No more
Mr Nice Guy: Ed Davey rebrands Lib Dems as the real opposition to Reform
John
Crace
Leader’s
conference speech at Bournemouth shows a bullish party ready to be key player
in any centre-left coalition
Tue 23
Sep 2025 19.22 BST
These are
Happy Days for the Liberal Democrats. A year ago in Bournemouth they had
appeared to be caught in the spotlight of their own electoral success. Unsure
quite where they would go next. At times the conference speeches had been
almost apologetic. New MPs blinking as they were pushed on to the main stage,
unknown even to themselves.
Twelve
months on there is a confidence to the party. Their 72 MPs have all settled
quite comfortably into Westminster and rather enjoy the attention. They are
bullish about the future. There are no worries about losing their seats at the
next election. Rather they see 2024 as a springboard for a brighter future.
Looking to take more seats off the Tories as well as taking chunks out of
Labour in the red wall. Branding themselves the real opposition to Reform. A
key player in any centre-left coalition.
Whether
this confidence is misplaced or not is another matter. Prof John Curtice
reckons the Lib Dems have just about maxed out their gains in their current
iteration and will need to reinvent themselves in the next few years. But for
now the party seems happy enough with the way things are at their annual
conference this September. They think things are falling into place. Even down
to Donald Trump making a speech to the UN at the same time as Ed Davey was
giving his leader’s speech.
Call it
synchronicity. Call it luck. Either way, it suited Ed just fine. Over in New
York there was the US president unapologetically dismissing the UN. Telling
European leaders their countries were going to hell. Making no mention of the
humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Rubbishing green energy and the climate crisis.
Declaring London was under sharia law with Sadiq Khan. All music to Davey’s
ears. Why interrupt an enemy when he’s telling you who he is? Let Labour and
the Conservatives try to explain all this away. They are the ones who have been
sucking up to the Sun Bed God.
So, these
are also Happy Days for Ed. While Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch can feel the
wagons circling, Davey has no immediate rivals for his job. Sure, there are
always the odd moans that Ed hasn’t cut through enough but no one is gunning to
replace him. Right now, he’s as safe as a leader can be until the other side of
an election. The Lib Dems are more or less united behind him. They speak with
one voice. For those in search of resentments and disagreements, the last few
days in Bournemouth have been a massive disappointment.
And yet
Ed’s closing speech somehow all just felt a bit too cosy. Davey may have been
working on turning his Mr Nice Guy image into a Mr Not-Quite-So-Nice Guy with
his attacks on the BBC for its Reform coverage, but he seemed mostly happy to
play his Greatest Hits. To tell the conference what he thought it wanted to
hear. Not to challenge it to follow his lead into new directions.
But
perhaps it’s too early for that. Maybe now is the time just to enjoy the
moment. To watch the Tories and Labour struggle. An election is probably at
least three years off and the hard stuff can come later. Yet you could sense a
slight disconnection in the audience. As if they all knew this was a
performance for the news bulletins that didn’t really mean much and they could
afford to disengage.
The
applause came at the right moments in the gaps marked “Applause” but rarely
felt spontaneous or heartfelt. Just loyal party members doing what was expected
of them. You could tell the difference. Because when Ed talked about a genocide
in Gaza and the recognition of the State of Palestine, that’s when the noise
cranked up. That’s what the conference really cared about. Even an adorable
guide dog joined in with some loud barks. He deserves a solo slot on the main
stage next year.
Fresh
from a game of beach cricket – very on brand – Ed had taken to the stage with a
backdrop of all his MPs. It was going to be a long afternoon for those not
allocated a chair and forced to stand throughout. After a brief warm up, we got
to the nitty gritty. The Tories and Labour were in trouble. Though
interestingly Davey took the credit for free school lunches and support for
carers that were Labour policies. But both the two main parties had lost the
country’s trust. He invited their supporters to give him an even break.
So it was
a choice between the Lib Dems and Reform. Or rather “Trump’s America reshaped
into Farage’s Britain”. That was to become a refrain throughout the speech. Ed
even took a leaf out of the Reform playbook and just made things up when it
suited him. Like claiming Nige still wanted to relax gun controls in this
country. Even Nige knows that one’s not a vote winner this side of the
Atlantic.
But the
Donald was the gift that kept on giving for Davey. Only on Monday, Trump had
gone into one of his stream of unconsciousness rants about paracetamol causing
autism in pregnant women, quickly followed by one about the virtues of the
anti-vaxxers. Almost as if he were hell-bent on killing children. Something
that’s hard for Nige to distance himself from after his own health spokesperson
used his Reform conference slot to say it was the royals’ own fault for getting
cancer as they had been given the Covid vaccine. Ed accepted this open goal
gratefully. Even extending an invitation to US scientists to continue their
research over here.
Whose
side were you on, Davey asked: Trump, Putin or Farage? Or fish and chips and
cricket pavilions. The real Britain. A Britain of tolerance and decency. It all
felt a bit cliched. Is it too much to ask of our politicians that they can
speak in less binary terms. Treat us as adults. Then a brief mention of Brexit.
An almost apologetic suggestion we rejoined the single market and the customs
union before the final, underwhelming peroration. Cue golden confetti falling
from the ceilings. It was job done. It may not have been the most uplifting of
occasions. But Labour and the Tories will be lucky if theirs go half as well.
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