Mark Oaten is a council candidate in South Gloucestershire

Mark Oaten, the former Liberal Democrat MP, is standing for the council in South Gloucestershire next week. He is in one of our two candidates in the Conservative-hold Severn Vale ward.

In 1997 he won the Winchester constituency for the Lib Dems. The contest held on general election day, which he won with a majority of 2, was declared void by the Election Court. Oaten won the resultant by-election with a majority of 21,556, gaining 68 per cent of the vote.

He was involved with the think-tank Liberal Future and the Orange Book, which led to his being seen as one of the people determined to shift the party to the right - see the archive of the writings of the late great Simon Titley on the Liberator website.

Oaten was briefly a candidate for the leadership of the Lib Dems in 2006, following Charles Kennedy's resignation, and then resigned from the front bench amid sexual scandal. He did not defend Winchester in 2010.

Enough history. I wish Mark - and all Lib Dem candidates - the best of fortune on Thursday.

What does success in 6 May's elections look like for the Lib Dems?

Prospect thinks it knows:

Win at least 16 per cent of projected Britain-wide vote share
Gain more council seats than they lose

Win at least 10 per cent of constituency vote in elections to the 

Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly (8 per cent in both elections last time)

These goals are depressingly modest and the third, judging by the opinion polls, looks out of reach.

But we also need to male some spectacular advances that suggest there are new parliamentary seats within our grasp at the next general election,

It is such successes that keep us going and that feature in emails from Liberal Democrat HQ.

The recent career of Ryan Coetzee

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You remember Ryan Coetzee. He was Nick Clegg's special adviser and then director of strategy for the Liberal Democrats' 2015 general election campaign.

That was the campaign that saw the party reduced from 57 MPs to eight.

Nothing daunted, he then served as director of strategy for Stronger In, the official pro-remain campaign in the EU referendum.

After that, he went a bit quiet.

But today's Guardian brings us up to date with his career:

Hong Kong has turned to the former director of strategy of the UK remain campaign in the Brexit referendum to revive its reputation, amid further scrutiny of the role played by London-based political operatives that advise overseas governments.

The Hong Kong government awarded a £5m public relations contract to the Mayfair-headquartered Consulum as part of its Relaunch Hong Kong campaign, shortly before Beijing introduced a new security law designed to crush pro-democracy protests in the territory.

The Guardian understands the Hong Kong account is being led by Ryan Coetzee, who was employed on the unsuccessful 2016 remain campaign.

The paper also tells us:

Following his unsuccessful role trying to convince Britons to remain in the European Union, Coetzee joined Consulum where he continues to be heavily involved in projects to rehabilitate the overseas reputation of Saudi Arabia. These efforts were derailed in the international media by the 2018 murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The current Lib Dem leadership is much concerned with whether we should defend or disown our years in coalition with the Conservatives.

This is odd, because I doubt that voters in 2025 will be much interested in a Lib Dem defence of what we did ten or 15 years before.

But Coetzee's later career, like Nick Clegg's journey from pledging to go to jail rather than carry an identity card to becoming the front man for the data harvesters of Seattle, does not make one warm to those who were in positions of power in the party during the coalition years.

Ed Davey and Layla Moran: It's déjà vu all over again

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Calder's Sixth Law of Politics holds that all Lib Dem leadership elections are reruns of the Liberal Party leadership contest between David Steel and John Pardoe in 1976.

As I once blogged:

You could argue that the 1976 contest set a pattern for later Liberal and Liberal Democrat leadership elections.

One candidate (Steel) was orthodox, sensible and just a little dull. The other (Pardoe) was more charismatic, more open to new ideas and just a little unreliable in his judgement.

So in later contests Paddy Ashdown was a Pardoe and Alan Beith was a Steel. And Chris Huhne was a Pardoe and Ming Campbell and then Nick Clegg were Steels.

Not all contests have obeyed my law as clearly, but this time it is spot on. It's clear that Ed Davey is the Steel and Layla Moran is the Pardoe.

For me, Ed is being a bit too much of a Steel for his own good, but I shall not be declaring my support for either candidate until I have seen more of the campaign. I have urged the same course of action on other Lib Dem members.

In case you are curious, you can find all seven of my Laws of Politics in a recent post on this blog.

Wera Hobhouse drops out of Lib Dem leadership race and backs Layla Moran

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Stephen Bush writes on the New Statesman site:

Wera Hobhouse has ended her campaign for the Liberal Democrat leadership and has thrown her weight behind Layla Moran, cementing the Oxford West and Abingdon MP’s status as the candidate to beat.

In a statement to her supporters, the Bath MP said that “we must accept that we are no longer the best vehicle” to deliver her aims of “pulling our party firmly to the centre-left, rebuilding our local government base, securing a progressive alliance, and moving effort and resources to our regions”.

In a coded rebuke to Ed Davey, the party’s deputy leader, MP for Kingston, and Moran’s sole rival for the leadership, Hobhouse warned against becoming a "London-centric" party. Moran described herself as "delighted" to have received Hobhouse’s endorsement.

I am not sure those who fear a London-centric party will see an Oxford-based leader as a huge bonus. In recent days I have seen people noting that the launch of Layla's Build Back Better document featured speakers from London, Oxford and Cambridge - and nowhere else.

And I suspect Wera's campaign was damaged by a rather less coded rebuke to Ed Davey the other day.

Still, this must be a boost for Layla even if it is odd for a party that worships the single transferable vote to end up with just two candidates.

Me? I voted for Ed last time but am definitely Layla curious. She is the Pardoe in this contest, after all.

Lib Dems to meet again on Thursday to discuss party's finanaces

As I blogged last week, an emergency Liberal Democrat board meeting took place last night to discuss the state of the party's finances.

PoliticsHome reports that the board will meet again tomorrow, as the meeting broke up at 10.15 without getting through the agenda.

As to what happened there:

At the meeting last night, board members discussed party spending priorities and budgets for the next three years, during an exchange that overran by some two hours. 

“It was very lengthy, it was tense and it was heated at points - but there is some positive stuff coming out of it at least,” one board member told PoliticsHome. 

“It was focused on how we get through what has happened and how do we make sure it doesn’t happen again. The conversations about individuals and their future will come along once we’ve sorted all of this out.”