My chief feeling at the fall of Chris Huhne is sadness. Sadness at the waste of his talents.
I twice voted for him in Liberal Democrat leadership elections. I still maintain that he was by some way the strongest candidate in 2006.
Whenever I met Chris he has been friendly and without pomposity, which is not something you can say for every politician.
As my mother has just said on the phone, a man of his wealth could easily have coped with a driving ban. Indeed he was banned from driving a couple of years after the evening that has led to today's guilty plea.
It appears that it was the failure of his marriage that led to the court case, and the court case has certainly torn his family apart. Sadness is the right emotion to feel.
Sadness OK but what about anger also? Aren't you angry at his barefaced lying? I too once thought he was a Good Thing but now feel I was naive.
ReplyDeleteThe failure of his marriage due to his adultery, remember.
ReplyDeleteIn every possible way he brought this on himself: a true Shakespearian tragedy where the great (well, according to some) man is brought down by his own character faults.
His was a talented liar - that is the best you can say.
ReplyDeleteHe was a rich man for whom the consequences of a driving ban for trivial. Yet his arrogance and hubris meant that he thought he was above the law.
The only sadness I have is for the public money and police time that this criminal has wasted.
Just read this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/04/chris-huhne-career-destroyed-lie
From this report he must be a real egocentric idiot - driving like mad ...
Very sad indeed. Chris Huhne was an excellent politician. I was in the audience when he gave his brilliant speech at the RenewableUK 2011 Conference (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/26/chris-huhne-renewable-energy-critics). It was clear that he was strongly committed to energy efficiency, renewables in general and in particular a European supergrid for renewables. At an "Age of Energy" energy event organised by the Daily Telegraph in 2010 he assured me that he was "completely sold on interconnection". Unfortunately, since his departure there has been a lot of dithering in energy matters, apparently without much political leadership.
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