Anthony Barnett (London OK): When OK started earlier this year I said to my colleagues that I felt like posting a very angry blog asking where ARE the Lib-Dems. Indeed, I wrote a draft but didn't publish it because I felt it was too much a response to media impressions. I'm glad I didn't. I feel like congratulating everyone, as Tories and Labour bloggers spit their irritation. Congratulate Ming for finally getting out, Clegg for winning (and for the finest moment of the campaign when he faced down an incredulous Paxman after he lost the capacity to distinguish between Newsnight and University Challenge), and Huhne for a brilliant campaign that will strengthen the Lib-Dems internally.
As the Conservatives try and scrape from the walls what is left of the 'progressive' idea after New Labour has finished with it, one point stands out. The media found the Lib Dem campaign boring and dull. I saw one report which said it "only took off" with the Calamity Clegg episode. This shows that the media torrent only loves a fight that strikes shallow and hates anything thoughtful or, perish the thought, lasting. But the fact is that on a set of key issues, such the need for proportional representation, the Lib Dems are completely right and in agreement. They do not need a 'clause 4' moment or to 'decontaminate' themselves. They therefore had to make a personal call about the best, most efficient, appealing, organised man to choose as leader. I found that the Lib Dems I knew were deliberating. No wonder the press hated the campaign! It consisted of people making up their minds in a closely drawn contest, not a tribal charade.
So my feeling is that everything that made the campaign a great media failure made it a considerable success. This party is about how best to argue what it stands for, not about covering it up.
I don't write this as a Lib Dem, of course, so it is not a matter of self-congratulation.
Follow up: Iain Dale has an interesting response. He thinks that the close result deprives Nick Clegg of a mandate. tell that to Alex Salmond! No, if Clegg uses Huhne well it strengthens the Lib Dems as a party, showing their relative unity, such is the dialectic at the moment. But the most interesting part of Iain's long discussion of the true need for Tory collaboration with the Lib Dems against Labour and how Clegg might be the man to deliver this. What we really need, however, is a clear pledge of making the voting system fairer from the Conservatives now. It is too principled an issue to be negotiated as a tactic after the votes some in. All appeals to support localism etc, which Iain quotes are beside the point if the system remains fixated on winner takes all.
