British Recent Political Wi: Huhne over Clegg in 2007?

Hi all,
In OTL Chris Huhne came a lot closer to winning the 2007 Lib Dem leadership election than most pundits were expecting.

So, what if he had narrowly beat Nick Clegg and became leader?

How would he do fronting the 2010 GE campaign? Would there be (artificial or otherwise) a Huhne Bounce after the first debates (assuming they happen)?

How does the election pan out? If a simelar result to OTL occurs, does Huhne agree to a Coalition with the Tories? I imagine a 'Rainbow Coalition' is out of the question, unless Labour gain more seats?

Finally, what happens from there? With Huhne as Lib Dem leader, the last couple of years could have been... interesting to say the least.
 
It's very likely his affair/the speeding allegation/something else comes out earlier, and he's sunk as leader before the election.

Soz, but I can't see Chris Huhne making it to 2010 as leader. Or his replacement being anything other than Cleggy Nick.
 
Huhne didn't come closer than most people think - he technically won. Well literally 'untechnically' won. It was (roughly) Clegg: 21,000 to Huhne: 20,500. However 1,300 postal votes arrived late due to Christmas delays. The vast majority were for Huhne and would have won him the leadership if on time. However he accepted Clegg won per the deadline rules and didn't contest.

Handwave by a different election deadline or more Clegg votes lost in the post and the Liberal Democrats are in for some fun times.

In Huhne you have an adulterer, his 2003 Perversion of Justice yet to be revealed, a rabid electoral reformer and supporter of the Euro. His benefit claims while quite below the Parliamentary average included a trouser press and 15p worth of stationary. Also he owns 7 houses, technically for property development and not a tax swindle but in the heated atmosphere of the Parliamentary benefits scandal it would be at best joke fodder and worst spun into an image of hypocritical lefty Lib Dems.

His 2007 victory would cause butterflies but say we get a similar 2010 scenario, no doubt with a smaller Lib Dem rump due to Huhne not being Cleggmania (though his solidly lefty credentials might make him more enticing for Labour voters but really Clegg had a supervague Obamaesque feel and his Party still lost seats).

Labour probably retains a few more seats but I imagine a similar situation to OTL. Really, despite his position I can see Huhne joining Cameron in coalition in return for concessions. The idea of Gordon Brown continuing as PM in a 'Rainbow coalition' would weigh heavy on the Lib Dems.

If so, I think the Lib Dems will suffer a major crisis as the reality of austerity measures bite, the left leadership stranded and the Orange Bookers being drawn in by the Tories. A party split? Probably not but if Huhne's various crises pile up in quick succession, he may be forced to step down as leader, and in the enviroment I think another left-winger would win with a mandate to push for a stronger say in government, leading to the right getting antsy.
 
And there's what is going to bring down Huhne: expenses. Even if his insidrections aren't revealed by then, the posture, the stance of the Lib Dems on that issue will drive the tabloids at any hints they have about him - and those hints will be there. The media profile, the media interest in a lib dem leader is a light year ahead of interest in a lib dem shadow minister. All that stuff will break years before it did IOTL, it has to in the pre-hackgate years of tabloid journalism, when the lib dems already had a wino/shagger image around their leadership resulting from the fallout from the Kennedy years.

I just don't see how Huhne makes it out of that Parliament as leader.
 
In terms of probability I agree VJ but I'm jockeying for position in the name of an ATL, I don't think its a complete certainty he's doomed.

For one his expenses were less than Clegg's (just checked) so I can't see it being any bigger a story for him, beyond HIGNFY mocking his chitty for a potracter. Also, I believe the start of Huhne's affair was connected to the London Mayoral Elections, so his leadership might butterfly away such an encounter (unless you believe in true love).
 
For one his expenses were less than Clegg's (just checked) so I can't see it being any bigger a story for him, beyond HIGNFY mocking his chitty for a potracter.

That wasn't exactly my point: my point was that the Lib Dems will play up, just as per OTL, their 'we're not one the two-party establishment' aspect. I can see Hunhe especially playing this up, as he has a slightly sanctimonious aspect to him. And as soon as anyone, either individually or collectively, starts trumpeting that they're ethically or politically different to everyone else, somehow more respectable on an issue, then the tabloid press begin to circle and start digging for any shit they can pull over them.

Even if Hunhe plays it by ear, the increased focus of the lense of scrutiny that expenses created would lead to it being shined on Hunhe with more intensity. And I don't see how he survives that.

Also, I believe the start of Huhne's affair was connected to the London Mayoral Elections, so his leadership might butterfly away such an encounter (unless you believe in true love).

Actually I believe it started during the 2007 leadership campaign, though I could be wrong.
 
Ah, quick check, seems the two started working together during his 2007 campaign but their relationship 'blossomed' during the Mayoral as they worked together to aid Brian Paddick's campaign. So arguably that could butterfly but I doubt it - a successful election would probably see him bring her on as his press secretary or something. Might even speed things up.

Shame, he's quite the tasty political nail bomb.
 
It's very likely his affair/the speeding allegation/something else comes out earlier, and he's sunk as leader before the election.

Soz, but I can't see Chris Huhne making it to 2010 as leader. Or his replacement being anything other than Cleggy Nick.

Good point re Huhne's OTL issues coming out earlier with him as leader. Is there anyone other than Clegg who could fill the Huhne-shaped whole however? remember in this TL, Clegg lost a leadership contest he was widely expected to win-would the party rally behind him this time, or could we see someone else (like Vince Cable) as leader before the 2010 election? I know Cable didn't stand in 2007 because he believed he couldn't win, so you could be write re Clegg emerging as leader after Huhne is deposed.
 
Is there anyone other than Clegg who could fill the Huhne-shaped whole however?

There's only Cable as a possibility, and I think he'd only remain as that.

Clegg losing one contest is irrelevant. Lib Dems are forgiving of this kind of thing; Huhne had already lost one leadership campaign before 2007, and Simon Hughes and Ming Campbell had ran and lost and bottled it respectively back in 1999 when they ran in 2006. ITTL, Huhne will be operating on the second time lucky principle, and Nick Clegg would do the same in the post-Huhne contest. Wouldn't be a barrier at all. (I don't think Clegg was genuinely considered the favourite at all in that contest, incidentally - nowhere near, certainly, the way that Campbell and Kennedy were when they ran. Clegg was considered the party establishment prefered choice but the media soon cottoned on that this was essentially an open race)

I've never heard before that Cable ruled himself out because he thought he couldn't win. He ruled himself out remarkably quickly in that contest, which suggests he had a fundamental unwillingness to enter. (IIRC he cited the destruction of Ming Campbell as his reason for not entering)

You could make a case that with maybe two years between the end of Campbell's leadership and the post-Huhne one, that wouldn't be considered so much of a factor; and with two more years being the media darling of the financial crisis there would be a lot of pressure-speculation on Cable to run. And maybe people would say - take us into the election next year, and then see the lay of the land.

But in my gut I just don't see it. I just don't think Cable has the ambition or the killer instinct to run by 2009, if he ever had. He'd be 66 by then, which by contemporary political reckoning may as well be 270. I think he'd defer to Clegg, and you'd get a token grassroots candidate running to put down a marker. Whoever they are (Tim Farron, I guess) I don't think it matters a damn; after a continual train-wreck of leaders the party would want a steady hand and that would be in the shape of an already known quantity.
 
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Both are so utterly pointless and irrelevant - much like the Lib Dems in general - I can't see it really changing much. There'll still be a hung parliament. There'll still be a Tory/Liberal coalition as the Tories have the most seats and no-one wants to see 5 more years of Gordon Brown. There'll still be a deal on changing the voting system, with AV being the only compromise the Tories will offer, which the public will still shunt with abject indifference because it is a shit system.
 
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