So, I’m going to #VoteLayla in the Lib Dem leadership election. Honestly, I’ve tried to stay objective and focus on the candidates’ merits, although I’ve failed to engage as much as I like. But it feels like a no-brainer to me.

I don’t think I’ve encountered a Lib Dem leadership campaign where the two candidates are so distinct. One stands on a 20+ year record and has thus tended to look backwards in this campaign, the other has been far more forward looking.

(Every leadership contest I remember has featured candidates from broadly similar backgrounds, with maybe the exception of 1999, with a lot of also rans going nowhere and 2006, with two white male candidates with different experience levels in politics, but more similar outlooks)

The problem with Sir Edward is that I can’t really get past the fact that if he wasn’t an option in 2006 or 2007, why is he an option now. And he certainly never seemed to be a real option then. In 2007 the contest was two posh former MEPs who had only been MPs for two years.

Sir Edward had been an MP for 10 years by that point, but he never really came up as a viable option in the face of Hughes, Campbell, Oaten, Huhne and Clegg. Even Öpik came up more frequently.

Admittedly we aren’t over-burdened with options in 2020 but it’s worth asking why he never seemed to come up as an option then, and thus why he should be considered an option now.

And I’ve *hated* his campaign. I hated all that stuff about pushing for nominations using data he wasn’t supposed to be using. And I’ve hated all those times he’s claimed credit for things he’s had little or no involvement with.

It’s a little thing but it’s bugged me, but compare these two leaflets. Note the different photos in the top left corner. Now, it could be merely that the London photo features pride because it was in London, but the rest of the country has gay people too. Seems dog whistly to me

Plus it implies Benita endorses him while only acknowledging she doesn’t endorse him in the small print. So the best thing we can say about that London leaflet is that it is misleading. And that’s just been one of several fairly crude missteps.

I’m not saying Layla Moran hasn’t made any mistakes or that her relative inexperience isn’t an issue; I get grumpy when LDs make over the top distinctions between being “radical” and “liberal”, and “leftwing”. It sets off the Clegg-alarm in my head something chronic.

But she’s been consistently the most thoughtful and authentically progressive, both during the campaign and in the years running up to it. She’s clearly the intellectual of the two and seems to have the clearest vision.

I’ve got a clearer sense of what she would have done different last year. And yes, it would be nice to have a pan, woman leader with Palestinian heritage. She looks nothing like the party that I spent the best part of 20 years campaigning for, and that’s a very good thing.

Sir Edward’s campaign seems to have been the best funded campaign (I’ve had two leaflets from him and none from Moran), and has the most establishment backing (which always concerns me). But for all that, Moran’s campaign seems to have a lot more momentum and energy.

The LDs are 6% in the polls. Sir Edward has had 8 months to show his leadership potential and yet the numbers have gone backwards. The backwards-looking “safe” bet seems set to keep the party in the doldrums, consumed with satisfaction over its “difficult decision” in 2010.

It’s hard to see how Moran can do any worse, but even if she can her leadership *still* seems like a more exciting journey than Sir Keir’s fellow centrist identical twin brother. This feels like a shit or bust moment for the LDs; to keep buggering on seems like suicide.

So yeah. Vote for hope in this election and vote for Layla Moran.