Liberal Democrat Conference

Ed Davey is a very nice man. He is passably good at all manner of water sports, is famously a loving and devoted son, husband and father, knows how to lead a marching band and you’d really hate for him to be disappointed in you. Of all our current crop of party leaders, Ed Davey is the one with whom one imagines one would enjoy the pleasantest evening in a brasserie/gourmet pub.

None of the above is meant dismissively. Being nice and good and proper are all important things to be. And Ed Davey should be – indeed, gives one the vehement impression that he is – proud of who he is. That, however, is a different question to that of whether one has much purpose as the leader of a political party. Despite having more MPs than Nigel Farage (by a factor of more than ten), fewer headaches than Keir Starmer (by a factor of roughly eight hundred thousand) and more easy charm with the media than Kemi Badenoch (by a frankly unknowable factor), Ed Davey still, somehow, feels like a political talent in search of a point.

As with so much in our politics at the moment, Nigel Farage is on hand to provide the answer to the question mark that hovers perennially over the Liberal Democrats. This was not a speech primarily about what the Lib Dems would do in Government (despite that being a very plausible outcome of the next election) but rather what they would like to prevent Nigel Farage doing if he ever gets a sniff of Downing Street. Thus, today’s Leader’s speech was very much about what Lib Dem Britain is not, rather than what it might be. It is not Elon Musk. It is not flags being misused for political purposes. It is not draconian immigration laws or cruelty to children or to the old or the disabled. It is not, and emphatically so, Nigel Farage. And so, if one does not like Elon Musk, badly used flags, cruelty or Nigel Farage – so the logic runs – it’s a Lib Dem Britain one ought to be voting for. The Reform leader’s response – well, characteristically lacking in emphatic niceness to be honest: “Just watching poor Ed Davey speak. He is obsessed with me. I am happy to pay for a psychiatrist.”

The faithful lapped it up, though. It spoke to them, and it spoke to an England (the Lib Dems are, really, a terrifically English party – spiritually) that they truly admire and believe in. There was much talk, this conference, of a ‘Davey Decade’. And who can blame them? He has made the Lib Dems Great Again – delivering them their greatest number of seats in a century and an easier night’s sleep than they’ve had in donkey’s years.

But… but… Ed Davey is a very nice man. But what if the Overton window has moved? What if Britain’s primordial instincts are rather more inclined to the naughty, than the nice, these days?