I've been on the radio talking about Danny Alexander!

See that Twitter, it gets you into all sorts of trouble.

I noticed just at the end of the F1 Forum on the Red Button that Iain Dale was on LBC talking about David Laws. I can listen to that through the infernal wickedness of Sky Plus so I turned over. He said that he wanted to talk about whether the appointment of Danny Alexander would get the confidence of business.

I decided to phone in and put the points that I'd made in my posting earlier today, namely that although nobody could have anticipated need to replace David Laws, but Danny was obvious choice because:

a) he's a key ally of Nick Clegg
b) he's impressed key Tories during the coalition negotiations
c) he was pivotal in drawing up the final coalition agreement
d) he has experience of managing change within the Lib Dems
e) he drew up manifesto so has experience across all policy areas.

Iain then asked me what personal qualities I thought Danny had. I couldn't just say "he's really nice" so I went with excellent communication skills, ability to listen as well as talk and the ability to ensure that the Government stayed on course to cut the deficit while keeping people together and focused. What I should have added is his decisiveness and analytical skills which I have seen in action when he reviewed the workings of the Scottish Party a few years ago. He was thorough in his gathering of evidence and clear in his recommendations which were pretty much spot on.

I've had some good feedback on Twitter about how I did, which is encouraging. I was quite nervous and possibly spoke too fast - but Iain did say that it was a good call, which he didn't say to Tom Harris later, so maybe I should take heart from that:-).