IN APRIL, 2001, I volunteered to assist The Times’s coverage of the general election by visiting interesting seats. I offered to follow Samuel Johnson’s 18th-century example and go on a tour of Scotland, visiting friends and political acquaintances from different parties. I called on Alex Salmond, who was campaigning for the SNP in Inverness, on Malcolm Rifkind, who was trying to regain Edinburgh Pentlands for the Tories, on Tam Dalyell, who was laid up at home with a damaged leg, and on Menzies Campbell, who was seeking re-election for North East Fife, the seat he had held for the Liberal Democrats since 1987. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. All four are men who speak their minds; they are all good company.

I do not know whether Menzies Campbell’s method of electioneering can be transposed from the peaceful coastal acres and market towns of Fife to the grittier conditions of urban England. In Fife, he has created his kingdom, a world of its own, where the old virtues of friendliness, good manners and respect reign, “where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day”.

This may be the natural fruit of “douce” Scottish seriousness. I once attended a political dinner in Michael Ancram’s constituency of Devizes; his Wiltshire constituents hold the same warm respect for him that the voters of Fife feel for Menzies Campbell. As we walked along the quiet Fife streets, its constituents were canvassing him, to assure him of their support; he scarcely had to canvass them.

I expect that the Lib Dems will choose Campbell as their new leader, if only because he was so effective on Iraq. I hope that there will be a proper leadership contest, such as the campaign that did so much good for the Conservatives. The Lib Dems would be making a mistake if they did not adequately discuss the problems of a Campbell leadership and the implied strategy for their party. Campbell is, in my view, the right answer, but even a right answer needs to be tested.

I do not think that there is any great problem about “Ming the Merciless”; Charles Kennedy put his party in an impossible position and, as Deputy Leader, Menzies Campbell had a responsibility. He had to deal with an alcoholic leader. He acted judiciously in a situation not of his making.

The strategic difficulty is much greater, and is more than 100 years old; the same unresolved problem destroyed the old Liberal Party in the 1920s. In leadership terms, it is Asquith versus Lloyd George; in economic policy terms it is Adam Smith and Maynard Keynes versus Fabian socialism.

The Liberal Democrats now again face the question that they have never been able to answer. In the last resort, is their party a left-wing party, in favour of greater state intervention, and naturally allied to Labour, or is it a liberal economic party, anxious to protect a wide area of personal independence and naturally allied with the Conservatives — again in the last resort.

The Lib Dems might be able to resolve this problem, but for a very inconvenient contradiction. About two thirds of their votes come from people who say they would vote Labour in the absence of a Lib Dem candidate; only a third from people of basically Conservative sympathies. The more democratic the Lib Dem party is, the more left-wing it is likely to be.

Yet the opposite is true in terms of parliamentary seats. About two thirds of Lib Dem seats would, in the absence of a Lib Dem candidate, have been won by the Conservatives, who come second, often a close second. Only a third of Lib Dem seats confront Labour as the second party. Two thirds of their voters face left; two thirds of their MPs have to face right, if only in self defence.

Charles Kennedy was originally chosen as leader because he best avoided this question; Menzies Campbell was his deputy, but to the right of him. Simon Hughes was president of his party, but to the left of him. Kennedy’s policy was not left, not right, but in an undefined way, straight ahead.

The problem has been made more difficult by the Conservative choice of David Cameron. That brought Charles Kennedy’s leadership to its crisis point; indeed, in his first month Cameron has destroyed Kennedy’s leadership. He was seen as a more attractive liberal leader than Kennedy himself. If they choose Campbell as their leader, the Lib Dems will have boxed the compass. The Conservatives will have a better liberal leader than the Lib Dems, and the Lib Dems will have a better conservative leader than the Conservatives. Heaven knows how that would work out in electoral terms.

Like Jo Grimond, the Liberal leader of the 1960s, who also appealed to Conservative voters, Menzies Campbell is a leader in the mould of Asquith — though oddly enough it was Asquith who had a drink problem as Prime Minister and his rival, Lloyd George, who went on to form a coalition with the Tories. One can legitimately ask whether 21st-century Britain is ready for another Asquith. Are balanced judgment, well-concealed energy, lucid eloquence, maturity, the manners of a laird, the best lawyerly qualities, an image that can now be promoted into power and office? Times readers born before 1950 might love it — I think we would — but are there enough of us? Certainly Menzies Campbell’s image is not that of reality television, the celebrity world of Miss Kate Moss.

The next general election may well produce a hung Parliament. At present the combined seats held by Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and fringe parties come to 291 — an overall majority requires 323. That calls for only another 32 seats, of which redistribution would provide about 15. The Conservatives and Lib Dems could become the natural coalition government after the next election if they win another 30 or so seats between them.

Charles Kennedy said he would never negotiate with the Conservatives if that situation arose; I think that Menzies Campbell would negotiate on the basis of actual results, whatever they might be. He would make rather a good Prime Minister in a coalition government.

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