Bloggers for Chris

Yesterday the two sides in the "leadership blogosphere" received a request from the Daily (Maybe), a green blog by a chap called Jim Jay in Cambridge, for a 400 word blog piece promoting our respective candidates to the "Green market". There's one from Matt Davies for Nick Clegg and one from me for Chris Huhne. Read them both at The Daily (Maybe) today, perhaps.

I was at the Not-the-first-hustings yesterday at the South Central Conference at Newbury and was impressed by both Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne. I saw nothing to make me change my loyalties away from Chris, but one thing in particular Nick said (twice at least) was worth flagging up I thought.

I think the first reference was in his speech when talking about how to re-engage voters in an era when so many people say "what does government matter when the global conglomerates have all the power" he seemed to say that government should seek to control (as in rein in not own I presume) big business. Then again, when one of the questions was about how to sell Europe, he suggested that one of the benefits of Europe was the ability of governments to club together to control such global corporations.

I'm don't recall whether these were the only references to what one might call "economic" policy but they stuck in my mind because, whilst the media seem to talk about Nick being on the "economic liberal" (code for "right wing" in the economically illiterate media) part of the party, these are the sort of anti-corporate slogans that characterize Caroline Lucas or Naomi Klein more than they would Milton Friedman. Further, in reference to his past role as an EU trade negotiator, he seemed to believe that this in fact meant Euro-protectionism rather than freeing global trade.

On the other hand, Chris, who I think it is generally accepted is more grounded in economic theory, cited yesterday Hobhouse and the early twentieth century liberal reformers as his heros and today on Andrew Marr's program Lloyd-George. These guys knew all about the best mechanisms for helping the poor working classes - free trade and anti-monopoly.

I can't say whether Chris shares my view that the welfare state as conceived by these reformers was a necessary but essentially temporary measure only needed in an economic system that favoured the land-owner, capitalist and banker. But as a land value taxer, I would identify Chris with an "economic liberalism" that in a sense supersedes what many call "social liberalism". That believes that if we get the economic system more equitable, by reducing protectionism and monopolistic advantage, we create greater opportunity for the "little guy" than we can do by state led intervention in people's lives and wealth and consequently need a smaller safety net as a result.

Economic liberalism is "of the left" not the right. Its aim is to break the class and wealth based advantages enjoyed by the privileged and give the working person a greater share of the value of his or her production. Chris, I think, understands this. But Nick does not seem to be the "economic liberal" the press portrays him as, at least judging by those comments yesterday, but rather takes a protectionist and interventionist stance. A position which also has a big following in our party to be sure; this is not a value judgement, but it is a position I do not personally support (any longer).

All it goes to show really is that we cannot put any credence on the media who mischaracterize "economic liberalism" as something of the right and "social liberalism" as something of the left, and, having failed to understand either put our two candidates in those false categories. Nick might be on the "right" in the sense that he is apparently a protectionist, but it's not the sort of "right" the meedja seem to understand!

Plus ça change, as they say. I was persuaded to start blogging as a way of supporting Chris Huhne in the last leadership campaign, having been amongst the first to contact him to encourage him to stand. It's not quite skiing season yet, so I presume he's at least around and about at Westminster this time, and I hope he will stand again, as has seemed likely ever since the "discussion" about Ming's leadership began, ooh, sometime after 4th March 2006 I think it was.

This time it also seems likely that one of the other people I might have liked to run last time, Nick Clegg, will make his move. The media, and some who voted for Ming back then, have consistently portrayed him as Ming's chosen heir; indeed there were suggestions at the time that a deal had been done between him and Ming that kept him out of the running then on the basis that he would be the anointed one, fulfilling Ming's ambition and allowing him to create a following after a few more years at Westminster.

I see the BBC are speculating about a whole load more possible runners that could make for an interesting contest. I see they have also begun, not entirely unexpectedly I suppose, to stick little labels on these folk even before we have heard their story: Nick Clegg is apparently "on the economically liberal right of the party" (which is historically at least an oxymoron to me); we are reminded which of them contributed a chapter to the "right wing", "free market" Orange Book (which will probably now mean little even to most of our member-electors I suspect outside of the Westminster bubble let alone to voters more generally). The BBC's list does not include Steve Webb whom Channel 4 News were suggesting would run and who, as was their assessment of Chris, would mark a "shift to the left".

In any case, whilst welcome publicity for some of our strong cadre of top flight MPs, I don't suppose more than a couple of the BBC list is really seriously considering standing. Though one never knows; with the distinct possibility that whoever is elected this time round will have the longevity to see us through maybe a couple of general elections and maybe more a few outsiders may be tempted on a "now or never" basis and in the hope that their stock will rise and they'll get a decent job out of whoever is elected leader.

One thing is certain for me - I would prefer it to be more than three candidates this time who are able to stick it out till the count. It seems to me that the transferable voting system has a greater power to galvanize the membership behind the eventual winner if it feels that as many shades of liberal opinion as possible have been represented and discussed and then prioritized (I felt greater loyalty to Charles whom I did not include in my preferences at all than to Ming whom I put second from three). Besides, I reckon a nice wide field is better for making money on at the bookies, and I've got election expenses for 2008 to cover out of this!

But my initial loyalty is still for Chris. He's still President of ALTER and, together with Vince, I feel has really grasped what will be the main battleground for the next few years, fiscal policy. I know Nick has the Home Office brief where civil liberties will be important but he has been hampered by a lack of good topical targets recently. And he could to my mind have given more wholehearted support today to Richard Brunstrom's calls for "full" legalization of drugs today to get my vote. But I believe we cannot really be free in a civil liberties sense if we do not have financial freedom from state slavery - so, often unglamorous as it is, for me it is about "the economy, stupid" and those runners who have experience in that area are more likely to win my higher preferences.

But will any of them promise to widen the leadership to a team , involving more people from outside the parliamentary party whom we would want to share in a liberal government? Such a candidate would catch my interest at least, for whilst I would like to see Chris as leader, I do want whoever is leader to recognize that they are not some Messianic "visionary" on whose every word the party hangs as it appears too often with Blair, Brown and Cameron, but a potential Liberal prime minister determined to return power to the disenfranchised and unrepresented people of Britain.

And if you're uncertain who should get your vote, try this method - the candidate that's easier to caricature in a cartoon should win it...

Having been a bit behind the mood on Charles Kennedy's resignation, I quickly made up for it getting ahead of the game by encouraging others to urge Chris Huhne, MP for Eastleigh to think about putting his name forward...

What a sad weekend of intrigue and at times farce it's been. Anyway, as no doubt people are going to be trying to move quickly I thought I'd drop you a note to encourage you to contact anyone you can in the first instance to ensure that there should be a leadership election. If our parliamentarians were annoyed on Thursday night that CK was going over their heads as the news suggests, their position will be no more tenable in the view of many members if they engineer a stitch up for one candidate. So please, tell anyone you can that we need an election!

And there will be one. I've been in contact all weekend and emailing privately one or two MPs and one for sure is intending to stand to make a contest of it if nobody else comes forward (I would actually like John Hemming to win and I've offered to work on John's campaign assuming someone else doesn't stand).

That someone else, I'd like to lobby you to encourage, is our own former MEP, Chris Huhne. He's either only just back from holiday yesterday or today so I have not heard from him but have written to him encouraging him to think about it. Here's why:

1. Europe. With Blair having failed to make much of his EU presidency and Brown more anti- due to succeed him, and with Cameron anti- and likely to take the Tories that way, there is room for us to be the party of Europe and internationalism as we should be, I may not agree 100% with Chris about the Euro (I prefer James Robertson's idea of a "Common Currency" to a single currency at the moment), but it would be a first to have a former MEP as a party leader at Westminster. Both he and Nick Clegg, who I think has ruled himself out and is supporting Ming, have a full term at Strasbourg/Brussels under their belts and we should be prepared, as a pro-European party, to count that for what it is - parliamentary experience. It might even make a refreshing change to have someone who has cut his parliamentary teeth on something other than the yah-boo of Westminster (though watching the European parliament does not look all that different at times!). Let's get him in there now while he has more MEP experience than MP experience. He is in the ideal position, having done it himself, to explain and develop how we scrutinise and criticise Europe positively compared with the other positions seen to be either plain anti-Europe, or, on the other side, the "Europe can do no wrong" type pro-Europeans.

2. PR. I am disappointed that we quietly dropped PR as "unattainable", and didn't get terribly involved in the campaign after the general Election last year led by the Independent. Chris is not only committed to PR but of course is one of our two parliamentarians who has actually been elected under a PR system, of sorts. He was a director of Electoral Reform Ballot Services. We should be pushing PR right now in view of the probability that Labour will be waning in the run up to the next election and the dissatisfaction with the present situation.

3. International Development. Chris's economic interests have focussed on International Development. If we are to believe Cameron and Brown and their "save Africa" type rhetoric, Geldof Groups and so on, this is to be the foreign policy and humanitarian agenda for the next few years. Chris is a real economist who has made real studies of different mechanisms for International Development. Gordon Brown's naive sounding "drop the debt" type measures will not be sufficient in the longer run and we need someone who really understands these issues to promote better solutions.

4. Radical economics. Chris is President of Lib Dems ALTER (Action for Land Tax and Economic Reform). Personally I have not met him yet in that context, having only been Secretary of ALTER for less than a year and not having attended any of the conference events yet. So I don't know if he is a passionate proponent of LVT or simply someone who recognises the benefits of being open to unconventional economic and fiscal ideas. But either way, we do need to be open to radical economic solutions and need someone to promote that openness. If memory serves he was also supportive of our earlier attempts to set up an Association of Lib Dem Co-operators and supports mutual solutions to delivering public goods where appropriate.

5. Meedja. Chris is of course a former journalist. I do think we need someone whom the media can feel is "one of their own". But he also has strong credibility in the city - writing for the Economists and at times the FT as well as the economics pages of the Guardian and Independent.

Yes, he's likely to be an outsider. But that didn't stop some of us previously supporting David Rendel (who I would nominate again if we hadn't lost Newbury). But he's "different", "fresh" in all sorts of ways. He may feel that he's too new in Westminster but that's not been too great a barrier to Cameron for example (who would have recognised him this time last year if we weren't Oxfordshire activists?). I feel it is time to make use of the great strides we have made at Westminster over the past five years and skip the generation that seems lining up to arrange a succession (Simon/Ming/Mark etc). However he is being spoken of very positively as someone who would make a very good leader, so there is some momentum behind him.