Lib Dems brace for sticky leadership climax

With days to go before the ballot closes in the election for the new Liberal Democrat leader the early pacemaker and parliamentary favourite Sir Menzies Campbell has smelled a rat and cried "foul!" Highly revered by his Westminster colleagues, Sir Menzies has secured the support of an overwhelming 43 out of 66 Liberal Democrat MPs, giving him a clear mandate to retain the top job for the remainder of this parliamentary term and beyond.

This highly satisfactory outcome was expected to be announced on 2 March in time for the Spring conference after the formality of the nationwide ballot. But in a clear breach of party rules his desperate rivals have been travelling around the country speaking directly to party members, urging them in no uncertain terms, and irrespective of the rock-solid Campbell allegiance of their local MP, to "make up their own minds".

The Campbell campaign team has come across mounting evidence of "collusion" between the two suspiciously similar-sounding makeweight candidates in the contest, the almost homonymous and certainly homo Mr Hughes and Mr Huhne. Singing from a clearly co-written songsheet these unscrupulous miscreants have been sowing dangerous thoughts of self-determination in the minds of the party members, which has left thousands in a quandary over how best to use their vote. Faced with an impossibly obscure ballot paper that invites the recipient to place a "1" in the box next to their preferred candidate, but gives not the slightest indication as to who that is, the mesmerised voters are crying out for some clear and proper guidance from their parliamentary representatives, such as "Vote for Ming Campbell — he's far and away the best leader we could possibly have. The other two are hopeless — they're only there to make up the numbers. Indeed it's only due to an administrative error that their names, which are unimportant, have wangled their way onto the form. Don't even consider them for a moment since it won't count anyway— the only valid option is to place a '1' against Sir Menzies Campbell."

These essential instructions, which were unfortunately left off the ballot paper itself, appear on an emergency mailshot that every member should now have received from their nearest Campbell-aligned MP, rendering the previously mystifying electoral document crystal clear. Yet it is precisely this clarity which the nefarious Hughes-Huhne alliance has sought to undermine. Wherever these mischievous wreckers have turned up uninvited and cynically attempted to rig the result by asking for their candidacy to be given "due consideration" they've undone all the honest endeavours of the hardworking local MP, leaving the prospective voters once more hopelessly bemused and unable to make head or tail of the form. Left to fend for themselves in this dire predicament some desperate party members have resorted to drastic measures, even stooping to the exercise of their own free will, with all its attendant risks, casting their votes "at random" according to one horrified Campbell spokesman, and jeopardising the pre-arranged coronation that the party so desperately needs.

Nowhere is the problem more serious than in the run-down London borough of Brent. After years of neglect by an incompetent local Labour administration, during which time standards in education, housing and nutrition have plummeted to depths that would shame the governments of Ethiopia and Sudan, the average IQ in the borough has slumped to a worrying 59, leaving local party members unable to read the all-important supplementary mailshot, let alone cope on their own with the harrowing ordeal of filling in the right box on the form.

Undaunted, the local Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather, 31, who sensationally snatched the safe Labour seat of Brent East in the famous by-election of 2003 and clung on to it passionately two years later, has offered to "come round" and sit with any voter uncertain as to which of the three candidates would most rapidly advance her career. For the price of a cup of tea she will guide the hapless voter through the tortuous intricacies of the ballot paper towards the one legitimate box that concurs with the overwhelming balance of opinion among her parliamentary colleagues.

It's typical of the enthusiastic MP to go that extra mile on behalf of her disadvantaged constituents, who have won a special place in her heart since she opened the doors of her surgery two years ago, rapidly becoming adept at divining their wishes through careful study of their primitive babblings and clumsy, ape-like gestures.

"We’re a happy family here in Brent," she says, flanked by drooling members of the charmingly sub-normal North-West London community that is so unlike the Islington hothouse that she came from, a seething cauldron of movers and shakers across town where the minimum IQ for party membership is a challenging 125.

"The local activists here are a lovely lot, so trusting and eager to please — aren't you darlings, yes you are," says career politician Sarah. "They're absolutely adorable but thick. Left to themselves they inevitably get it hopelessly wrong,” she sighs.

The upshot of this dangerous "moronic tendency" within the party is a frightening catalogue of accidents just waiting to happen to the voters in Brent, many of whom are incontinent with excitement over what they call "the general election". These mishaps include putting an "X" in the box instead of a "1", staring with incomprehension at the reply-paid envelope until, with a shake of the head, they deposit the completed form in the breadbin, and of course the most common of all, the spasmodic jerk of the hand that causes the all-important mark of approval to be placed in a different box from the one that Sarah intended.

That's why the talented MP has gone on record with a passionate cover version of the 1963 Beatles anthem I want to hold your hand, provoking an enthusiastic uptake from deeply flattered recipients of this coveted supplement to the mailshot, now valued at six ounces of crack in the more reputable street markets of the borough. Sarah's enjoying a renewed surge of street credibility on the back of this release, but she insists that it's the democratic impact of her heartfelt serenade that matters most. "Brent has suffered enough over the years from Labour's bureaucratic mismanagement," she maintains. "A tragic slip of the hand in a matter of such importance as this would be the last straw for the people of this borough, and I'm not sure they would ever recover."

Ms Teather's success with the mike comes as no surprise. Since early January she's been fronting a quartet of bubbly young Liberal babes known as The Minging Fillies — all of them recent recruits to Westminster who have nailed their colours, or in Sarah's case tethered herself bodily, to the Campbell mast. This devoted caucus of cheerleading scrubbers issued a joint statement last week from their girls' night out at the Pangaea bar in Mayfair, swooning with rapture as they belted out: "What's Ming got? He's got the lot!" Sarah's own protégé Jo Swinson, 25, of Dunbarton, the youngest of the starstruck fillies elaborated: "He's a champion, Ming. He's our rock, standing up for us day after day in the chamber and giving Mr Blair what for, putting it about on TV and in the toilets ... I do like his cock," she tails off.

The feeling is mutual. Sir Menzies recognises talent when he sees it and has promised to give these delightful young ladies their head with high-profile appointments on the front bench right beside him, for which they will be gratefully giving him head in return.

It is heartening to see such potentially deadly rivals for the affections of the heroic Caledonian knight working together and shrieking their loyal support in unison as he bestrides the parliamentary stage like a leviathan. The legendary jouster of the debating chamber continues to defy the odds, taking on all-comers two at a time, and pinning them mercilessly to the ground with his renowned spam javelin, indisputably the longest and straightest in Westminster.

However there is no use denying that Sarah's feelings go deeper than those of the other girls. A natural born leader herself, she senses a special bond with the chivalrous elder statesman of the party who is still, paradoxically, in his prime. "When I first came into Parliament as the youngest and shortest MP I had a difficult time," she explains, "but Ming was so kind and gentle — he took me under his wing and petted me with such gravitas that I went all wet inside. We've never looked back since. He's become my heaviest petter in the House by a long shot and me his."

And once the proper outcome is reached, with her dashing hero and patron confirmed as the permanent interim leader she confidently expects to "go all the way".

For Sarah's sake and indeed for the sake of liberal democracy itself it is to be hoped that the opposing corner, represented by the shape-shifting partnership of the sinister Mr and Mr Chris and Simon Hughnes, will fail in its diabolical attempt to pervert the democratic process, repulsed at the last by the moronic voters of Brent responding to their intensive course of remedial training and coming good in the nick of time. If so then true Liberal Democrats everywhere can look forward to a golden age of high moral purpose and courtly love blossoming under Sir Menzies Campbell's inspiring leadership, paving the way for a smooth transition of power to his most loyal mistress as soon as he's shot his last load at the next election circa 2009.

Previously

• Lib Dem leadership romp heads for explosive climax
• Menzies Campbell revelation rocks Middle England
• Liberal Democrats proclaim Second Coming