28 April 2004
London SE1 website team Home page article.
I just can't see it happening. He's a really nice chap and would certainly be hard working, honest, reliable etc; etc; but I don't think he is ruthless enough to stamp his authority on the job. Whatever reservations you may have about Ken, you must admit he gets results, and if he sets his mind on making something happen, it will happen.
Simon is well known and liked in South London, but he hasn't got the 'street cred' of Ken. He'd be better advised to make another play for the top LD job, and maybe the party members would now realise they made the wrong choice in Charles Kennedy
Ken's talking to a thousand Londoners tonight. Wait for the media distortions tomorrow. Despite the hostility and bias of the Evening Standard and other interested parties - nimbies, neocons, Tory dinosaurs and people who really did believe Thatcher's lunatic dictum that 'there is no such thing as society' - Ken will walk it. And that says volumes about the man.
I agree with the pro-Ken vote. How many nice people have ever succeeded in that arena? None. Why? Because it isn't a nice business that's why. Ken can take it - not sure Simon Hughes would last two minutes. Anyone opoosing Ken has no real basis - apart from the fact that when he speaks he always seems a bit weasleish and insincere but then show me a politician with his experience that doesn't...??
Once in the game they all learn the survial game and any successor to Ken will be dancing a tune soon enough I am sure.
Unsurprisingly Michael, Potters Fields... again (quiet yawn in the corner...).
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