Thursday, February 16, 2006

Chris Huhne's secret vice

Peter Wilby's new media column in the New Statesman, which he started after stepping down as editor a few months ago, has been consistently outstanding: original, informative and funny.

This week he deals with the Sion Jenkins case, criticising the character assassination of Jenkins in the press following his acquittal. One of the good things about Wilby as a commentator is that while many of his contemporaries appear certain of everything, he acknowledges his own doubts and mixed feelings. He explains why the NS under his editorship was the first to publish an article arguing Jenkins' innocence yet was not sufficiently convinced to run a fully-fledged campaign on the issue.

Of perhaps more interest to Lib Dems, Wilby reveals Chris Huhne's secret vice. It seems that in the early 1990s Polly Toynbee's favourite Lib Dem had 'an uncontrollable passion for the Exchange Rate Mechanism or ERM'.

At the moment this piece is mysteriously not listed on the NS website. I will add a link if it appears.

2 comments:

Joe Otten said...

Lots of people supported the ERM in the early 90s. How exactly is this supposed to be terrible?

Come on, everybody has voted already. Lets stop attacking the second best candidate, in case he wins and we look foolish.

Iain Sharpe said...

Joe, Peter Wilby is being frivolous and so am I. The joke being that this is the nearest thing Huhne has to a secret vice. This would have perhaps been more clear had there been a link to the article which I assumed there would be when I wrote the post.

I am sure that if there are any Huhne henchmen reading my posts they will realise I am having a bit of fun and if their man wins not have the new leader regard this blog as the enemy within.