Been a while hasn't it...

Well the election happened in my absence. I was somewhat busy campaigning and didn't write much. In the parliamentary campaigns I was involved in (to various extents) the news was mixed but on balance disappointing. A win, a good loss (as it were) and three disappointing defeats.

Some questions I may rant about arising from the election are...

• Why is it we keep believing good opinion polls and ignore the bad ones?
• Why do we lose in three way marginals?
• How do we chose target seats so badly?
• Why are we disappointed with our best ever total vote as LibDems?

Some have easier answers than others...

However for now I think things have moved on enough to ignore these and instead move on to issues that don't concern me.

Things That Don't Concern Me 1: The Deputy Leadership

I had no idea the membership didn't vote for the deputy leader of the party. Mind you I ought to have done the '06 and '03 elections were done the same way and I was a member for both.

So we have two candidates:

Tim Farron backed publicly by Ming, Tessa Munt and Chris Huhne.
Simon Hughes backed publicly by Beith, Vince and Sarah.

See the list on LD Voice for current state of play.

In my opinion Hughes must win. His speech at the special conference was superb. He is a voice from the outside of the coalition. He is a liberal fighting against Labour by being better than them at fighting for social justice.

So I hope my MP votes for Hughes, and I hope he wins. Then we have a strong, experienced voice critical of the coalition within it. Hooray!

Things that don't concern me 2: Which Milliband

I really don't care. Balls would be less of a disaster for Labour than some people seem to think. People say they dislike combative opposition but the mud will stick. Milliband E and D are interchangable.