The Lib Dem strategy to restore their third party status

Good morning. The Liberal Democrats launched their manifesto yesterday and then went on the rides at Thorpe Park. Some thoughts on why they did that and what their campaign is doing below.

It was all yellow

The Liberal Democrats have a simple task — tell voters in some very specific parts of the country that they exist, persuade those voters that the Lib Dems should win, that the Conservatives can be beaten, and equally importantly that Labour cannot beat them.

At the ground level they do this via leafleting and activist presence. But their national campaign has a role to play, too, and they have got a groove going that works well.

Ed Davey turns up somewhere that his party is targeting, does a kooky photo opportunity at some local tourist attraction or amenity (the better to force him and his party on to as many newspaper front pages, particularly local newspaper front pages, as possible).

He does interviews, preferably for BBC local radio or LBC. The Lib Dems prize doing local BBC stations because it is a big part of their strategy for making it clear they are the anti-Tory vote in a particular area, and they prize LBC because that maximises their chances of getting a clip on one of the many music stations that Global, LBC’s parent company, also runs: Smooth, Heart, Classic FM, Capital.

After his manifesto launch he managed to combine both, being interviewed by LBC about the Lib Dem policy of taking the UK back into the single market while on the spinning teacups at Thorpe Park.

Their big messages in those interviews are all firmly targeted at socially concerned, economically successful voters, who gather in numbers not only in the seats the Lib Dems hold but the ones they are targeting in the so-called “Blue Wall”.

Over on his blog, Dan Neidle is dubious that their tax increases raise as much as the party thinks, but frankly that matters less for the Lib Dems than either the Conservatives or Labour because a) they are highly unlikely to end up in government after the next election and b) even if they did, they would have only a steering influence on tax-and-spend decisions.

Politically speaking, the important political decision the Lib Dems have taken is that they, like Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, have decided not to touch any of the big taxes most people pay — indeed they have said in their manifesto they hope, when circumstances allow, to continue increasing the threshold on which you begin to pay income tax.

So they are laying the ground both to do well among socially concerned but economically comfortable voters this time around, and to be able to build on that to oppose some of Labour’s measures in office without appearing disingenuous.

As such, I don’t have all that much to say about the Lib Dems campaign. Given their relatively modest financial resources and starting point, they are making the right choices and campaigning in the right way, and are on course to achieve their most important objective — getting back third party status in the House of Commons. And if the Conservative campaign continues to falter, they might even manage a bigger prize than that.

Now try this

Last week, I went to hear the Philharmonia and Sol Gabetta in a wonderful concert, but I hadn’t realised it was playing live on Radio 3 that same evening. Apologies! You can listen to it now here.

Yesterday, I went to see Mahbas (Solitaire) at the Arts of Lebanon Festival. It’s a wonderful comedy of manners about a Lebanese woman who is horrified to learn that her only daughter plans to marry a Syrian, and her attempts to sabotage the match. It is a brilliantly observed depiction of family life, the scars of war, and much else besides. If you can, it’s worth checking out the rest of the festival’s line-up.

Top stories today

• A ‘populist trap’ | Labour’s refusal to rule out an increase in capital gains tax has provoked concern among investors and entrepreneurs about the competitiveness of the UK should the party win power on July 4.

• Conceding defeat? | Tory ad campaigns have warned voters that support for the smaller parties would “hand Keir Starmer a blank cheque”, leading some to believe that the party is in effect conceding defeat.

• Manifesto launch day | Rishi Sunak is expected to promise more tax cuts, including a further tax cut to national insurance, in the Conservative manifesto, which is being released today.

Below is the Financial Times’ live-updating UK poll-of-polls, which combines voting intention surveys published by major British pollsters. Visit the FT poll-tracker page to discover our methodology and explore polling data by demographic including age, gender, region and more.

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