Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Tom Griffin spent a long time finding Stephen Glenn to write a post about the Lib Dem leadership contest. I'm afraid Tom didn't get as much warm support from me in his search as he should have. Eventually, he found Stephen and we ran this story by him on the battle to lead Lib Dem Scotland. It seemed to me that Tavish Scott was the least interesting of the three candidates, if he is indeed standing for continuity of a forlorn strategy. Today they have announced the outcome of the ballot: it seems that Scottish Lib Dems have voted for the hole into which they are digging. Could this be true?
Online at OK: Democratic Audit's full report, The BNP: the Roots of their Success
Britain is good at dealing with diversity - Kanishk Tharoor
The BBC was right on BNP - it is our political class who have been complacent - Jacob Ignatius
Get over it, better to flush out the whole affair - David Elstein
Hillary Bray (not verified) said:
Wed, 2008-08-27 15:13Just because one person says that TS represents continuity, does not make it true.
Truth is, Nicol Stephen is the one who never really outlined what he stood for, havering about PE at schools when the country was out voting on Scotland's political future.
Ross Finnie was an excellent and wise minister, but there's evidence he had a clear idea of what should be done differently. Likewise, Mike Rumbles is just not taken seriously enough (for good or ill) by anyone other than those wishing the Party bad luck...
Scott holds the media interest, in this Salmond era; has a (too) strong prinicipled objection to nationalism; and knows that the Party needs a foot up its a**e.
Whether he can deliver it is another question, but he's a better choice than the other two, and the level of support and the public backers proves that.