Meanwhile, the newly created Iraqi Governing Council is formally asking the UN for a multinational force to supplement the US and British troops. That could solve the mandate problem, but the UN will have to consider the credibility of that council before it responds.. Since the run-up to the war in Iraq, when Charles Kennedy took a well-judged stand against an invasion without a specific UN resolution, the Liberal Democrat leader has cut an uncertain figure on the national stage. There have been some unmistakeable murmurings about his leadership from inside his own party, compounded by a nasty whispering campaign alleging that he drinks too much. There has been disappointment even among his own supporters that what seemed an historic opportunity to exploit mistrust of the Government after the Iraq war was missed.

These criticisms might have grown louder, and less anonymous, were the Liberal Democrats’ poll standing still not comfortably above 20 per cent – as much due to the travails of the two main parties as to any great political agenda of its own. A reduction in the number of ministries from 19 to 14 and the number of ministers from 90 to 60 may not sound revolutionary, but judged by the relentless growth of the ministeriat – and with it of Prime Ministerial patronage – over the past century it is a genuinely new departure.But it is only a start. The next task is to put more detail on which central government functions are to be abolished or devolved. On the face of it, the abolition of the DTI looks less impressive when set against the creation of a new Department of Consumer Protection and Enterprise. But if, as the Treasury spokesman, David Laws, plans, this would mean the winding up of trade functions now covered by the EU and the dismantling or decentralisation of expensive regional aid subsidies it will be worthwhile.A more important challenge for the party is to make the dramatic shift from central national taxation to local revenue raising, which is necessary if the party is serious about decentralisation.

If the Liberal Democrats can match their plans for greater local control with an attractive plan for lower national taxes, especially for lower income groups, they could open up a new and important debate in party politics.With a much more collegiate style than his predecessor, Mr Kennedy is good at cherry-picking ideas from some of his brighter lieutenants. But he also needs to demonstrate some passions and convictions on policy.One of these is Europe, about which Mr Kennedy has been steadfast despite the varying degrees of Euro-scepticism among a vocal minority of his own MPs. A clear message in favour of Europe – even if coupled with a call for a referendum on the EU’s future constitution – would do much to fill a political vacuum left by the Tory’s strident Euro-scepticism and disappointment among pro-Europeans about the Government’s prevarication over the euro.Mr Kennedy’s laid-back style helps to make him an attractive politician but it also carries serious dangers of drift Yesterday’s speech was a promising start. Over the coming months he now needs to demonstrate real and sustained leadership..

On the wall of my office, there’s a print of Gladstone’s Cabinet of 1880. There are 14 men in the picture, five with beards and nine without Compare that with the Cabinet of 2003 The proportion of beards has gone down But the overall number has gone considerably up – to 21 It raises a question. If it was possible to make do with a much smaller Cabinet when Britain ruled a third of the world, do we really need a Cabinet of 21 to run the UK on its own? Particularly when Scotland and Wales now have their own devolved legislatures. We believe that by both restructuring and slimming down central Government and by cutting back on less productive spending programmes, we can secure significant savings.I have decided to set a target of finding savings of at least one per cent of total annual government spending to re-allocate to priority areas like education, health and tackling poverty. By the time of the next election, one per cent will be equivalent to savings of around £5bn a year – enough , for instance, to fund over 150,000 extra nurses, teachers and police every year.We’d leave far more decision-making to the local level, where local people understand local needs. But that would not mean large amounts of extra local bureaucracy soaking up the money transferred from the centre. There are already plenty of public servants struggling to deliver services at regional and local level.