That silver lining

I was thinking about all the various bits of speculation around Charles Kennedy and realised that, regardless of everything else, one good thing that's come out of it is that it's got the media looking at other senior Liberal Democrats other than Charles and Simon Hughes (and Lembit Opik or Jenny Tonge when it's a slow news day). OK, Ming Campbell has quite a high profile in the media, but the last week or so has seen people like Mark Oaten, David Laws, Vince Cable and others get media attention as the media start wondering aloud who the next Lib Dem leader will be.

If anything, it might be worthwhile for the party to encourage a low level of leadership speculation for the next few months just so that every speech and public appearance by a senior party figure gets attention for them in the climate of leadership speculation. But maybe encouraging something like that would be far too cynical for the party's Press Office.