Monday, January 09, 2006

The assassination of yet another Kennedy

Or how the most successful Lib-Dem leader since 1929 was made to step down

David Cameron’s crafty strategy is increasingly looking like the new Channel4 series Invasion: you watch out for the signs of an offensive only to discover that the invaders are already amongst us. People are falling for it and Cameron’s New Year’s Eve preening that it’s now cool to be a Tory is starting to sound less joke-like. Step forward the first victim, Charles Kennedy. The fictitious ‘Lib-Dems-for-Cameron’ campaign is already reaping the harvest, as insidious as a malware-ridden Trojan horse poking through your PC. Out of the blue, in the country of alcoholics, the same very UK where livers are the size of hand-grenades, street-vomiting as common a sight as pram-pushing 14-years-olds and the government one step short of sanctioning binge-drinking, a confession of past alcoholism turns into the de profundis of a political career.

The ‘Cameronian’ wing of the Lib-Dems didn't waste any time at all and the result is that the party is now irreparably damaged. The norm was that the Lib-Dems, guilty of taking principled stances like opposition to the Iraq war, would be invariably IGNORED by the UK press. Yet the moment Charles Kennedy comes clean, he’s the laughing stock on ALL front pages, ruthlessly smeared to the point of tearing him to pieces. Such an easy prey. Hurdle no.1 for David Cameron has been removed. Keep an eye.

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