Tim Farron MP, the former leader of the Lib Dems, used to say that the party never lost an election because its manifesto wasn’t long enough.

The party has pages and pages of policies, most of them hard to disagree with, and their recent conference in Brighton added yet more to the mix. The motion “Liberal Democrats mean business” was a case in point: it committed the party to a new Department for Growth, streamlining compliance and tax relief on intangibles, policies that all sound sensible, if not exactly campaignable: “What do we want? Tax relief on intangibles! When do we want it? As soon as economic circumstances allow!”

And yet. In a recent blog I expressed concern that the Labour Government had exchanged a leader who was strong on detail but terrible at narrative, with one who was strong on narrative but had much work to do on policy detail.

In Government, at least if you have a full grasp on details (and if you can avoid U-turns), you can hope that their implementation will add up to an outcome that tells a story about you and the things you care about: economically responsible, concerned about the cost of living, putting defence above all else…

Maybe ‘streamlined compliance’ really would boost economic growth given the chance, but the Lib Dems will never know without a story that can get them elected in the first place… and “we will streamline your compliance” isn’t it.

What makes the Lib Dems’ lack of narrative even more frustrating is that the party leadership has actively decided to play it this way. “Don’t scare the horses” is the not-so-rallying cry.

But to what end? Those Home Counties, One Nation Tories that the party is working so hard not to scare are anyway not yet ready to forgive the Conservatives, especially with Kemi Badenoch expelling everyone who might offer reassurance. Furthermore, those Conservatives that were tempted to defect to Reform have already done so. Meanwhile, most (not all) of the Lib Dems’ new MPs are bedding in well in their former Conservative seats and have understood the hard work and localism necessary to hold on to them.

So this largely layin’ low and saying nuthin’ strategy is playing defence where there is no attack.

And beyond that it is also staggeringly unambitious. The major lesson of the last two decades is that there is a massive disconnect between the number of Parliamentary seats one holds and the influence one can have over politics, just look at Nigel Farage. There is little point in having 72 MPs with nothing to say.

“Hold on!” says the Party leadership, “just you wait. Who knows, after the next election we might hold the balance of power.”

And then what? Is the party ready to be the junior partner in another coalition government, while still nursing its wounds from the last one? Will a confidence-and-supply agreement transform Britain into a liberal utopia at last? What mandate will the Lib Dems have to deliver any significant change, if it has not told the voters what it stands for?

But, of course, there is another reason they don’t tell a story, and this is perhaps even more challenging.

There were half a dozen would-be leadership contenders hiding in the conference wings, but not only is none yet ready to challenge Ed Davey, none yet seems ready with a liberal narrative with which they would like to replace his silence.

In contrast, in his post-Conference substack Ian Dunt offers a “red-blooded liberal vision” based around lots of swearing, an assertive defence of immigration, targeting fascists and shouting “non-conformity” from the rooftops. Those would-be leaders need to learn from his passion.

And in her recent Compass manifesto, Liberalism Alive, Roz Savage, trans-Pacific rower and MP for South Cotswolds, uses impactful allegories to cut through, although with a policy platform that is not much different from Davey’s. She writes:

“Imagine schools serving more food from regional farms, or councils helping small businesses collaborate to compete for larger contracts. Money already being spent can accomplish more than one thing at once.” And “A neighbourhood should not need Whitehall permission to improve a park, nor a town to shape its own high street.” She calls for Government to be “less like a machine operator and more like a gardener: preparing the soil, setting boundaries, preventing dominant species from choking everything else, planting where necessary, noticing what thrives - and resisting the temptation to dig everything up every eighteen months.”

Both Savage and Dunt are attempting to find ways of telling a coherent liberal story rather than constantly reinventing the party. Instead, Davey is plucking out of the air tax-cutting gimmicks that no one believes and which seem entirely disconnected from what little voters know about his party, so will soon be forgotten. Savage may not be amongst those MPs circling Davey, but perhaps the party could do worse.

Reform UK admits that it is all too ready to learn from Liberal Democrat grassroots campaigning. The Liberal Democrats need to be equally ready to learn from Reform. It took Nigel Farage two decades of repeating the same (dishonest) stories about the EU to eventually cut through but cut through he did, to the point where he transformed our country… without ever winning more than a handful of Parliamentary seats. Now with 72 MPs and more councillors than for many years, the Liberal Democrats need to at least begin the task of telling their own story.

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