Three cheers for Ming!

I didn't vote for Ming. Well, actually I did. As third preference.

I suppose there is part of me that says: he's leader, there's not really anyone ready to take over and, in any case, if there was another leadership contest today and he was a candidate, he would win again anyway. And I include Charles Kennedy in the potential contenders in such a contest.

But there is another part of me which really admires Ming for his strength of character and tenacity. He is an instinctive Liberal who has followed his beliefs through in his life. I will, no doubt, get another Laurence Boyce comment about "brown nosing" (and I must admit I have deliberately designed the title of this post to wind him up - sorry), but at the moment, Ming really is on a roll. We should recognise this and trumpet it to the world. He has had a week of a series of high profile media appearances on Today, Newsnight and Sunday AM. (It seems Mark Webster is making a real difference. His was an excellent appointment.)

And today, Ming is firing on all cylinders with initiatives on housing, child poverty and the constitution.

The Al Yamamah controversy simply cannot be dismissed as a "foreign affairs" issue. It embraces five government departments' scope and is essentially about corruption. Corruption which goes to the heart of the Labour government and the last Conservative government. Of course, the Conservatives are silent on this. They are in it, up to their neck. And that speaks volumes. Arguably the two biggest scandals, by far, of this Labour government have been Iraq and the BAe/Saudi corruption controversy. The Tories are emasculated on both. Ming is taking real advantage of that weakness in the suppose "Her Majesty's opposition".

Don't forget the excellent Corruption is a Crime web site.