Plus ça change, as they say. I was persuaded to start blogging as a way of supporting Chris Huhne in the last leadership campaign, having been amongst the first to contact him to encourage him to stand. It's not quite skiing season yet, so I presume he's at least around and about at Westminster this time, and I hope he will stand again, as has seemed likely ever since the "discussion" about Ming's leadership began, ooh, sometime after 4th March 2006 I think it was.

This time it also seems likely that one of the other people I might have liked to run last time, Nick Clegg, will make his move. The media, and some who voted for Ming back then, have consistently portrayed him as Ming's chosen heir; indeed there were suggestions at the time that a deal had been done between him and Ming that kept him out of the running then on the basis that he would be the anointed one, fulfilling Ming's ambition and allowing him to create a following after a few more years at Westminster.

I see the BBC are speculating about a whole load more possible runners that could make for an interesting contest. I see they have also begun, not entirely unexpectedly I suppose, to stick little labels on these folk even before we have heard their story: Nick Clegg is apparently "on the economically liberal right of the party" (which is historically at least an oxymoron to me); we are reminded which of them contributed a chapter to the "right wing", "free market" Orange Book (which will probably now mean little even to most of our member-electors I suspect outside of the Westminster bubble let alone to voters more generally). The BBC's list does not include Steve Webb whom Channel 4 News were suggesting would run and who, as was their assessment of Chris, would mark a "shift to the left".

In any case, whilst welcome publicity for some of our strong cadre of top flight MPs, I don't suppose more than a couple of the BBC list is really seriously considering standing. Though one never knows; with the distinct possibility that whoever is elected this time round will have the longevity to see us through maybe a couple of general elections and maybe more a few outsiders may be tempted on a "now or never" basis and in the hope that their stock will rise and they'll get a decent job out of whoever is elected leader.

One thing is certain for me - I would prefer it to be more than three candidates this time who are able to stick it out till the count. It seems to me that the transferable voting system has a greater power to galvanize the membership behind the eventual winner if it feels that as many shades of liberal opinion as possible have been represented and discussed and then prioritized (I felt greater loyalty to Charles whom I did not include in my preferences at all than to Ming whom I put second from three). Besides, I reckon a nice wide field is better for making money on at the bookies, and I've got election expenses for 2008 to cover out of this!

But my initial loyalty is still for Chris. He's still President of ALTER and, together with Vince, I feel has really grasped what will be the main battleground for the next few years, fiscal policy. I know Nick has the Home Office brief where civil liberties will be important but he has been hampered by a lack of good topical targets recently. And he could to my mind have given more wholehearted support today to Richard Brunstrom's calls for "full" legalization of drugs today to get my vote. But I believe we cannot really be free in a civil liberties sense if we do not have financial freedom from state slavery - so, often unglamorous as it is, for me it is about "the economy, stupid" and those runners who have experience in that area are more likely to win my higher preferences.

But will any of them promise to widen the leadership to a team , involving more people from outside the parliamentary party whom we would want to share in a liberal government? Such a candidate would catch my interest at least, for whilst I would like to see Chris as leader, I do want whoever is leader to recognize that they are not some Messianic "visionary" on whose every word the party hangs as it appears too often with Blair, Brown and Cameron, but a potential Liberal prime minister determined to return power to the disenfranchised and unrepresented people of Britain.

And if you're uncertain who should get your vote, try this method - the candidate that's easier to caricature in a cartoon should win it...