Charles redeemed himself with a fine display in a set-piece interview on BBC with David Dimbleby, but the damage had already been done. The damage, in my view, was compounded by a conscious ‘left of Labour’ strategy, which reached its climax with our prize Labour defector, Brian Sedgemore. Brian was in any event stepping down as MP for Hackney and, while he had impeccably liberal views on social issues and had voted against the war, hostile newspapers gleefully pointed out that he was an unreconstructed Bennite who had once crafted Labour’s alternative economic strategy. And while I did my best to communicate our tax policy, and while the idea of a 50p top rate and a local income tax were popular according to the polls, the insistence of our strategists on linking the 50p rate to spending commitments meant that, for very small sums of money, we could be portrayed as a high-tax, tax-raising party. This was not what many voters were looking for after Gordon Brown’s big splurge of public spending and increased taxes. It would have been worse if the Tories had not put forward a highly implausible programme of tax cuts financed by improbable ‘waste’ savings; and if Howard Flight, their number-two economic spokesman, had not spoken out of turn, to be stripped on the spot of his job and his candidacy.
In the event, we advanced with a net gain of ten, compared with six in 2001. Objectively, this was a good result. But there was a sense of disappointment despite impressive advances in Labour-held seats. In politics as in economics it is expectations that matter as much as underlying reality. There had been no breakthrough. Charles’s earlier talk of our ‘overtaking the Conservatives’ now sounded hollow. With some exceptions like my own seat, the Conservatives had made advances against us in the south. Moreover, their campaigning techniques had improved greatly, making ours look rather antiquated. And immediately after the election Michael Howard had stood down with a view to promoting a new style of modern Conservatism under David Cameron. At this point strong leadership was required to recapture a sense of momentum, with new ideas in terms of policy and political activity.
For the first time, serious questions were raised by MPs about the leadership, going beyond routine Westminster grumbling and gossip. There was growing speculation about ‘health problems’ and about a likely leadership contest. But, not for the first time, a by-election came to the rescue. Patsy Calton, having just held the seat of Cheadle despite being in the final stages of cancer, died a few weeks after the general election, precipitating a particularly difficult battle. This had once been a Tory stronghold, a prosperous suburban Cheshire corner of the Manchester conurbation, and they were in full cry, fighting an energetic and highly aggressive campaign against our candidate, Mark Hunter, the Stockport council leader. As at Romsey and Brent East, Chris Rennard’s team worked their magic; the MPs, led by Charles Kennedy, pitched in delivering leaflets and knocking on doors; and the election was won. A potential leadership crisis was postponed.
I spent the spare time I had that summer, including the hot afternoons during a walking and eating holiday among the bastide towns of Lot et Garonne in south-west France, writing a couple of booklets: one on public services reform, the other on the politics of identity, updating a paper I had written for Demos a decade earlier. Lurking at the back of my mind was the thought that, if there were a leadership contest, it could be helpful to be known as someone who had something interesting to say.
The recess was followed by one of the most politically damaging party conferences in recent years, dominated by leadership speculation. Just over three months later Charles Kennedy would be gone, amid considerable bitterness. The full story has been told with admirable clarity and objectivity by Greg Hurst in his biography of Charles. I don’t have a great deal to add beyond some detail that was important to me. I would become one of the central figures in the coup to change the leadership, but, as Greg acknowledges, I became involved only very reluctantly.
When serious agitation started for a change of leadership, my initial view was that I didn’t want to know. I was happy with the leader we had. He was still popular and had a fund of credit from the Iraq War. He had been personally helpful to me, though we were not close. I discounted many of the stories I heard as the product of personal grudges or frustrated ambition. Even when I was persuaded by people who had no axe to grind and who knew him well that there was a problem, I took the view that there might be a heavy cost to ousting a popular leader and that the main alternatives being canvassed were unlikely to be an improvement.
I remained of that view while most of my shadow Cabinet colleagues had already been persuaded of the need for a change. I was finally convinced in a one-to-one meeting that we had sought with Charles to clarify the situation. I went in expecting him to say ‘yes, there is a problem, but I am dealing with it and I hope I can count on your support’. I would then have pledged support and tried to help defuse the rebellion. To my surprise, he categorically denied any knowledge of specific incidents that even his loyal staff had acknowledged. I have since been told that a state of denial is a characteristic symptom, but I didn’t understand that at the time and merely felt let down.
With hindsight and, perhaps, more cunning, I should have seized control of the rebellion at that point and turned it to personal advantage. But I was persuaded to play a more modest role, communicating to Charles the collective lack of confidence of his shadow Cabinet colleagues and the need for an elder statesman figure, Sir Menzies Campbell, to take over and stabilize the party. My concern at this point was that the process should be as respectful of Charles as was possible, and hopefully give him more time, though there was a counter-view that speed was of the essence. I left at Christmas 2005 for a visit to Sri Lanka – to open a village built in the wake of the South Asian tsunami of the year before by the efforts of some of my Hampton constituents – and to the wedding of one of my Indian nieces in Goa. I left behind in my constituency office safe the sole copy of a letter seeking Charles’s resignation, signed by eleven of my shadow Cabinet colleagues, and hoped against hope that the situation would resolve itself in my absence. Far from it: someone in the shadow Cabinet leaked the contents, and I arrived back home to a media barrage on my doorstep. I played my role as deliverer of the letter; someone had destroyed Charles’s last defences by leaking his medical records; and he was gone. There was immense ill-feeling in the parliamentary and wider party among those who did not know the facts and some who did. The whole episode was the worst I had experienced as an MP and left me, and several others involved, feeling soiled and diminished.
If the end of Charles’s leadership was messy, the opening moves in the succession were equally so. There had been a tacit understanding that in order to minimize conflict, we should rally behind Ming Campbell. There were plausible alternatives to provide competition, but no one foresaw that Mark Oaten’s and Simon Hughes’s private lives would emerge into the public domain, crippling both their leadership campaigns.
Then Ming, as acting leader, stumbled very badly in early outings in Parliament, his elegantly authoritative, gentlemanly demeanour crumbling in the bear-pit atmosphere of the Commons. His leadership bid was seriously weakened and the door was ajar to a new challenger. I felt too committed to move. Chris Huhne saw the opportunity and moved quickly to exploit it. As an ex-journalist, he was highly effective in seizing media opportunities. The majority of MPs and peers rallied round Ming and he won, though serious doubts had been created by the campaign, which were never fully dissipated subsequently. I was left wondering what might have been had I not stood back, though I had the consolation of being chosen by our MPs, on a tight vote, as deputy leader.
Chapter 13
A Taste of Leadership
An obsession with leadership is not unique to the Lib Dems. For a decade and a half the Conservative Party was dominated by the consequences of the overthrow of Mrs Thatcher and the failure of Messrs Major, Hague, Duncan Smith and Howard, in turn, to revive their fortunes. Labour had a similar problem in the 1980s and clearly does so again. An American-style presidentia
l system has quietly evolved, in which the personality of the leader matters more than the strength of the supporting team. Parties have become like Premier League football teams, whose managers no longer just pick the team and decide tactics – the Attlee model of leadership – but are the repository of all the hopes and fears of supporters. They get the credit if their team play well and the blame if they play badly, as if the players themselves have little competence or inspiration beyond the magic communicated by a Special One. The pre-match wind-ups or post-match recriminations between Fergie and Arsène, like prime minister’s questions, have acquired a significance way beyond their limited content. The most dangerous positions are either to have responsibility for a political Chelsea, which is expected to win and which has the backing of the super-rich but then disappoints – the Conservative problem until very recently – or to manage a top team, which has fans with high expectations, a great tradition, big potential and some excellent players, but which hasn’t the resources to break through to the very top, like the Lib Dems. Or at least, until now.
For reasons described in the previous chapter, the end of Charles Kennedy was inevitable but painful and damaging to all of us involved. Ming Campbell’s brief reign was unhappy in a different way, and while his downfall was equally inevitable the manner of it reflected badly on the political class as a whole, and its commentators, as well as on us as a party. To watch a decent man being kicked to death is not an edifying spectacle. To see cartoonists in otherwise liberal newspapers depicting a sixty-five-year-old as a geriatric has-been with a Zimmer frame went way beyond political wit.
On one level, the Ming dynasty, as it came to be called, had some successes. Indeed, the underlying strengths of the party in adversity had been made apparent in a by-election in Ealing Southall in June. The Conservatives were widely assumed to be the main challengers to Labour; they chose a good-looking, well-connected, local candidate – an Asian Cameron – and received strong endorsement from the local press and defecting Labour councillors. We fought a traditional campaign, with MPs and party leaders working alongside volunteers from all over Britain stuffing envelopes and delivering leaflets. Although Labour won comfortably, the Conservatives were relegated to third place.
Leadership questions remained, however and centred on two aspects of Ming’s performance. One was his negative portrayal by political commentators. After twenty years of being listened to with deference and respect he was not psychologically equipped to deal with the noisy hostility and mockery of the Commons. By the time he was launching well-prepared, sharp questions, that battle had already been lost and he had been written off by the press gallery.
Secondly, a naturally conservative, cautious, risk-averse approach to issues is valuable in a team, but was not what was required when the Lib Dems were in danger of sinking out of sight. Ming was courteous to a fault, anxious not to upstage or embarrass colleagues, but also, particularly in the field of foreign affairs, in which he had considerable expertise, concerned not to stray too far from the responsible, nuanced position he would have taken as a minister.
Whether for these or deeper reasons, our poll ratings sank and his personal rating remained poor. Nonetheless, there was a spirit of unity at the 2007 Brighton conference and much goodwill towards the leadership, based partly on the assumption that there would be a general election immediately or by the spring, and that Ming would then either lead the tricky negotiations necessitated by a ‘hung’ parliament or would graciously step aside with the thanks of the party and make way for Chris Huhne or Nick Clegg, whose embryonic leadership campaigns were much in evidence.
Gordon Brown’s decision not to proceed with an early election was disastrous for his own credibility and authority. But it also blew this comfortable scenario apart. I think that Ming, as a sensitive man, was painfully aware that the traits that made him personally respected and liked were not those now required for political survival or to lift a struggling party. The new political situation exposed Ming to speculation as to how he could survive up to two and a half more years of this parliament; but most of us in senior positions in the party had no appetite for another leadership battle.
On the weekend of 10/11 October there was dreadful press coverage and I believe Ming decided to go then. I never discovered the precise sequence of events that precipitated the resignation, but during the afternoon of the Monday I was sought out by Ming’s chief of staff, Archy Kirkwood, and told that Ming had resigned and that I, as deputy, was now the leader until a leadership election could be held. The party president and chief executive mapped out a timetable; we agreed a public statement; and I was whisked off to meet the leader’s staff whom I had inherited.
Once the shock had worn off and the frenzied round of interviews had subsided, most of them alleging plots that did not exist, I was able to reflect on the challenge ahead. Party morale was low; membership and income were falling; MPs were torn between a sense of relief and foreboding that the downward spiral could continue. I could not claim that my reign was over-burdened by expectations: the reaction of colleagues was closer to pity and sympathy than envy, and the summit of their ambitions for me was not to make a bad situation worse. They also made it clear from the outset that I should not think of being anything other than a caretaker leader. The point was made, with varying degrees of subtlety, that since Ming had been judged ‘too old’ at sixty-six, the party and the public were unlikely to turn to a sixty-four-year-old. Now, they said, was the time for a ‘new generation’. I resented the advice at the time and the lazily ageist assumptions behind it, but without the backing of a critical mass of MPs there was no way forward. I ended my second day in a state of deep gloom, mixed with a growing sense of panic, for next day was my first prime minister’s questions. I didn’t sleep, trying to dream up a question and working out how to handle the inevitable wall of noise, aggression and ridicule that I could expect.
Prime minister’s questions is an event like no other in Parliament: a packed, noisy, irreverent Punch and Judy show, far removed from the decorous but flat and soporific atmosphere that surrounds most parliamentary business. But parliamentary reputations are made and lost there, regardless of any wider or more useful political talent. Liberal Democrat leaders have had a particularly hard time, subject to taunts and shouting from both the two larger parties. Paddy Ashdown never lacked self-confidence, but his memoirs recall his frustration and rage at never being taken seriously in this context. Charles Kennedy did lack self-confidence – unlike TV, this was not his medium – but was treated more sympathetically in general. Ming’s difficulties I have already described. Our leaders also lack the practical and psychological support of the Dispatch Box and are therefore forced either to look down at notes, which attracts screams of derision and looks bad on television, or to speak from memory or inspiration, which risks disaster. The opposition leader is allowed six questions, which allows for a serious argument to be developed. The Lib Dem leader is allowed two, which have to be kept brief in order to head off barracking. Dennis Skinner and his friends sit a few feet in front and Tory wags to the right. In the ten years I had been in Parliament, my three predecessors, and our party troops behind them, had regarded this part of the week as an ordeal to be endured rather than a political opportunity. They also faced Tony Blair, who had developed a mastery of this particular medium and specialized in the good-natured but brutally dismissive put-down. I had the advantage of facing Gordon Brown instead, and having shadowed him at Treasury questions for several years I knew that he was in many respects cleverer than Blair, but lacked Blair’s finesse and performance skills.
My strategy from the outset was to be meticulously prepared. The material was my own, but I had a skilled team to bounce ideas off several hours before the event, and help with a range of carefully crafted options for the two-stage exchange, taking into account Cameron’s possible questions, and every conceivable reply by Brown – all, then, to be memorized as far as possible. The difficult bit is to ho
ld all this together in the face of a cacophony of noise, trying to judge when to wait and when to plough on so as not to lose the timing and the punchlines. I was deeply indebted to the drama teacher who, half a century earlier, had made me overcome my fear of live audiences by fixing a member of the audience in the eye and talking, one to one, shutting out the terrifying mass of faces.
The first two outings went well and attracted favourable comment, which gave me the confidence to attempt more aggressive questions, and finally jokes, including ‘Stalin to Mr Bean’. From Brown’s responses, then, and in a succession of prime ministerial statements and the debate on the Queen’s Speech, it was clear that he had no capacity for repartee beyond clumsy, predictable, flailing blows which were easily countered by changing the angle of attack. I was naturally flattered and encouraged by my favourable reviews, but valued most the revival of morale among my own troops. I was amazed that at the heart of government there was no one who could help Gordon Brown improve his technique.
I also discovered in those few weeks a character trait of my own that I hadn’t previously identified and didn’t much like, but which proved invaluable. I rather enjoyed putting in the knife. Years of trying hard to be fair and reasonable were cast aside. It wasn’t that I had any personal animosity towards Gordon Brown; quite the reverse. I think that at the core of it was a suppressed rage: the feeling that I could be doing his job, and doing it much better.
Apart from making a success of PMQs and other set-piece parliamentary performances, I had one overriding objective, which was to keep the Liberal Democrats in the front of the news by responding rapidly to new issues with an approach that was distinctive, challenging and – hopefully – reflected our underlying values. My party has never been short of ideas, thoughtful policies, talented politicians and strong convictions, but has had difficulty getting into the mainstream of national debate. There is a tendency in the media to portray every issue in simple, dialectical, two-party terms, and to regard our party as a minor nuisance, to be reluctantly given a walk-on part in any serious drama. It is, however, simply unprofessional to blame the ‘meeja’. If we have suffered badly from neglect over the years, we have perhaps acquiesced too easily in the role assigned to us, maybe through lack of energy and abrasiveness.
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