Lanark Liberal

The past few months have brought turbulent times for the Liberal Democrats. We may have lost the confidence of many voters, and now is the time to start putting things right again. First we must concentrate on electing a new leader, and, despite Mark Oaten pulling out, we still have strong candidates in Sir Menzies Campbell, Simon Hughes and Chris Huhne. Despite revelations about Simon Hughes earlier this week, I hope that his sexuality will not deter members from considering him as our future leader. There is no doubting that he is a talented politician, and I believe he would prove to be a successful leader. Then there is Sir Menzies Campbell - talented, popular, and a man who holds a natural ability to lead. Chris Huhne, the youngest of the candidates, could very well cause some surprises and take a significantly higher proportion of the vote than is predicted. Whoever we elect as our new leader, I am confident that he will lead the way in rebuilding our party as an effective opposition and attract even higher levels of support in elections - starting with Dunfermline in a few weeks time, where we have a good chance of pulling off a victory. We may have had our problems over the past few months, but the reasons people voted for us in the last election are still there. The new Conservative leader David Cameron will not take the Tories back into power, as they remain the same old Conservative party that are fast losing support. New Labour under Gordon Brown should be nothing to worry about, pushing forward plans for ID cards, and who knows, even a few more illegal wars? So we have to look to the future, look at ways of rebuilding and recovering from these blows, and come the next General Election we will go on gaining more votes, electing more MPs and continuing as the only Real Alternative to the Labour government.