Poor Ming

He didn't even last two years.

His problem I think, was that he looked much older than he was, with the classic old man's hunch of the shoulders. And Britain is a country that doesn't value the old (unlike say Italy). The LibDems could have protected him by publicising the fact that he'd just recently recovered from serious illness (cancer I think) - the public tend to be very kind and sympathetic to people bravely carrying on in the face of illness. And they could have sent him to a deportment class to make him stand straight and not hunch. But they didn't. Instead we kept seeing black-and-white footage of him at the Olympics in by-gone times. As the black-and-white era is pre-history as far as most people are concerned, it made Ming seem even older.

So the LibDems are shortly going to have their third leader this parliament. They need to make sure that whomever they elect lasts at least five years, else they stand a good chance of being thought of as cavalier as the Tories.

At least this leadership election should keep the press busy. Let's hope it lasts for a good six months.