Tuesday, June 11, 2024

The Lib Dems have learnt one of the lessons of the EU referendum

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One thing that struck me during the EU referendum was how much better the Leave campaign was at staging events and stunts that appealed to the media. All we had to offer was George Osborne threatening to put your taxes up.

I wrote that two years ago, defending the Show Boris the Door stunt with which we celebrated Richard Foord's victory in the Tiverton and Honiton by-election.

Since then, cheesy Liberal Democrat stunts to mark by-election victories have become a thing - and a thing the media expect and are happy to photograph.

That lesson has been carried over into the general election in the shape of Ed Davey's daily death-defying feats.

Not only do these provide good images for the media, they give Ed a chance to talk about the Lib Dem policies that have inspired them.

And those images are all of Ed surrounded by happy people, which is surely more appealing than the ring of mourners that now surrounds Rishi Sunak wherever he goes.

As to Keir Starmer, it seems that Lord Bonkers' description of the Labour leader - "like Ed Davey without the pizzazz" - was spot on.

Talking of Lord Bonkers, he suggested to me over dinner last night that we should end our campaign by firing Ed Davey from a canon "to demonstrate that the other parties have no one of his calibre".

1 comment:

nigel hunter said...

What an explosive ending that would be! BOOM BOOM!