Ah yes, Lord Owen, a man like Orson Welles, condemned to live his life backwards has pronounced on Ming.

This is the way the Herald reports it:

In an interview with the Parliamentary Monitor magazine, the former Labour Foreign Secretary describes the Liberal Democrat leader as "only a couple of years younger" than himself and argued Sir Menzies should be replaced by a "young Turk". Lord Owen is 68. Sir Menzies is 65.

The cross-bench peer suggested change should "happen before the next general election", and noted: "It is a pity they have a leader of the older generation."

Tony Blair is 53, Gordon Brown is 55, and David Cameron is 40.

Lord Owen highlighted the credentials of Chris Huhne, 52, the party's environment spokesman. Last year, he failed in his bid to challenge Sir Menzies for the party leadership following the resignation of Charles Kennedy, 47, who reliquished the top job after admitting to a drink problem.

"Chris Huhne has produced some very good ideas on the environment and it was a thoroughly good thing for him to challenge for the leadership," said the peer.

Lord Owen's intervention will not be welcomed by the leadership.

On the last point, I think they may have it wrong: Being attacked by Owen is a badge of honour. If Owen had spoken out during the leadership campaign, Ming´s majority would have been even bigger.

There is more unambiguously good news for Ming in the papers as well. The Independent has poll of polls for January showing that

Tony Blair's unpopularity has dragged Labour down to its lowest rating since the last general election, according to the results of the latest monthly "poll of polls" for The Independent.

The Conservatives averaged 37 per cent in the opinion polls taken in January, the same as in December, but Labour dropped two points to 32 per cent while the Liberal Democrats were up three points to 20 per cent.

The latest opinion poll in the Times follows the trend of the last five polls in putting Lib Dem support up since December. Rather oddly, the big losers are the Tories, down 3% to 36% - towards the lower end of their range in recent months.