Lib Dems are reviewing policy and strategy says PoliticsHome

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The Liberal Democrats are undergoing an overhaul of strategy and policy, "with key areas of discussion including the economy, welfare, and, as the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum approaches, a bolder stance on the European Union", reports PoliticsHome.

Unusually for such articles, which generally rely on anonymous senior Lib Dems and party strategists, this one by Matilda Martin and Zoe Crowther has quotations from named MPs.

One is Tom Gordon from Harrogate and Knaresborough:

Lib Dem MP Tom Gordon said that while the results last month were generally positive for his party, losses in the North that weren’t seen during the coalition years rang “alarm bells” for him.

For Gordon, the results were a "warning sign" that the Lib Dems have been operating in "a very cautious way" so far.

"I don't think it was necessarily the wrong approach, but just given the nature and the timeline of where we're at in this parliament and the political events and that fragmentation, I think there is now a rethinking of what we do, what we offer, how we're more punchy, how we're bolder, and what the offer from us is."

And the other is Layla Moran from Oxford West and Abingdon:

"There's definitely a frustration that it feels like we've been talking about the same things – social care and rivers – and that just felt like we weren't really moving forward.

"So us evolving the position and being quite mindful about how we do that now is really important.”

Daisy Cooper also spoke to them on the record.

The authors found a broad consensus too that how Lib Dem policies are then communicated to the public is key, with multiple sources telling them that the party is growing its social media teams in a bid to boost its digital operation.

Layla Moran said told them the party needs to be better at selling Moran admitted that the party needs to be better at selling policy:

"That’s not just Ed – it's all of us. We all need to get literate on social media; we all need to make this sexy again. We all need to understand how to sell this stuff in 30 seconds."

The media rarely do us any favours, but there is a worrying sense that the Lib Dems' concentration on so few policies has left us, despite our 72 MPs, somehow irrelevant to the national political conversation. If we could write our own headlines, what would they be?

And, when both Labour and the Conservatives are both so unpopular with voters, it is a worry that our performance in opinion polls is so static. So such a review is certainly needed. What will it come up with?