respond to the “Blogs” section than main articles. Today, two of their “bloggers”, Iain Martin writing about David Blunket and James Kirkup on the possible perils facing Nick Clegg Leader of the LibDems, in the New Year inspired some thoughts.

Both provoked me to write in and what follows is mainly based upon my seperate comments to both however and oddly when I stood back and looked at them again, they both have a common theme – Leadership.

Nick Clegg

James Kirkup mused about Nick Clegg facing difficult times in the New Year and possibly seeing some defections from the LibDems to the Tories by Southern England based MPs particularly as Clegg has announced a strategy of concentrating on Northern English Labour held seats come the next General Election and tacitly expecting to lose Southern English seats in the process.

It is an interesting situation because handled correctly, the next election promised in theory at least, that the LibDems could make a major breakthrough at the expense of the Labour Party. Ultimately they are the only party that can gain seats in England, Scotland and Wales. The Conservatives have become largely an “English Party” and Labour is being squeezed even in its Celtic heartlands by the nationalist vote, so what went wrong for the LibDems ?

Even allowing for the fact that for the moment though, not for long, the Labour support has hardened, the polls seem to show more of a correlation between the LibDems going up or down in the polls and the size of the Tory lead rather than at the expense of Labour. In other words, they are still seen as an alternative to the Conservatives rather than an alternative to Labour and this is not good for them. There has been an ‘electoral cycle’ between the Tories and the Labour Party for decades, to break that, the LibDems have to attack and replace the weakest of the two when they reach the bottom of “their turn in power” and right now, that is the Labour Party, the LibDems are not making progress.

Being ‘Prepared’

There are many Conservatives who hate David Cameron but whilst he has made mistakes, in his three years as Tory Leader, he has changed his Party and made it look as a credible alternative Government. Although Clegg has not been in the post of Party Leader for as long, the “wind” is only really with you when you are fresh and new and in that sense, how much of an impression has he made and do the LibDems even start to look as a credible alternative Government ready and prepared to take Office ?

Frankly, I think that they were daft to have got rid of Charlie Kennedy because drink problem or not, he was and likely still is, the most liked LibDem alive. His great ability was to project the impression of being a reasonable human being, someone you could talk to, someone who would listen and someone who wouldn’t talk back at you in party slogans and soundbites. The rather ‘stiff and stuffy’ Ming Campbell was totally wrong in both tone and presence from day one and the pair of clones then put up for a leadership election that resulted in Clegg becoming Party Leader – both were and still are colourless.

Some have suggested that the “Temporary Leader” during the Leadership Election Vince Cable, should have been chosen. It is true that he does have a hard edge and “Strictly Come Dancing” did give him a high public profile but even so, the LibDem cause suffers from an even worse lack of talent to fill a Government than even Labour and the public aren’t stupid, they will not elect a one man band as Dictator.

Can You Form a Cabinet ?

The Tories whilst not perfect, are highly credible in terms of forming a Government, the front bench does have a degree of depth and subconsciously, that is what the electorate will look for. Even if you discount George Osborne, should Cameron become unable to continue as PM, there is Haig, Davis and a number of others to come forward and neither the LibDems or indeed Labour have that right now.

It is a leadership problem but one that is compounded by a dearth of talent surrounding the leader Nick Clegg. In a sense it mirrors the Labour Government and their problems in this area, David Miliband is not credible as a leader and the only real alternative to Brown would be John Reid which would be as bad for Labour in some respects as Ming was for the LibDems.

Labour Party Dishonesty or Denial

Iain Martin was blogging about an article published in the Sun today and written by David Blunket the main thrust of it (Blunkets article), being that it “wasn’t our fault, it was the bankers” and “only Gordon can fix it”. Iain wrote at some length and took apart the obvious lies and intellectual dishonesty that Blunket displayed and he was perfectly correct but my mind looked at this purely from a leadership perspective.

To me this again is mainly a crisis of Leadership or to be more precise, the fact that Labour currently lacks any leadership potential, Brown is all they have got and all talk of a “leadership challenge” is just that – talk. Indeed Labour long ago became a prisoner of the Blair/Brown feud, the ferocity of which stunted the career growth of future Labour leaders for likely a generation.

The Party divided into the “Blair and Brown Camps”. Even restricted career development depended on joining one or the other, the alternative was merely to be backbench lobby fodder. The consequence was there was no viable “alternative” Labour vision and Leadership being developed within the Parliamentary Labour Party or even the Party at the national level, people were happy to “be in power” and now, happy to cling to it.

And What is the Significance of This ?

When Labour came to power in 1997, they spent the next two years blaming the previous Tory Government for anything that went wrong and this is quite natural, I have no doubt that we shall hear a lot more of this type of thing as a Tory Government has to spend 5 years putting the UK economy back on track.

When Brown became PM, he couldn’t “denounce acknowledge and accept” failures of Government during the previous 10 years because he was part and parcel of it all indeed, Brown is wholly to blame for the mess we are in. So therefore as a General Election will have to be fought within 18 months only intellectual dishonesty, nonsense, blame projection and even downright lies, can serve to protect Labour from the total drubbing it deserves at the next election.

Labour’s epitaph will be that as an election winning machine, “It was Tony Blair that made it and the rivalry between Brown and Blair that destroyed it.