Rather like Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Ed Davey inherited a thoroughly broken party in 2020 when he became leader.
Also rather like Sir Keir, if the polls and polling projections are to be believed, Sir Ed has brought the party to the brink of a remarkable comeback, reversing the deep losses bequeathed by Nick Clegg in 2015 after five years of coalition.
The made-for-TV election stunts may look bold, but Sir Ed’s plan has been cautious and incremental.
Nothing bold on Brexit, which was the signature of the party’s 2019 campaign. No pretence that Sir Ed could be prime minister after the election, as Jo Swinson pretended in 2019 – this is a campaign targeted in seats the party thinks it can win.
Instead we have a campaign of reassurance from a party that abandoned “equidistance” – holding Labour and Tory at similar distance which led to five years of coalition with the Tories until 2015 – and turning them into a purely anti-Tory force, more in tune with many activists’ inclinations.
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Now the party could be about to quadruple its seats. This could put it on course to returning as the third biggest party in the Commons, regaining the crown from the ailing Scottish National Party, its biggest achievable goal for the 4 July election.
Yet Sir Ed has brought the Lib Dems to this point while leaving unresolved some big questions about both the past and the future.
First, he simply refuses to deal with the past. Sir Ed was a minister and cabinet secretary…
