Thursday, June 22, 2006

Charlie on Question Time

I thought Charlie-boy did very well on Question Time last night. The audience certainly responded to him very warmly.

He was particularly effective on Iraq, especially when he was correcting Germaine Greer, a LibDem supporter, who was bizarrely under the impression that we did not oppose the Iraq invasion strongly. He replied:

"I stood up and opposed the war in front of one million people in Hyde Park - isn't that strong enough?"

That got a big round of applause. Excellent stuff.

By the way, Alan Johnson did extremely well. He is very articulate, as well as having the Prescott-like qudos of having come up the hard way through the unions. Definitely future deputy leader or leader material.

A couple parts of the show were like 1-on-1 interviews of Charlie by David Dimbleby, which was a change from the well-established the Question Time format. I do think DD was embarrassingly intrusive with his question "Are you teetotal?" What business is it of him or us? Charlie answered it very well, saying that he was "in good health and it's up to me to keep it that way". In other words, "mind your own business". Quite right.

But he is not "over it", is he? By "it", I mean the leadership change. He referred to Ming as "my successor" only, without naming him, and talked about him (his "successor") still finding his feet.

Come on, Charles. This isn't the kindergarten. You made the right decision at the time and every one respects you for it. So stop brooding...take a deep breath and just practise the words:

"My extremely talented fellow Scot, Ming, is doing a superb job as leader in readying the party for the forthcoming elections."

There, that wasn't too difficult was it? If you have to wash your mouth out with soap and water in private afterwards, fine, but just say it.

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