Lord Bonkers' Diary: "It’s not your aerial, it’s your constitution"

I have a shrewd suspicion that Lord Bonkers has his eye on the Liberal Democrat presidency himself, but maybe we should be asking his television repair man to stand?

Tuesday

The television repair man arrives. “Chris Mason been on, your lordship?” he asks, assuming I have fired my shotgun at the set again. But I have quite another problem: “Josh Barbarinde’s supporters told us he has an unequalled ability to attract the media and that we should therefore elect him as President of the Liberal Democrats. Yet I can’t remember seeing him on here once. Do you think I need a new aerial?”

“It’s not your aerial, it’s your constitution,” he explains. “When the two Alliance parties merged and it became clear that the first leader was going to be a Liberal, the job of President was invented to give an SDP bigwig an impressive title. What the precise duties of the post are has never been clear, and ambitious young MPs tend to use it to raise their profile in the party with a future leadership bid in mind. Indeed, Josh’s supporters gave the impression that as President he would be a sort of auxiliary leader who would never be out of the media and would decide the party’s campaign strategy. The reality of his Presidency was never going to live up to that.” 

I tip him generously.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West,1906-10.

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