- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 November 2000 03.10 GMT
"I am the MP for Yeovil, I owe it to my party and my constituency to stay on,'' the 59-year-old MP has told Lib Dem colleagues at the Commons. After months of speculation that Tony Blair might be able to win international backing for his ally, the former Liberal Democrat leader, Mr Annan rang Mr Ashdown in London on Tuesday night to ask if he was still available to take over now that the Frenchman has signalled a desire to leave Pristina before Christmas. But Mr Ashdown told him he was no longer able to consider the post because it had come at the wrong time - too close to the expected spring election to disrupt his party by triggering a byelection in Yeovil. "I would have done it like a shot if I had been asked last year,'' he told one Westminster colleague. Yesterday he said: "There are times in politics when time works in your favour and there are times when it doesn't.'' There is no question that the US has blocked his candidacy, he has assured fellow Liberal Democrats. His ex-research chief, David Laws, has been picked to fight Yeovil where Mr Ashdown had an 11,403 majority in 1997.
