to present it (and ensure its is!) as a hard-fought negotiation, not a 'love-in'. Certainty about the replacement should not be an issue. Since our party still has some semblances of democracy, whoever you or I think would be the best replacement might not be the verdict of our fellow members, so we cannot be prescriptive on the outcome of any election, however strongly we may feel there is a particular "obvious answer'. Having said that, it really might well have been best to leave Charles Kennedy as Leader and support him to get the help with his disease which he clearly needed. In recent times getting rid of a party leader to improve popularity does not have a good track record. The Tories dumped Thatcher for Major and ended up with a slim parliamentary majority. We got 5 years of a lame duck Tory government in hock to their Euro rebels and then 13 years of Blairism as a result. The other recent example is Gordon Brown. That switch didn't do Labour any good at all. @Simon -- this extra borrowing is caused by a recession in which less revenue is generated by company profits and more money is being paid out in benefits. Austerity causes a reduction in economic growth by reducing demand in the economy.This is setting back the timetable of budget deficit reduction whether we like it or not. We need a fiscal stimulus to get out of recession and stop being unrealistic about reducing the