Campaign at half-cock

It looks as if the Liberal Democrat campaigns people were expecting a general election some time later this year, when the implications of our leaving the EU would have been clearer and bearing down on the people who voted Leave in the belief that things could not get worse for them. The main pitch, of calling a halt to Article 50 talks, with a tweak to call a further referendum in order to accommodate MPs in Vote Leave constituencies, would have been laid down. Candidates were certainly put in place ready for a snap election.

In the event, Mrs May pulled the trigger early. Rather than rejigging the campaign to concentrate on the social issues which were so rewarding for Mr Corbyn, and on which our proposals were not only better but also more affordable, it was clearly decided it was simpler to go ahead with the existing template, less effective though that would be at this stage of the EU 27 talks. I guess that we would still have been squeezed in the presidential campaign deliberately launched by Mrs May, in which the media left and right were all complicit, but we might have saved or even gained a few seats in Wales and other Leave areas.