Sandals at dawn.

So the slow motion car crash that is the Liberal Youth Chair elections has taken another painful and excruciatingly embarrassing twist. The toys are really being thrown out of the pram in all directions and the dreadful candidates are seemingly using every trick in the book to make themselves look like a pair of two bit, jumped up, amateurs.

This week has seen claim and counter claim at just how badly the current Chair, who is seeking re-election, mundane Elaine, has done. Her website until recently had a section that countered claims that 18 members of her team had resigned since July. She claimed it was actually only 15, so that made everything alright. The section has mysteriously disappeared in the last 24 hours. While she might be keeping up her smile, a source was less then charming about Elaine's campaign style; "She's just thrashing about in the shallows trying to hit something - anything to make her feel better. She reminds me of one of those whales in Australia."

Though it's not just bad news for Elaine, her opponent Sara Scarlett might have made a bit of a cockup at the first day of the Lib Dem Harrogate mini-conference yesterday. Things kicked off when Elaine yeah-but-no-but Bagshaw was giving a speech. TB will let some Lib Dem blogging gimp

take over

from here:

"The trouble occurred when Elaine Bagshaw, the Chair of Liberal Youth, took to the stage. She spoke well – no oratorical leaps and bounds, but well nonetheless. Unfortunately, when she reached a passage in her speech describing Liberal Youth’s achievements over the past year, a voice rang out, sharp and clear, from the crowd.

“You’ve done nothing!”

This was a major speech, during an important part of conference – which, I believe, was televised. It wasn’t as if it was a little fringe event, squirreled away in some forgotten corner of the Harrogate Holiday Inn. It was a central event for the party as a whole, and a focus of media attention during conference. And this attack wasn’t some drunken prank by footsoldiers of Elaine’s opposition.

It was Sara Scarlett. Sara, who campaigned so hard for the position, and who seemed, for a time, about to win. Now she faces only ostracism, her erstwhile loyal supporters sporting “Backing Bagshaw” badges in the hotel bar"

Oooh. The Bagshaw spin operation has gone into overdrive, ready to slam Scarlett at the drop of a hat for what she did. The grown up party are distancing themselves from the incident and the election as a whole, and all TB managed to squeeze out of the Press Office was "Liberal Youth do not wish to make a comment on this matter." It's a shame that the Liberals clearly don't have a bear of their own that they can vent spleen too. Oh well TB is glad to be of help...

They will be throwing shoes next no doubt.