The Conservative Campaign Is Accused Of Ignoring Its “Big Lib Dem Problem”

We're more than halfway through the campaign and Labour still has a big lead over the Conservatives. “It's going so badly, Isaac Levido’s beard has turned white,” one Tory candidate says of their campaign chief.

The first poll showing Reform overtake the Tories came out this week. With Reform’s vote inefficiently distributed, that may only have a symbolic power, but many believe it is also an unhelpful distraction shaping the Conservative campaign. They ask: where is the Lib Dem strategy? The lack thereof is something even Labour HQ have noticed and are puzzled by.

“I definitely think they've got a Lib Dem problem. It's a big Lib Dem problem. Because of the focus on Reform, you are broadly giving the Liberal Democrats a free pass in lots of places,” More in Common UK director Luke Tryl tells PoliticsHome.

In Chichester, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan’s patch, Tryl reports that voters are “wavering in what should be a solidly Tory seat” and “hadn’t heard a Lib Dem rebuttal message”. The only hesitation they cited about voting Lib Dem was the broken tuition fees promise. In Greg Clark’s Tunbridge Wells, Tryl adds, “people said they seem more normal than the Tories these days and not obsessed with weird things”.

“It's really hard to have a Lib Dem strategy because they stand for something different in every part of the country – even in different parts of the constituency,” says a new Tory candidate who is currently neck-and-neck with the Lib Dems.

Some Tories are being distracted by another election altogether: the future leadership contest. Candidates re-standing in seats with 20k+ majorities are getting calls from leadership hopefuls asking for their backing – even though their own chances of returning as MPs are in