Across the pond

My contact in the Henley on Thames constituency was not at all surprised the Conservatives comfortably won yesterday’s vote to replace Boris Johnson now that he has London to look after. He thinks the Conservatives acted shrewdly by picking a low profile local man, John Howell, an accountant who could not be more unlike the media-hugging bicycling blond. And he thinks the Liberal Democrats blew it, by bringing in Stephen Kearney from Plymouth to fight the seat.

Labour had no chance of winning, given the current unpopularity of Gordon Brown. The fact that they finished fifth in the poll, behind the Greens and the BNP as well as way behind the Lib Dems makes the headlines, but the more serious political story is that the Lib Dems only managed to increase their vote by 1.8 per cent, despite an energetic campaign spearheaded by their new leader, Nick Clegg, and supported by the party’s big guns.

It is the second major setback for Nick Clegg since he took over. He could not be blamed for the first one, because he inherited the mayoral candidate, Brian Paddick, the former policeman. It was not Clegg’s fault that he failed to make the transition from walking the beat to knocking on doors.

But the responsibility for last night’s disappointment rests firmly with Clegg. Many Lib Dems must be wishing when they changed their leader yet again last Autumn that they had chosen Vince Cable, who was a huge success as acting leader. Cable did far better in the House of Commons than David Cameron. His ready wit enabled him to get more laughs at Brown’s expense than Cameron. But he stood out because his speeches contained plenty of shrewd analysis of the issues.

Clegg, by contrast, has been dubbed Cameron-lite by sections of the press. That label has stuck. But unless he changes his tactics pronto he may be stuck with the even worse one of Calamity Clegg.

The only party leader who is smiling this morning is David Cameron. In retrospect the Lib Dems made a mistake in picking the candidate most like him for their new leader. The opposite strategy is to pick someone quite unlike him. In this connection it is interesting that two weeks ago there was a move to get Jack Straw to challenge Gordon Brown. The former President of the National Union of Students is now nearly old enough for a bus pass, and has the experience of several ministerial jobs in his portfolio.