So was getting rid of Charles Kennedy a good move?

BBC News are covering the "mixed results" for the Lib Dems. In what was billed as the first test of Sir Menzies Campbell's leadership they "consolidated" their position rather than making spectacular gains. In London they lost control of Islington and are now confined to their south west London heartlands. Elsewhere they didn't get spectacular results. Campbell himself has tried to dismiss claims he was "on test":

This wasn't a test for me; it was a test for the party after the difficulties of the earlier part of this year. I think we have come through this test.

So the Lib Dems are just standing still. Considering the predictions of annihilation that abounded in the days after they stabbed Charles Kennedy in the chest it's hard not to see this as an improvement. But would they have done better with Kennedy in the helm? Was forcing him out really an improvement for the party? Has Campbell really "raised his game"?

We don't see very much of Charles Kennedy in the media these days - when is he going to come back to the Liberal Democrats' frontbench team?

Why ministers should be on top of their departments

No I don't want to talk about the details of John Prescott's appearance in the news today. It's clearly an attempt to bury bad news - though given the way that neither Prescott nor Charles Clarke have escaped it does suggest that even the Not So Very New Labour spin doctors are no longer as effective as they once were. Is no-one in the Labour Party performing properly?

More concerning is the fate of Charles Clarke. Yesterday he offered to resign if it was necessary. Today yet more revelations have led to those who previously did not want his resignation to call for it. At Prime Minister's Questions today it took only a glance at the government front bench to see how isolated Clarke is and Blair was visibly not comfortable defending his Home Secretary. He didn't even hang around in the Commons when Clarke gave a statement in the Commons immediately afterwards and instead gave a pathetic excuse for being elsewhere. Since Clarke's resignation offer was turned down, one has to wonder why Blair is keeping him in the post.

Two thoughts spring to mind. First off Clarke is an increasing rarity in the Cabinet - a heavyweight Blairite. Blairites have repeatedly proved to be the weakspot of the Cabinet - just look at resignations such as David Blunkett (twice), Peter Mandelson (twice), Stephen Byers and so forth. With Patricia Hewitt also under heavy fire over the poor handling of deficits in the National Health Service Blair must be fearing ever more isolation in his final days if he's forced to lose another of his supporters.

But there's also a tactical possibiliy. Labour is expecting to do badly in the local elections and many expect renewed calls for Tony Blair to resign after them. Keeping Clarke on until after polling day would allow him to take the flack for Labour's pasting and then his resignation could be accepted whilst Blair carries on.

Meanwhile the Home Office remains a mess and more criminals are on the street and the public is not reassured. What's more important - shoring up Tony Blair's position or having ministers who are on top of their departments?

What are these elections for again?

Following on from the earlier question about whether the local elections are a chance to decide who runs local services or a referendum on the Prime Minister, we now return to the subject. The United Kingdom Independence Party launched its campaign for the local elections.

UKIP was formed as a single issue party devoted to pulling the United Kingdom out of the European Union. Exactly what this has to do with town halls is beyond me and the UKIP website doesn't give many answers.

(On first looking at it, I noticed that UKIP doesn't have a .org.uk URL! Now inaccurate party web addresses are nothing new - the Scottish National Party were for a long time plagued by the joke of snp.org.uk, whilst Not So Very New Labour similarly has a .org.uk address despite not being a UK wide organisation. However this may be because of an unofficial UKIP website nicking the URL.)

At a glance the UKIP website doesn't really explain why they are contesting local government elections when the EU issue is an irrelevancy. There's a tiny mention at the bottom of their manifesto:

The UK Independence Party has 10 elected members of the European Parliament campaigning to take Britain out of the European Union – we do not think it right that most of UK law comes from Brussels and unelected EU bureaucrats. Likewise, we insist that local government in Britain must be returned from unelected Whitehall bureaucrats to local democrats. In 2006 we aim to raise the number of local UKIPcouncilorss, who will join the campaign for bringing representative democracy back to the British people.

So the party is no longer a single issue campaign! The manifesto contains hilarious pledges such as their position on local taxation:

Local Taxes

What's the problem? Council Tax has almost doubled in many areas over the past few years, hitting pensioners in particular. A vast amount of money is wasted on bureaucracy and politically correct jobs without the public ever being consulted.

What's the solution?

• Reorganise national and local taxes to slash council tax by 50%

• Return financial responsibility to councils by letting them keep local business rates

• Cut the money wasted on politically - correct initiatives and appointments.

So all the problems of local government finance can be swept aside by transferring over the business rates and axing some jobs and initiatives. I wonder why no councils have achieved this?!

Given the recent row, it's interesting to note that a search for "fruitcake" on the UKIP website yields no results. Nor are there any hits on Nigel Farage's own website. Nor does the site contain any reference to Nigel Farage's alleged remarks, "We will never win the nigger vote. The nig-nogs will never vote for us".

And and for further hilarity, the UKIP list of branches can't decide if Croydon is in London or the South East, despite the Croydon branch's own website being clear that it is in London! One wonders if Nigel Farage and Gerard Batten know much at all about their constituencies.

This party isn't even the biggest joke in politics - that accolade goes to the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.