ePolitix.com - Week on the web

With Liberal Democrat conference only a week away, attention is turning to the fortunes of Sir Menzies Campbell and his party.

The most discussed newspaper article of the week was by Danny Finkelstein, pulling no punches in the Times: Ming, you're useless. You've got to go.

In it he compares Ming to Harrison Ford - or perhaps Chris Huhne to Tommy Lee Jones - and followed it up with this clip on Comment Central.

Skipper compares Sir Menzies to Michael Foot: "They saw a feeble old geriatric; nice, maybe, bookish, maybe, but prime minister? You're 'avin a laugh."

The Lib Dem Suz Blog thinks Finkelstein has hit the nail on the head, and criticises fellow Lib Dem bloggers for "living in cloud cuckoo land".

Matthew Pearce at The World Goes Round thinks of Finkelstein as a proxy playground bully, but agrees that the comments hurt.

Don't Trip Up thinks the Lib Dems are "Labour-lite, free to criticise from opposition but lacking a real direction", and should transform itself into a purely liberal party in the tradition of J S Mill.

Paul Walter at Liberal Burblings mounts a (somewhat half-hearted) defence of Ming, while Lib Dem blogging supremo Stephen Tall looks at the leadership ratings in a recent Ipsos/MORI poll to show that "almost half the electorate has yet to make up its mind about his leadership suggesting the ball remains in this court - he has time to convince the public he's got what it takes".

Some crumbs of comfort for Lib Dems in an article by Dominic Lawson in Tuesday's Independent, when he praised certain aspects of his leadership style - while criticising his choice of desert island discs.

And from the same newspaper on Friday - which these slightly aged MORI figures show is almost dependent on Lib Dem voters - came another blistering attack on Ming, with former Paddy Ashdown press officer Sean O'Grady claiming that "Sir Ming doesn't seem that interested in his party", unlike his former boss.

MP and former leadership candidate Mark Oaten resurfaced this week to speculate in the Times about the value of a Lib Dem/Tory pact as he plugged his book, while Ming himself posts about his constitutional plans on his website.

To tear ourselves away from the Lib Dems for a moment, this week also saw the launch of Boris Johnson's new site for his campaign to be mayor of London, while Paul Walter discovers a new favourite Boris quote and links to the invaluable Wikiquote depository.

The BBC's Nick Robinson fleshes out his radio story about the almost-defection of Tory donor Johan Eliasch, the kind of post which proves how much value professional journalists can add when they blog.

Talking of Tory near-defections, the unmissable Tara Hamilton-Miller describes the mood in the party after "sacrificial lambs" Patrick Mercer and John Bercow agreed to advise the prime minister.

And while all these opposition problems might sound like nothing but good news for Labour, this post on Labourhome says there are now Tories and Lib Dems represented in the government: But who represents the socialists?

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