Charles Kennedy is no Tony Blair, but his party is growing year on year. The Liberal Democrats have, by slow and sure hard work, created a party which is perceived to deliver good councillors, back bench MPs and particularly MEPs. Their strong showing in this week’s elections is interesting, but the European parliament votes aren’t released until tomorrow. I’m interested to see what happens.

I personally voted Green for London Assembly and the EU, I think the same “steady base” label can be applied to them. They are the only party who mentioned the EUCD and software patents as campaign issues, which was the deciding factor for me.

If the Liberal Democrats can produce a leader who is more charismatic than Charles Kennedy, who is a good politician, but doesn’t have the superstar potential sadly required to become prime minister, they might be able to make surprising gains in the next few general electons.

Maybe they should recruit Ken Livingstone… ;-)