Monday 16 March 2015

Election Preparations

The extraordinary public attack on Tim Farron and his judgment by the Liberal Democrats' General Election Chair Paddy Ashdown was viewed with raised eyebrows by those who remembered his desperate attempts to pursue "The Project" with Tony Blair in 1997-8.

This has quickly been followed by an orchestrated attack on Farron in today's Times [paywalled] after a pretty innocuous piece in the Mail on Sunday.  Meanwhile a lot of people have been working to generate publicity for Norman Lamb after the intrusive tabloid piece about his family members yesterday.

Lamb appears to have handled this very well, gaining momentum for his work to transform mental health care.  What Tim Farron hasn't said so far (but others can) is that perhaps Lord Ashdown's focus should be on voters in key areas, as Tim's is on his constituents; and that winning as many seats as possible on 7 May is perhaps more important.

After all, it does rather seem that the election preparations going on in some places are not being made with the General Election in mind.

Whoever authored the attack on the handling of the foreign affairs brief was not thinking of the leadership's judgment in staying almost entirely silent on international issues this Parliament; in forsaking Ministerial roles at the FCO and MOD; or indeed in appointing Tim Farron to the foreign affairs role.

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