Skipper

I'm not sure what old Ming Campbell is doing with all those 'post-it' notes stuck all over him, but if any were written by Danny Finkelstein, I know what's written on them. The Times journalist's column on Thursday pulled no punches whatsoever and it's very hard to say he isn't wrong as the nub of his piece makes explains:

The driving force in British politics is the uselessness of Ming. What makes the gap between the big two parties go up and down is simply the identity of the party to which the Lib Dems and their hopeless leader are losing votes on any given day. Throughout the last Parliament the Lib Dems averaged more than 22 per cent and scored 22.7 per cent on election day. When David Cameron became Tory leader the Liberals fell to 18.3 per cent. And since Gordon Brown became Labour leader they have averaged 16 per cent. In other words, Ming Campbell now presides over a party that has lost 30 per cent of its support.

Why doesn't Ming cut the mustard? He looks and sounds clapped out and voters register it. I remember when Michael Foot was elected leader of Labour I indulged in wishful thinking along the lines of: 'well, maybe people will see this scholarly decent man, compare her with that mad harridan and know deep in their hearts how to vote.' Instead, they saw a feeble old geriatric; nice, maybe, bookish, maybe, but prime minister? You're 'avin a laugh. I begin to agree that the same might be true of poor old Sir Menzies.

Yesterday Mark Oaten replied by suggesting the Lib Dems would need Ming's calm cerebral mind in the wake of a hung parliament. But if their ratings sink much further under Ming, they will not even be able to take their place at that negotiating table. To win attention, it's possible a third party needs a young, dynamic and charismatic leader- someone like Nick Clegg maybe. I remember extolling the virtues of Ming during his campaign to become leader, while wiser heads, like Paul Linford, were rooting for Chris Huhne. How wrong I was. It will be messy to depose Ming, but maybe, as Finkelstein insists, there is no alternative.