Ed Davey loves clowning around, but is it time the Lib Dems get serious?

A nightmare for any politician to be ignored.

If no one knows who he is, you won’t win votes. If the name in the ballot does not mean anything by holding the stump pens in the voting cabin for the voter, you cannot buy a tick into the box.

In the last few years, Liberal Democratic leader Sir Ed Davey, jerky– jetAnd even a hobby horse rode the people’s imagination to help his party’s success in the general elections and exceeded his own hopes.

He proved that there was wisdom in playing clown in politics – if he draws attention to you. However, too much clown around it may not look so smart.

And the government was not popular and conservatives seemed to be like miles before any kind of healing, but the main beneficiaries of mutual misery.

Lib Dems will be a certain understandable Jolity when they come together annually in Bournemouth this weekend.

This is not just like Lib DEMS’s traditional Glee club or political activists can enjoy a minibreak with most of us from the conferences of the conferences. Although the budget hotels and the deep fear of rail changing services to reach there, instead of a walk or lie on the beach, it is a different species with wine and the most serious discussions, not hot, cold, not cold.

However, after the general elections, Lib DEMS had a large place and more. Earnings in Council Elections in May. There are dozens of new deputies and a team that has been restarted on their front benches.

The question hanging at the conferences in Bournemouth this weekend is expressed by one of the deputies: “Where do we go to make sure that this is not the wrong start?”

In other words – when, where and how? Undoubtedly, there is an opportunity for Lib Demit.

A party inside: “What is too much labor people talk about?

The two major parties are partially distracted by their own troubles that can provide plenty of political space to Lib DEMS.

See numbers and map. In the general election, Lib Demit swept 60 seats from conservatives – almost all of them in the South.

Instead of making strong campaigns in every corner of the country, the party brutally focused on the places they made a good shot. As a result, they were only second in 27 seats.

It was also mainly won in the south of England and 20 by conservatives.

If you follow the logic, the next seat and voter tranches for the target of the Lib DEM are parts of the country and the tor -prone voters.

“Look what’s on the right, there’s a wild division, and Tories crumbles,” he says with enthusiasm a party figure.

“There is a constant opportunity to pull the remaining conservatives down – this is a serious opportunity, which we are in the second place.”

However, the party is already looking at the other seats they took third last time.

A deputy tells me: ” The traditional wisdom would be where we were second to Tories, the natural ambition would be to undertake all these seats.

“But interesting things emerge in other parts of the country, we can be third or fourth, but Britain can completely change the race – numbers and ambitions can be very different.”

But how do you benefit from this chance in the best way?

The vote by the research group shows that the party should perhaps leave the stunts.

The data shared with me show that most voters have enough of the party, even those who support the party. Water Slides and Wet Sets.

The fresh survey, which was published this weekend, shows that three of the five British (61%) are, and that Sir Ed’s campaign mascara makes the party look less serious than 21%, who believes that it is a good way to attract attention.

Even half of Lib Dem supporters think 47%, the stunts are not suitable and make the party look less serious.

And when it comes to what the party is, many voters are not so sure.

When the questionnaires asked people to express their views on the Lib demat and the leader, although there were widespread explanations in “good” and “beautiful”, the biggest expression was “I don’t know”.

Nevertheless, it seems that there is a chance to retire from what Sir Ed describes as “shameful father” stunts.

Of course, these tactics drew attention in the general and council elections: “He makes these photographic opportunities as a bit of shameful father, but he can make serious conversations about foreign relations and care – he can keep all these things.”

The party is proud of what and what it has achieved in the last few years.

But it is also about what Lib DEMS has always done, which is to dig the votes and seats in the communities they earn.

“Our first priority is that our 72 deputies are like Japanese knotweeds, you can’t solve them – why can’t you do it? If all MPs run and do something in Westminster immediately and do not pay attention to the roofs of the church, then it doesn’t work,” a deputy says.

However, those who come from inside accept that he will have to expand the “offer” to use the party’s idea of ​​ideas and nauseating political jargon, and Sir Ed’s vulnerable and beyond the campaign to look at these stunts.

He spoke extensively about the experience of continuing to push the matter in an effective and active way.

When the conference is opened Summarize ideas about migrationTo accelerate the accumulation of cases that allow thousands of people to remain around the country, calling the conservatives to apologize to the chaos and to open the temporary “nightingale” courts in the government – miserable for many people in the communities with miserable and hotels.

We will talk to him about it and talk about more at the show on Sunday.

The party is already pressing the government for a closer economic relationship with Europe. However, it predicts that several deputies will still be “about the economy” and it is not yet clear what the party’s smart answer will be.

But in 2025, the oyster of politics has another problem. “How do you excite people with moderate positions?” A high -level source asks.

Particularly considering that the reform has absorbed too many political oxygen in the last few months, there is a widespread complaint that the party’s ideas did not attract the attention.

The news is not dictated by simple formulas, it is directed by events and emotions.

Lib DEMS has more deputies than reform. However, in the last election, the reform received more four million votes than Libs DEMS and led for months of national surveys.

An MP confesses: “There was probably the assumption that the number of party numbers would naturally turn into more media.

You may see that Lib DEMS has begun to play more in the arguments shaped by the reform, but controversially, a policy based on the identity that has come to the polls – a policy based on noise and emotions, more traditional Whitehall waiting.

According to a pre -banker of the party, the new focal point is “being positive and patriotic and taking back the stopping area for British values”.

Therefore, the party has recently criticized US technology companies.

This week, the party boycotted the state feast, and the party HQ has the habit of firing the press releases that brand “Trump”, “Musk” or Farage as “plastic patriotic”. Davey’s speech on Tuesday, Elon Musk’s speech will be another example of this strategy.

Obviously, Lib Demit believes that it is a noble purpose to “call” to confront populism and to condemn, for example. Musk’s controversial explanations Tommy joined Robinson’s kingdom rally in London last week.

However, of course, they are trying to look for political advantages.

A source says the party is “not convinced by Badenoch, but trying to make the best use of voters who are horrified by Farage.”

Another says that it is an attempt to appeal to voters “shocked by extreme ends”.

As he said: “excite people about moderate positions.”

However, the party hopes that in 2025, the more wild side of politics will be kilometers in colorful criticisms.

Sir Ed’s speech this week is expected to describe what being a British means for him and his party, and that politicians will take more strict steps to the land and vibration land, which is a stylish place.

Of course, he will walk to the conference scene in Bournemouth in a strong position, with a largely happy party behind him.

However, in time, Lib Demit should consider how to sell a series of moderate ideas, which gives a vote that seems to be willing to solve hard solutions.

And not only the lens of waiting photographers and TV teams, but to the stunts to attract the long -term interest of more people.

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