Dear Betsan Powys, DROP IT. No Love, me.

It's old news by now, as I live in a distant corner of Wales and by the time I got home yesterday I was too tired to do justice to the topic: yesterday, I was in Swansea to lend support as Kirsty Williams AM announced her intention to stand for leadership of the Welsh Lib Dems and of our Assembly group.

BBC Wales' political editor was there, and seemed to relish the opportunity to ask Kirsty if she wasn't a bit worried that she would still be seen by many in the party as the 'Rainbow Wrecker' (her words not mine) after last year's rather messy internal debate on whether or not to enter a rainbow coalition to keep Welsh Labour out of government. For heaven's sake. Of all people, Betsan should be familiar with the hackneyed phrase that 'a week is a long time in politics' - what does that make fourteen months?! And more importantly, why even ask the question if you're not going to report the answer?

For the record, part of what Kirsty said was that many people had been on the other side from her in that debate and supported her now. I voted FOR a rainbow deal. Yet I sat by the podium while Kirsty delivered her address yesterday, and was immensely proud to do so. Why? Because as she said, she is a conviction politician. And as Mark Williams MP said in his summation, she represents the empathy that is sadly often missing from politics these days. Kirsty is a real, powerful voice for people who feel disenfranchised by the spin and the pat messages from the other parties. She is exactly the person I want to get behind, the person I want to represent the Welsh Liberal Democrats in the public imagination.

Just because I have found myself on the opposite side from Kirsty in one debate, on one issue, doesn't mean I don't have huge amounts of respect and admiration for her position. This happens ALL THE TIME in a party like ours - we foster debate, we thrive on it, and we don't 'break friends' for good like playground children when one of our colleagues says something we disagree with. This seems like as good a time as any to point out, too, that being behind Kirsty Williams in this contest (and there had better be a contest!) should not be taken as a tacit admission that I don't -also- have huge amounts of respect and admiration for Jenny Randerson or Eleanor Burnham. Should either or both of them choose to stand in this contest, I will be rooting and campaigning for Kirsty without undermining or smearing them because they are also brilliant women who need to be heard and have their own distinct platforms.

Yes, Betsan, you did hear about "Social justice, decent public services, community empowerment, nothing you couldn't have heard from a politician from any party in Wales". The difference is, Kirsty means it. She is pathologically incapable of saying something she doesn't believe and that is the crucial difference between her and a million other politicians. It means people will recognise how genuine she is and hopefully feel that here is a politician they can trust. It makes her a magnetic presence in cross-party debates as she passionately lays waste to the lies and the bland bull that spews from the mouths of the opposition so often (oh and while we're here I might point out that it was very unfair to pick up what she said about how she first became involved in politics and then say that the tories are not the same heartless party they were under Thatcher - they are EXACTLY that party and while Cameron may look cuddly it's as much of an illusion as a fuzzy cactus, as I have written about before).

Perhaps it's not fair to pick on one hack who made my bile rise, though. It could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse. After all, what comparisons can be made? While Kirsty is looking set to take the title of first female leader of any party in Wales, who is there to look to in recent history when talking about female leaders? Yeah. One of the biggest reasons I am excited about the prospect and gunning for Kirsty as leader, is that she is the one who can change the face of female political leadership. Throughout history, there have occasionally been women who have turned their back on the rest of their gender and meekly offered their necks for the choke chain of the patriarchal establishment to get ahead. We've had Thatcher, who was enough of a misogynist that she never once had another woman in her cabinet. We've now got Palin in the states, hired pitbull of the pro-life lobby, barking frenetically for the chance to take away women's reproductive freedom and education. Kirsty is off the leash. She's a real woman, with strength and empathy and conviction I have rarely seen outside my own family. And I want her to win, and I want Ros Scott to simultaneously take the federal party presidency. Then I will feel even more at home in this party than I already do.