In four weeks’ time, the Liberal Democrats will descend on Brighton for their annual conference. It’s likely to be the most enthusiastic such gathering in recent years, with the party celebrating the record 72 seats they won at last month’s election. The Lib Dems gained 61 more MPs than the paltry 11 they took in 2019, toppling four sitting cabinet ministers and winning virtually all their southern targets. It was the highest number of seats for the Liberals since H.H Asquith in 1923.
Given all the dire pronouncements about the Lib Dems’ future after the 2019 election, should there not be more recognition of the turnaround?
Yet such has been the focus on the new Labour government that this achievement has been somewhat underreported. ‘None of the other parties increased their MPs by a factor of six’, grumbled one newly elected member to me when the new intake assembled for a team photo in Westminster Hall.
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