ALONE of the parties this Spring conference season, the Scottish Liberal Democrats have opted for a three-day extravaganza.
Labour and the Conservatives made do with brisk single-day affairs, while the SNP, who gather next weekend, are taking two. But the Liberals have cut no corners. There are speeches - lots of them, debates, votes on motions, Q&As, fringe meetings, briefings and rallies. "Wouldn't you be better off knocking on doors?" I asked one staffer before setting off for an extended stay at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. "Oh no," she replied."This is a show of strength."
I nearly spilled my drink. The latest poll, from Survation and published on the eve of the conference, put support for the LibDems at four per cent in Scotland, down one point compared with February. On those figures, the party's 11 MPs in Scotland would be reduced to just one. Polling by the Tory peer Lord Ashcroft tells a similar story. The widely accepted view is that Alistair Carmichael, the Secretary of State for Scotland and MP for Orkney and Shetland, is safe and Charles Kennedy, the former leader, is in with a chance of holding Ross, Skye and Lochaber, if only because he seen as Charles Kennedy first and a Liberal Democrat second. The rest, including Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and Michael Moore, the former Scottish Secretary, are all doomed.
A show of strength? What the polls seem to show is a party fatally weakened by five years of coalition with the Conservatives and complicity in an economic programme of austerity. The LibDems' efforts to distances themselves from the Tories, now the election is looming, appears as doomed as their MPs. A day before the conference, Mr Alexander's alternative "yellow budget" descended into farce. Delivered to a near empty Commons, the Chief Secretary was warned against the stunt by the Speaker then jeered throughout by Labour MPs furious at his attempt to disown the real Budget. His yellow box was mocked. Nick Clegg made a hasty exit.
The Lib Dems' election campaign chief, Lord Ashdown, swatted aside such notions yesterday with a dismissive wave of Alex Salmond's new book.
Leaving aside his pithy review of The Dream Shall Never Die, the former leader told journalists that people were not yet engaged with the General Election and would not turn their minds to it until after Easter. Then, he said, the anger voters were feeling would give way to "much more thoughtful" consideration of the choices on offer.
He claimed internal polling, which takes personal recognition as well as party affiliation into account, painted a much more optimistic picture of his party's chances. "We are fighting all the seats we have to win and we are either winning or within reach of winning them," he said. He made no predictions, though he did admit people would have to vote tactically in Gordon if they wished to prevent Mr Salmond, the odds-on favourite, from replacing retiring LibDem veteran Sir Malcolm Bruce on May 7. Privately, party sources believe their best hopes, in addition to Messrs Carmichael and Kennedy, lie with saving Jo Swinson in East Dunbartonshire, Mike Crockart in Edinburgh West, Mr Moore in Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk and John Thurso in Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. Party insiders reckon all is not lost for Sir Robert Smith in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine or Mr Alexander, despite the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey MP trailing the SNP by 29 percentage points in the Ashcroft polling. The Chief Secretary has attracted substantial donations and friends say he believes he will scrape through.
The strategy is to attack the SNP, the LibDems' main opponent in most places, over its demand to increase public spending, a plan Mr Ashdown described as "economic irresponsibility taken to a ludicrous, almost laughable degree". The LibDems will also attack the SNP as illiberal and centralising and accuse them of "taking their eye off the ball" during the referendum, allowing problems in the NHS to pile up.
Who knows whether this combination of playing up their personalities, playing down their recent past and playing rough with the SNP will work? But the LibDems are fighting for every seat knowing any and every save could be vital in such a tight election. If they manage to salvage 25 to 35 of their 57 seats across the UK, it is they who could be doing power-sharing deals on May 8, even if the SNP overtake them as the UK's third party.
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