Pass the bucket! Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, Campbell in "I'm a leader get me into there"

Maybe I'm a "man out of time" but nothing in politics makes me more nauseous than Tony Blair or David Cameron strutting around seemingly proclaiming their unique ability to govern. To me, even as a Catholic who you might think would be more used to authority and conscientious obedience to such a figure, the leader, whether of party or government, should be no more than "primus inter pares" and probably more administrator-in-chief pulling together the ideas and energies of those around him or her.

And so I was already in the mood to comment on Linda Jack's blog on Friday, outlining a paper that went to FPC stressing that we needed our "Narrative" (what?) to hook into Ming as leader. But now I presume that paper is the one by Greg Simpson ("head of policy and research" for the Lib Dems) that's been leaked to the Independent and about which Andrew Grice has written at some length today.

This seems to have met with some approbation, not least by Linda herself again, but also so far with Paul Walter on his own blog and Richard Huzzey writing at Lib Dem Voice. So I'm going to be slightly contrary and demur from this Ming-fest. Not because I don't believe Ming capable of it. Far from it. I think he has more wisdom on his shoulders than Blair and Cameron combined - and some of the more intemperate and personal remarks that always surface about him after a policy announcement say to me that many have no counter to him other than ad hominem.

But I do not believe that pandering to the cult of celebrity that has permeated politics as much as our prime time television is the radical liberal way to "re-establish in the minds of voters the 'anti-establishment' core of our liberal philosophy." Indeed, I'd say that one of our weaknesses as a party continues to be not that the leader is invisible, but that voters have even less idea of who else might be in a Lib Dem government than they do of a Tory or Labour government. SImon Hughes can't do everything you know! Okay, that's a bit harsh - many of our front bench team are getting better coverage than ever previously - but you know what I mean.

Our credentials for government do not stand alone on some "narrative" centered on the leader (I've still to work out what this actually means, and I think "ideology" is sufficient). A leader who is already (and in some circles for a long time before he even became leader) the most recognized figure, but on the radicalism of the whole party.

We are already way out of my personal "comfort zone" by being too pedestrian, not radical and not liberal enough. If Greg's advice is important it is in his exhortation to be more radical. But it applies to us all. And the way we choose not to thrust forward a leader as some kind of party champion or "born to govern" chief like Cameron can be part of that radicalism. I hope we don't join the cult of personality crowd that this advice seems to advocate, though I don't doubt Ming is up to the task were we to.

Technorati Tags: narrative, radicalism, lib dems, ming campbell