This article is an on-site version of our Inside Politics newsletter. Subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every weekday. If you’re not a subscriber, you can still receive the newsletter free for 30 daysGood morning. It’s an old cliché that being leader of the opposition is the hardest job in politics. I disagree: in terms of the consequence of your decisions, it is being prime minister. In terms of the powerlessness that comes with being in opposition, leading the Liberal Democrats is a much trickier job.One reason why being Lib Dem leader is so hard is that you are the smallest part in a three body problem that decides how well your party can do — the other components being the Labour party and the Conservatives, in that order. The Lib Dems always struggle when the Labour leader scares middle England. English voters need not love the Labour leader: they did not love Tony Blair in 2005, Gordon Brown in 2010 nor indeed Keir Starmer in 2024, but they absolutely cannot fear the Labour leader. When middle England is frightened of, or angry with the Labour party, it almost always spells trouble for the Lib Dems: that was true in 1970, 1987, 1992, 2015 and 2019. (The seeming exception of 1983 is not, I think, particularly worth worrying about: the Social Democratic Party/Liberal Alliance got more seats than the Liberals in 1979, but most of the MPs defending their constituencies lost.) Since Jo Grimond essentially founded the modern Liberal party, the electoral fortunes of Labour and the Liberals have generally been pretty closely correlated.This is a long-winded way of answering a recurring reader question about what strategy I think the Lib Dems should pursue. In some ways, I think it is a redundant question. When the Lib Dem leader is lucky, their strategy is how best to maximise the opportunity given to them by having a Labour counterpart who does not scare the horses. When they are unlucky, their strategy is how best to minimise the party’s losses. In both cases, what they also hope to do is to find a way to break the party’s exposure to Labour in good years and bad. Ed Davey, having this year overseen an astonishingly successful general election campaign that saw the Lib Dems win 72 seats, a modern record, will have an easier time (but not, to be clear, an easy time) in this parliament, whether his task is doing the best to maximise opportunity or to minimise losses. As leader of the third party in the House of Commons, the Lib Dem leader would have more guaranteed opportunities to grab public opinion. But nonetheless, for the most part, assessing Davey’s best strategy first means seeing what the Labour government does and who emerges as the Conservative leader after the party’s prolonged leadership election. However, there is one strategic question for the Lib Dems that we can predict ahead of time that is worth thinking about.Inside Politics is edited by Georgina Quach. Read the previous edition of the newsletter here. Please send gossip, thoughts and feedback to insidepolitics@ft.comIn the Nick of timeIn the 2010 general election, New Labour’s record on the NHS was not a political asset. It did not convince voters to give the government a fifth term in power nor was it a particularly powerful defensive line. In 2024, New Labour’s record was a political asset: Labour’s focus groups showed that people believed the party’s NHS pledges because of the 1997 to 2010 record and it was a big part of what made voters switch from Tory to Labour.In 2015, the Liberal Democrats’ involvement in the coalition had no real political upside for the party (though they did get many of their policies through). But in 2024, in some parts of the country people felt quite differently towards the Liberal Democrat contribution. Ed Davey used his record as secretary of state for climate change to talk up his own achievements in some of his media appearances.Now, both of these things are primarily about the Conservative record from 2015 to 2024. Mistakes made by the Tory party in government meant that both Labour and the Liberal Democrats could make arguments about their own records that got a better hearing than they would have in 2010 or 2015.Inevitably, the Labour government will make mistakes of its own. But because so much of the last Tory government’s policy achievements happened during the Cameron-Clegg coalition, which party gets the credit when the last government’s record becomes a political asset not a liability is up for grabs, at least partially.I’m not saying that everything that happened from 2010 to 2015 was perfect — I’m just saying that when the wheel of political fortune turns, I think that the period that people will look back on affectionately is unlikely to be the era of Downing Street parties, the 49 days of Liz Truss or two years in which Rishi Sunak drifted towards record-breaking defeat. It is going to be the period when David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg ran the country. So one question for the Lib Dems — and I’m not going to pretend I know the answer to this one — is how they can find ways to make sure that when that happens, they are able to benefit from it. We’ll have much more on the Liberal Democrats’ strategy and key personalities over the next four years: but one challenge for them is how they can both reinforce the messages that helped them win seats in July, in which they talked a lot about the failures of the Conservative party since 2015, and how they can also set themselves up to enjoy the fruits of the upward reappraisal that old governments almost always enjoy. Now try thisOne of the real highlights of my recent holiday was eating at St Eia, a wine shop with a lovely restaurant just a minute’s walk away from the Tate St Ives (whose rehang really is terrific: if you can, do go while it is hosting Mark Rothko’s Seagram paintings). I miss it already. Top stories todayRecommended newsletters for youUS Election Countdown — Money and politics in the race for the White House. Sign up hereFT Opinion — Insights and judgments from top commentators. Sign up here
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