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.

So it seems that the turbulent times we LibDems live in are not yet at an end. First Charles Kennedy quits after admitting to a drink problem, and then leadership candidate Mark Oaten pulls out of the contest, and his private life is brougth into the public domain. The News of the World revealed that Mr Oaten had been having an affair, and made a huge deal of the fact that it was with a rent boy. Now I don't care who he chooses to sleep with, but I strongly believe that the private lives of MPs shpuld be kepy exaclty that, private. What Mr Oaten has done is wrong, however it is a problem for him and his family to deal with. This has clearly not affected his ability to do his job, and therefore I see no reason why the public should have to know. Yet somehow this does not surprise me, yet another cheap story which we have come to expect from the News of the World.

Yesterday was a sad day for the Liberal Democrats. Having shown great courage in admitting to having a drink problem, the greatest leader we have ever had was forced to resign by 25 MPs who were not willing to give him a chance. In May 2005, Charles Kennedy took the Liberal Democrats to our greatest General Election result for 80 years, despite battling a serious medical condition at the time. Now, our party is left without a leader and with the prospect of having to choose a new one, who will never match up to the charisma and poularity of Charles Kennedy. Without even consulting the party memebership on whether or not we wanted Charles to remain as leader, these 25 MPs gave him no choice but to quit, despite being willing to continue the great work he carried out as leader. Those 25 MPs have taken a serious drop in my, and I'm sure many other Liberal Democrat's, opinion, and I honestly believe this whole sorry episode will inflict lasting damage on a party which was previously on the up. Charles Kennedy was regarded by many people, not only within the party but also the electorate, as the most popular and trustworthy of the main party leaders, and I honestly do not believe there is anyone in the party who can live up to his popularity as leader. Charles was not given a chance to prove himself, and the MPs who forced him to quit will be responsible when we suffer a decline in support in upcoming elections. It would seem taht our party now stands for back-stabbing and disloyalty, and I for one am not sure whether I want to sontinue to be a part of that.