Sir Ed Davey celebrated a highly successful election night by belting out a cover of Sweet Caroline and his party is still feeling so good, so good, so good. Labour’s excitement about power is being tempered by the gritty realities of government. The Tories are still counting their dead and trying to come to terms with being reduced to the lowest count of MPs in the near 200-year history of their party. The SNP has deep wounds to lick. By contrast, the Lib Dem conference in Brighton floats on a cloud of undiluted euphoria. “We haven’t come down yet,” says one of their number. The ecstasy is the more elevated for having been preceded by so many years of agony.
Sir Ed is being feted as a conquering hero. Often scorned before the election as dull, often mocked during the campaign for his wet-suited clowning, he had the last laugh by delivering the best result in his party’s existence. This was not because there was a significant lift in its vote share. That rose by less than 1% and the Lib Dems actually banked fewer votes than in 2019. They achieved a stonking increase in their haul of seats because Sir Ed executed a smart strategy, which clinically concentrated the party’s modest resources on winnable seats. All but two of their 61 net gains on the 2019 result came from eviscerating the Conservatives in what were once blue heartlands. Southern England is now paved with so many Lib Dem seats that it is possible to walk from Sir Ed’s constituency in south-west London to Devon without leaving yellow territory. That was achieved by an eye-catching campaign highlighting the issues that most mattered to his target electors, such as the cost of living, the NHS and filthy waterways, and also intense exploitation of anti-Tory tactical voting. Usually among the victims of first past the post, the Lib Dems turned it to their advantage for once. They are in proud possession of 72 seats, making them the strongest third party presence at Westminster since the era of Asquith and Lloyd George.
