Marcus Wood

Breakthrough cure found for Chronic Insomnia

Is it just me? Or is this Lib Dem leadership contest dull, dull, dull?

OK I admit, I am an incurable political anorak and when most people are watching something interesting like The Bill I am to be found glued to Newsnight.

So the most trivial and inconsequential political story is avidly consumed by yours truly and the news scoured for the political stories of the hour. But I have to say that the contest to succeed Menzies Campbell (who was he?) has simply failed to whet my appetite, and judging by the paucity of media coverage, I am not alone in being bored to tears.

I applaud them for at least having a proper contest. It has (so far) been conducted in a similar spirit to the Cameron/Davis contest in 2005 and the public love to see that politicians can disagree in an adult fashion, based on differing intellectual argument, while retaining a mutual respect for each other.

But the snag is that there has been hardly any debate amongst the two- there seems no argument about policy, they agree an almost everything - and both seem intent on a steady as she goes, no change approach and the whole thing comes down to who can 'out Cameron' Cameron when the focus really needs to be on Brown and ousting Labour from office.

The Lib Dems need a better reason to exist than to simply carry on being the 'anyone but the Tories' option and neither candidate has so far demonstrated what that reason might be.

There is a great quote from someone on PoliticalBetting.com about this. "No one is interested in the lib dems anymore. People want to see, and are interested in, the main event. Its like being at a festival. People stand around, listening to the support acts in the spirit of a festival, but really only waiting for the main act to come on stage."

Nobody owes anyone a vote in this day and age.