Lembit Opik Apologises for Mick Bates Slur

Earlier this morning, Peter Black AM led a justified attack on Lembit Opik for accusing his former Welsh Assembly Montgomeryshire colleague Mick Bates of being the reason why he lost his Montgomeryshire seat back in May last year. Peter's angry riposte can be read here.

Mick Mates and Lembit Opik in happier times

During the course of the day, Lembit has responded by refuting the rebuttal information that was put out on his behalf as a part of his London Mayoral campaign by claiming that it was published without his authority, presumably by a member of his campaign team. His reply for the Western Mail can be read here.

In a comment to Peter's initial post, a former member of Lembit's Montgomeryshire constituency staff puts up a legitimate defence for his former employer and goes on to state why he will lose the nomination for the Mayoralty.

In Paul's own words...

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"Lembit will lose the nomination to be the party's candidate in London like he did the 2008 Presidency, not because there is a better more well suited candidate (that's a debate for another time), but because he's chosen to surround himself by a small group of friends (namely Eric Joyce) who tell him what he wants to hear and do as he says, none of whom are experienced in campaigning, messaging, strategy & direction or communications all of something you need if you want to win. None of these people have the guts to stand up turn the problem around and say, "look we've got a problem here, if we want to win, we need to do this, this and that."

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Paul knows his stuff so I'll take his word for it. The named individual I think is actually Ed Joyce and he has been denounced on Lib Dem message boards over the past 36 hours for the way in which he responds to every slight on Lembit's character.

Is it he who has apparently written this rebuttal piece without Lembit's say-so or somebody else? Whoever it may be, Lembit needs to sort it and his media strategy out before his campaign is blown to pieces before it's even out of the blocks.