ePolitix.com - Week on the web

As Lance Price writes on Comment is Free today, "Thanks to Ming Campbell, Gordon Brown will be able to walk away from his week from hell with just a gentle toasting".

So when the prime minister gets back from Portugal (via Paris for the rugby world cup final) he may be taking a bottle of something nice round for his friend and Scottish constituency neighbour.

For if the previous seven days was "Brown's 'week from hell'" this was, perhaps, the week from hell that wasn't.

It began with the threatened return of the Blairites to the political stage, articulated most openly by Lord Falconer on the Sunday Times site.

And the PM has since taken a pounding all week from the right wing press over his refusal to hold a referendum on the EU reform treaty, agreed last night in Lisbon. And there's been plenty of flak for him on the blogs as well.

But the sudden, if not unpredicted, resignation of Sir Menzies as Lib Dem leader on Monday took the heat off Brown to such an extent that he could even get a job in government in return.

Westminster of course, and its blogging community, likes little better than a leadership election.

But if it likes anything better, it is perhaps leadership speculation, and even after the event there was plenty of the 'Did-he-jump-or-was-he-pushed?' kind (even the BBC opts for the latter).

While it was always going to be a difficult week for the third party, it at least got lots of attention and both Olly Kendall on Comment is Free and Rachel Sylvester in the Telegraph saw the events as an opportunity.

Time Hames in the Times however thought Sir Menzies (or whoever knifed him) had acted far too early and Nick Robinson wonders whether things could get nasty.

After the inquest, a two-horse race quickly emerged, with the internet now the place of choice for MPs to rule themselves out of standing.

Steve Webb did so on his aptly-named Webb log, Susan Kramer told an ePolitix.com podcast and Julia Goldsworthy showed just how down with the kids she is by making the announcement on Facebook (registration required).

The two actual contenders, Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne, chose more traditional offline campaign launches, but have websites up and running here and here (Shane Greer has some speculation about how early the Clegg site was compiled).

Among the commentariat a clear consensus emerged for Clegg, with backing from Jackie Ashley, Matthew d'Ancona and (almost) Alice Miles.

Having observed both of them in their past lives as MEPs, Tory Daniel Hannan came down on the side of Clegg on his Telegraph blog, while he also got bigwig backing from former leader Lord Ashdown.

Amid this clamour for Clegg, there were some voices of caution. Paul Linford thinks social liberals such as Webb and Goldsworthy could be letting themselves in for more than they bargain for by backing the home affairs spokesman.

From the right, Iain Dale argued that a second-rate David Cameron would do no good, a view echoed by James Forsyth on the Spectator's Coffee House (although Westmonster notes that there is now a "Nick Clegg is more of a hottie than David Cameron any day" group on the aforementioned social networking site (registration required again)).

And Danny Finkelstein of Comment Central (who set the Sir Menzies resignation ball rolling back in September) has been subjecting Clegg to some almost obsessional forensic analysis here, here and here.

Clegg hasn't been having it all his own way on the endorsement front either. Lib Dem blogger of the year James Graham (himself undecided) has an exclusive today that key members of Charles Kennedy's team are backing Huhne, although Kennedy himself is remaining above the fray.

And, despite "adoring Nick", blogging Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone makes her case for "Chris' cojones" here.

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