Does Ming owes his position to the man jailed yesterday?
January 27th, 2007
Did illegal eavesdropping change the course of the Lib Dem election?
Just on a year ago this week Simon Hughes was riding high in his bid to become leader of the Liberal Democrats. Mark Oaten had pulled out of the race a few days earlier and the sentiment had moved sharply away from Ming Campbell following his lacklustre performances at Prime Minister’s Questions.
In the betting Hughes overtook Ming and became the odds on favourite.
An ICM poll in the Guardian of Lib Dem supporters had rated Hughes, then party president, as the candidate best-placed to restore the party’s fortunes. In a panel survey 62%, had picked Hughes, against 18% for Sir Menzies and 20% for Mr Huhne.
These were pretty convincing figures from a reputable pollster and punters started piling money on.
But then, as we all know, it all went wrong for him. Tabloid revelations about his private life emerged and after that it was going to be an uphill battle. To his credit Hughes stayed in the race and did better than most people had predicted.
Yesterday in the Royal phone taps case involving the News of the World Royal Correspondent a second man was also jailed - Glenn Mulcaire, 36, of Sutton, Surrey. The court heard that amongst four other people that had been targeted by Mulcaire was Simon Hughes.
Although all the focus was on the Royal aspects it is believed that Mulcaire was the person who tapped Simon Hughes‘ phone messages, leading to his high-profile “outing”.
If this had not happened would Hughes have done it? Who knows? But we can say that in the aftermath of that ICM poll political gamblers believed he would and he was the odds-on favourite until the stories appeared.
Mike Smithson
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I think many of us were sceptical of the Guardian/ICM survey at the time as it was based on a ‘perception panel’ with just 90 Lib Dem voters.
btw, there is a rant masquerading as a leader column in the Daily Telegraph today saying that “his [Blair's] approval ratings, as we report today, are down to a record low of 21 per cent”. However this isn’t reported elsewhere in the online or print editions as far as I can tell.
re 1. That’s interesting. Normally the Telegraph publish their monthly YouGov poll on the last Friday of the month - yesterday. It did not appear and I was half expecting it today but, as you say, there is no indication yet on the paper’s website. It might still be in the paper but we will have to wait for the online version.
Answer to the question is no. Simon Hughes could have won the activist vote (eventually CH did) but the armchair members were always solidly for Ming.
Ah. ‘what if’. One of the most enjoyable political games - and probably betting games as well.
Jon at [3] is probably right in that Ming is likely to have won anyway, but not by as much. A lot depends on whether Hughes could have gathered much momentum as the campaign went on. He’s probably too well known in Lib Dem circles to have done that; people knew what they were voting for or against with him (or at least thought they did).
But if Hughes had run Ming a closer second - perhaps even picking up the deputy leadership as a consolation prize, it’s more of an open question as to whether Ming would still be in place now.
3 - spot on!
David… the deupty leadership isn’t available as a prize… LD MPs decide on it.
I thought Simon Hughes’ campaign launch was easily the best, but his record as party president is rather dodgy. He kicked off with a promise to treble the membership - a promise that started ticking the moment it left his lips - and since then I cannot think of a single concrete achievement.
6: Perhaps you should have opted for Lembit as president? Certainly higher profile than Simon in recent months…
Although I supported Hughes at the time, I think it would have been a rocky ride had he been elected as he would have had to deal with many colleagues politically far from him. Had he sneaked through, it could have been perceived that Huhne stole enough votes from Ming to let him through, with Huhne taking the blame.
As to whether he would have won, I suspect that Jon at 3 has it close enough ; he had too much ground to make up anyway. What he will do next if polls show that the LD leadership is a continuing issue is a different matter, of course.
6 Well he has nominated a number of Deputy Presidents, to represent various groups….
Unfortuanately their formal status within the party is not known by anybody else!
8 As a long-term Simon Hughes supporter, I think 2005 was really his last shot. I don’t think the “politics” of the situation is so important with colleagues as the perception that there are sounder leaders out there. Few doubt Simon’s campaigning commitment and effectiveness, or his ability to get media attention, but other factors are now in play (and not especially the unfavourable media he got at the time of the 2006 leadership election, although that didn’t help his cause!) I hope he won’t try again next time.
Political “what-ifs” … Brown had become Labour Leader in 1994, Clarke had become Tory Leader in 1997 and Hughes had become LibDem Leader in 1999. That would have been a great 2001 campaign!
Daily Telegraph leader column now online:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/01/27/dl2701.xml
Also contains an article about the police and a search warrant for No. 10…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/27/nloans27.xml
3 - All-member ballots depend a great deal on name recognition, especially if the postal votes are issued relatively early in a campaign. This means that there was very little time for literature etc. to change votes, minimising the role of activism over pre-existing awareness.
I suspect that always favoured both Sir Ming and Hughes in some ways. The difference was that Hughes’ activist base was probably dented by grievances against his London Mayoral and Presidential performances. I suspect he seemed like yesterday’s man - more than Ming, who’d never run for the leadership before - as he had been talked up as a future leader for ages, and had a bad London mayoral campaign.
I actually don’t think the Sun “revelations” significantly dented his chances. I think he always would have had trouble maintaining his name recognition advantage against an insurgent media-savvy campaign by Chris Huhne, while Sir Ming kept that advantage and magnified it with his significant parliamentary support.
A nice theory, but the Guardian survey if I remember correctly was of supporters not members. Hughes was always a long way behind amongst members. He had lost against Kennedy and was up against two strong opponents last year rather than just one. Additionally, he had even lost a fair amount of his old “activist” vote as his London mayoral run was widely perceived as unimpressive in pure campaigning terms.
Indeed, the revelations about Hughes private life generally illicited sympathy amongst members rather than losing him many votes.
14 If Hughes had won without needing to make the admission he made during the campaign it is likely the stories would have aired early in his leadership. Would he have dealt with the matter better? would he have resigned? It was the way he dealt with the facts coming to light that damaged him I think rather than the facts themselves.
If he had only tapped the phones of leading politicians d`ont think he would have gone down.
As it would have been seen, as fair game by many a judge.
A community sentence would be appropriate.
But the royals would have been seen as sacrilege.
However in the present circumstances maybe he should not have been jailed, as surely he was`nt a danger to the public.
But as you say he didn`t do Hughes any favours.
14 - indeed, and amongst the (admittedly small) group of activists I know he didn’t feature highly,
As the Telegraph puts Cameron well down the pecking order today and the poll is not in evidence online, does this mean it is good for him and bad for the Telegraph’s UKIP mania?
18 If you mean Heffer, the answer is usually yes.
BTW Gwynfa/Cymru Mark/Mark Senior about.
Of course we will never know what the outcome of the leadership election would have been - perhaps it would have been Ming, but I do believe Simon’s chances were damaged, not because of the revelations themselves, but more because of a society that has perhaps in part come to terms with people being gay, but not bisexual. At the time there was a perception that Simon had lied, that he was gay and had denied it. What he actually said was that he was bisexual. Now some may say that is playing with words but for me it is up to us all to define who we are, not for others. The example I would give is my children. Some will regard them as black, others white. I describe them as mixed race or dual heritage. They descibe themselves as half English and half Sri Lankan. Similarly it was for Simon to define how he regarded himself, not others and frankly it was none of our business anyway. But the complexities of such an argument in a simplistic sound bite age pass most by. I still get people saying they didn’t
vote for him because they believed he lied. However we are where we are, we have had a pretty good week at last, and maybe Ming is beginning to find his feet, but I can’t help speculating how much further on we may have been had Simon been elected.
Interesting article Mike. It does provide food for thought! All the what ifs. Part of the fun of politics. I wonder where the Liberal Democrats would be know if Simon had won?
There was no way Simon was ever going to get it, and that had nothing to do with his personal life.
Guido seems to be earning his corn today. If the material he is publishing is real (and it looks it) then he is exposing even the PM’s official spokesman, knowingly or unknowingly, as part of a cover up.
20,22 - Simon’s famously disorganised style would have made him completely unsuited to being leader.
It is only a year ago but my memory is somewhat different. Of course, the odd poll favoured
every candidate at some stage. I recall that the yougov polls, given that it had predicted the
rise of Cameron, was generally given most weight. Additionally the sample size it could take
amongst people claiming to be Lib Dem members was by far the largest. I recall yougov nearly
always favoured Chris Huhne.
The other interesting event in the campaign was how the betting odds favoured Huhne almost until
the very end.
I hope Simon Hughes takes civil action against the News of the World. Not only would it damage
an implacable enemy of the Lib Dems, it would help to put the nonsense that other ‘hand rag’
of Mudoch The Times keeps pushing over Michael Brown into context.
The only think I recall of Simom Hughes’ campaign is that he spent lots of time saying he would really like to marry a woman (but all women turned him down).
It almost makes Harriet “I’m a lady” Harman’s campaign theme look strong (just because no-one has doubted of HH’s female status)
The trouble with all franchises wider than MPs is that you may get a leader who is not supported by his MPs which is an untenable situation. Hughes would surely have been in that position. Still the days of MPs choosing the leader in any Party are pretty well dead and gone.
24. ‘Disorganisation’ is a bar to being Lib Dem leader, but not a chronic drink problem?
28 Didnt stop Churchill being PM either - nor did s severe stroke which was covered up at the time .
28. Picking you up on other day. Have you actually spoken to Bridgend Lib Dems, or is this just second hand party talk. Also how much autonomy do they have in Wales/Scotland after all who they clamber into coalition beds with affects MIng on the national area.
30 mean’t for 29.
Actually in Ming’s case it was probably his absolutely overwhelming support from MPs and MEPs that swung it with the armchair members. I don#’t think they would ever elect someone who didn’t have the support in Parliament (but LD activists certainly would!).
10 - Tim13 ‘politically far’ was being diplomatic
And the MPs would have had no choice but to follow the elected leader or to leave the party. The Lib Dems are the only major party who ratify policies at conference, rather than in cabinet, so their MPs are well aware of the nature of a democratic party.
However in ousting Kennedy, the true picture was only known by those close to him, who had worked with him as leader for years. I imagine there would have been outrage of a different order had the party’s MPs refused to accept the leadership result.
32. “Actually in Ming’s case it was probably his absolutely overwhelming support from MPs and MEPs that swung it with the armchair members”
I think that the support of Councillor Ginger La Grange was the most important factor
34: But how come Clare Ladywood couldn’t swing it for Simon then?
35. tpfkar, she wasn’t a Councillor
30. I am from Bridgend, and there does not seem to be any buzz about the LDs. But Plaid are working Ogmore (North Bridgend) pretty hard - maybe a bit too far for them but expcet to see a much tighter competition here
34. Who is that.
32 Jon
Indeed there is plenty of evidence of MPs influencing ordinary (’armchair’) voters in favour of Ming.
34: imaginary people entered as ’supporters’ on the candidates websites, to show that few checks were being made about who was on there.
39 - one particular issue here was that contact details of party members were not made available to candidates, so they had to rely on parliamentary supporters to provide local data etc. So number of MPs supporting definitely influenced the armchair voters!
40.”imaginary people entered as ’supporters’ on the candidates websites, to show that few checks were being made about who was on there.”
The thing about Ginger La Grange is that it was Ming website to add the “councillor” part, I didn’t submit her support as a councillor.
She stayed there for a week IIRC.
11 - On the subject of “what ifs” - Had David Penhaligon not been killed in a car crash, who would have succeeded him as LD leader?
Is there any news on who will be LD candidate in Truro with Matthew Taylor standing down? I gather Penhaligon’s son is a very active LD (and ran for mayor of Hackney). Although it is now 20 years on, I am sure that a candidate with the surname Penhaligon could make a difference.
Ming and many other politicians owe their position to the bumbling Chancellor”Crash Gordon” who will NEVER make it to No 10
Last time I saw some stats that indicated that we had moved ahead of the US with per capita debt at around $40k compared with the US per capita of $37k.
The other bit of news you won’t find on the BBC is the fact that we are a kiss away from 10 million unemployed:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=12
The unemployment rate was 5.5 per cent, down 0.1 on the quarter but up 0.4 over the year. The number of unemployed people fell by 29,000 over the quarter but increased by 139,000 over the year, to reach 1.67 million.
The claimant count was 943,100 in December 2006, down 5,500 on the previous month but up 35,200 on the year.
The inactivity rate for people of working age was 21 per cent for the three months ending in November 2006, up 0.2 on the quarter but down 0.4 over the year. The number of economically inactive people of working age increased by 74,000 over the quarter to reach 7.85 million.
1.67 + 7.85 = 9.52 million
Add a few million unemployed immigrants on the sausage etc and we may well have the highest unemployment rate in the Western World. Of course, Gordon’s miracle economy based on debt is keeping it held together….for now.
One thing is for sure… anyone without a Cornish connection should forget it!
43 Que?
O/T, for which apologies, but I don’t remember seeing this story posted earlier this week.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/1/24/155444.shtml?s=po
Very interesting and perhaps surprising findings. I’ve no idea how reliable the polling firm is, but Sky used it as the basis for an article this morning so it presumably is OK. It is of course only one state - but the state is an important one in the context of the campaign.
45 Jon
Check out the uk level of debt compared to the rest of the world
and then use you vote a bit more wisely in future please
Labour miracle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not suggesting that you voted NuLabour of course.
Rank Order - Debt - external
Rank Debt - external
1
World $ 44,620,000,000,000 2004 est.
2
United States $ 10,040,000,000,000 30 June 2006 est.
3
United Kingdom $ 8,280,000,000,000 30 June 2006
4
Germany $ 3,904,000,000,000 30 June 2006
5
France $ 3,461,000,000,000 30 June 2006
37. You what you being serious. May help their list vote but the constituency really. But this didn’t do anything for Plaid even in 1999. This is the sort of area where they still vote Labour citing the actions of the Liberal Home Secretary in 1910. I’m as surprised at what you’re saying on Ogmore as much as what Mark Senior said on Bridgend, albeit I’m increasingly seeing his logic even if I’m not yet wholly convinced. Can you tell me why you think this Ogmore for Plaid at all.
42. Was he leader.
re 43. I am not convinced by your assertion that Gordon will “NEVER” make it to Number 10. What is going to stop him?
He is as good, or maybe even better, than Teflon Tony in ensuring that bad news doesn’t stick and after all these years he’s not going to fall at the final fence.
The only circumstances I can see of there being a sensational shock is if there is a huge media clamour for a proper leadership election in the 48 hours after Tony makes his historic announcement. But even with a top level contest the party will give it to him.
It’s a bit like Ming’s situation. There was a strong feeling in the Lib Dems that it was tragic that in 1999 his health made it impossible for him to run and this brought out the support.
It will be the same with Gordon. He stood aside in 1994 and the sentiment will be that it is his turn.
Maybe it was Herbert that just offered £100 on Gordo at 1.2 (Betfair).
Whoever it was, I’ve taken it.
50. Mike, you’re mainly right, but I can’t agree with you that Gordon’s as good as Blair once was in making sure bad news doesn’t stick. They’ve two very different styles in dealing with it: Blair has always dismissed bad news and used his charm and likability to make those aiming that kind of story look tawdry themselves. The approach stopped working after the Iraq War went wrong, but was successful for long periods when his relative credibility was higher than his opponents. Brown by contrast dodges the stories, disappearing from sight whenever something damaging might hit him. That is not sustainable as PM.
Gordon will become leader of the Labour Party and prime minister, but will find it a very different job from chancellor, and one which his tactics won’t work in. He will either have to find new tactics or accept the damage coming his way.
50.
Good afternoon Mike.
I think that the Home Secretary will stop Gordon and my source, although tinged with blue, is impeccable
However,a week is a long time in politics and we shall if John Reid goes for the top job by this time next week !
50 - the Gordon Brown “stood aside” legend has been well polished by himself & his acolytes but he was never a real contender though was he? Like BoE independence (which I believe was a requirement for entry to the Euro - can anyone confirm?) the burnishing of the facts over the past decade shows how assidiously Gordon has worked to create his image as the King over the water waiting to reclaim the party. It’s been a work of patience and shows his strategic gifts and lloks like being rewarded.
Same to some extent with Ming. In 1999 would he have really had a chance? However his careful approach from 1999, never appearing disloyal but always giving appearance of distance, did make him the most likely to succeed.
49 - no, he was not. But following the 1987 election, Penhaligon would have got the leadership rather than Ashdown.
52 - “Brown by contrast dodges the stories, disappearing from sight whenever something damaging might hit him.”
53 - The Home Secretary wouldn’t even manage to stop a bus in a terminus - let alone stop Gordon Brown.
56. And of course with such tactics did he fight the leadership campaign of 1994, his campaign motto being ‘undefeated; next time’.
48 I didnt say they would win, but that it would be tighter - remember that this seat already includes strong Plaid votes in Brynna & Llanharan areas - and Plaid have been working hard in Maesteg area. This was a seat that used to have a 60% plus labour vote - after May it will be marginal
59 Ogmore had a 60% Labour vote at the last GE and Plaid vote fell to 10% and they came 4th .
60. Mark, in 2005 Plaid didn’t perform well in the GE. I think their state can be quite crucial in terms of Labour losses as they’re the main challengers in many seats. In Scotland we’ve polling evidence that SNP is in healthy conditions (maybe they won’t outpoll Labour in the end, but they seem set to make gains), whilst we’ve few evidence on what the situation in Wales is.
I think the Welsh Assembly elections are more difficult to read.
Proper Herbert… don’t know where you got those figures from or what they purport to be - if they were correct they would show the UK having far more debt per capita than the US.
You will no doubt be aware that Vince Cable spends his every waking moment drawing attention to the UKs debt bubble, so it would appear I did use my vote wisely (and for a fellow PB.C poster which must be almost unique).
61. Absolutely Labour will get a good beating from the Tories and to a lesser extent the Lib Dems, but really Labour can survive as these are for the most part not “natural” Labour seats. Only Plaid threaten their heartlands, hence the hostility among Valley Labour AMs especially to PC. I have doubts about Plaid’s organisation, but how they perform will determine whether the result is just bad for Labour, or a repeat of PCs 1999 performance which in conjunction with the Tory gains would make it perfect storm territory for Labour.
Re 43, Herbert, economicaly inactive is not the same as unemployed and may for example include housewives and the like, who wilst they don’t have a “paid job” are doing very useful work.
50 Mike
I think you are wrong about the timing of Ming’s illness - if you remember he has been widely quoted as using “every waking moment” wondering why he didn’t stand. The reason, as I understand it, is that neither he, nor anyone in a small group of influential MPs, felt they were getting enough support to mount a challenge in 1999, and failing that, they put their considerable weight behind Charles. I do not think Ming would have got the nod in 1999 had he stood, and I think underthose circumstances, I believe Simon would have won. Ming’s ill health struck later.
37 Punter
They certainly cite the case of Churchill strike-breaking with troops when he was Lib Home Sec (1919 IIRC). Lib Dems are now second in Ogmore - Plaid find it much more difficult to break through when LDs are ahead - as in both Bridgend and Ogmore. When they pass the Lib Dems - as in Llanelli, then it makes it much easier for them to break down the traditional Labour lead. The further west you go, of course, generally, the more the Welsh speaking factor kicks in, and usually, that adds somewhat more predisposition to support Plaid.
64 Benedict , Herbert’s selective misabuse of statistics in trying to prove that GB will not become leader is astounding .
Re 66, Mark, but then Labour’s abuse of the figures is something else altogether.