The most newsworthy thing Ed Davey could have done last week would have been to turn up to his local election campaign launch in a boring suit and stand in front of a load of party placards to give a speech about voting for change in your community. Given the Lib Dem leader’s proclivity for election campaign stunts, it would have been a man-bites-dog level of surprise that he was no longer prepared to charge around in fancy dress while trying to get attention for his party’s message.

Of course, he didn’t do that: the man in a boring suit talking about change was Keir Starmer, while Davey chose to ride a hobby horse. His message from the back of the toy horse was that the Liberal Democrats are in a “two-horse race” with the Tories in many of the English council seats up for grabs in May. But he also argued that the Lib Dems were the “natural home” for voters who were fed up with Labour. His party is hoping it can hoover up more voters in the “blue wall” of the home counties where the Conservatives have alienated reasonably centrist middle-class types both by being incompetent in government and lurching right.

Tory election expert Robert Hayward also suggests Davey’s party may want to expand into areas that Labour won in July 2024’s general election “but which are not parts of their natural territory”, such as in Oxfordshire and Cornwall. He expects them to quietly pick up county council seats and control of local authorities “without being the main story”.

The Lib Dems have long been happy to not be the main story, benefiting as a protest vote party from whoever is getting the headlines for making a mess. But the profile of that protest voter has changed, and so Davey and colleagues have adapted their messaging. Back in the 2010s, the party was more likely to have purchase among the kind of people who might, on another day, vote Ukip:........

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