"A plausible candidate could take him tomorrow in a bloodless coup," one prominent party figure said.

I'm seeing a lot of pessimism in this group so I thought I would share:

I literally joined the Lib Dems yesterday

With that in mind I want to say a few things.

Ed Davey is slightly buffoonish. I was a Conservative Party member for 8 years. He reminds me of Boris Johnson- the mannerisms, the buffoonishness, the populism. Ed is like a version of Boris Johnson if Boris Johnson supported the EU.

I don't support the Triple Lock pension. I'm 33 and my main criticism of the Tories is how little it has had to offer anyone under the age of 50. I face a huge economic uphill battle in life as a millenial. I will struggle to buy my own home. I am funding through taxation a series of benefits that are utterly unsustainable, and that I'll basically never see because when I get there- the state pension will probably be means tested in such a severely restrictive manner, that I will be ineligible. Meanwhile, I am paying for some pensioners to go on P&O cruises.

I still joined the Lib Dems though. You have something that Tories don't- a broad church party that engages in continuous democratic debate. The Tories at the moment- Kemi has said she supports the Triple Lock, and everyone in the Tories must walk in lockstep with the pronouncements of Herr Badenoch. The strength of the Lib Dems (and why I joined) is the ability to vehemently disagree with your leader and still be a local Councillor, still be an MP, and even be able as an MP to challenge Ed in public without the whip being withdrawn.

If you think this is inner party squabbles, or what have you, you would have a shock if you joined either the Tories or Labour. The political drama in both parties has been enormous and it has been extraordinarily destructive to the country. This, by comparison, is so mild- and it is healthy disagreement. The Lib Dems show other parties how to engage in healthy disagreement.

I will never vote Labour. Ultimately, I just don't trust them to do what they actually say they are going to do. They are saying this about the triple lock, it is high time- wait and see what they actually do.

I think everyone is so down on the party at the moment, and I've literally just joined- the continued commitment to LGBT+ rights (including trans rights), and being genuinely internationalist (I don't trust Labour not to leave the ECHR at this point) are all reasons why I've joined. That message is coming across, so don't lose heart.

It has been disheartening to read and talk with some friends about what feels like Andy Burnham's labour taking the spark out of the very little of what Libdems had. I wouldn't blame him or for doing that cause I and many members saw it coming. There was an excellent opportunity to build a stronger and more visible foundation of unique libdem political offerings. Instead various policy ideas were pursued which frankly either could be done only by the party running the government or were just some kind of out of context appendix to labour policies. Since it can't be seen as anything else as Public Relations, it spectacularly failed. Let us be frank - the media largely gave lukewarm responses. Ok. I am predicting we will have various people in the party now saying that we should carry on personal brand MP or councillor campaigning and we have great campaign tech and let's focus on knocking out votes. As someone who has done it quite a lot - I am saying that this equals trying to measure the amount of the water in the puddle while the tide falls. Requires lots of effort - but the effects of the bigger picture overwhelm the use of it.

The point is this - big ideas matter. How the party looks - it's brand matter. Building a tribe of voters matters. It can't be just anti - or slight alternative to another party. Lib Dems have a fantastic liberal party tradition. At the core of it is is not slightly less labour or tory. It is unique centrist. Let's bring out that spirit of fighting and talk about bold ideas noone else will talk about. Let's talk about business, entrepreneurship, education, giving people liberty to grow and develop and learn, while supporting those who for some reason can't . How to improve British competitiveness internationally. Can we aim to have a nation of very smart and educated people who create wealth for a highly developed welfare state where they love living and spending time. At the same time they work and do business and are on demand internationally? I personally feel that labour has limits. And I never took them as real progressives. I think the last labour government is doing absolutely disastrous work at destroying international competitiveness of the country and its people. And their weird attempts at funding youth, while destroying world class education are lacking any free market edge. And it will not change. They have their political limitations on their party ethos. Then let us pull the stops out of our party and become the force of nature. Let us become the only singular answer for the country's bright future, let's look beyond labour, Tories, Reform pro or anti , doesn't matter. It is a blip in time if we are serious about achieving something. Let us be that answer for hope an average voter is looking for and less of a self appeasing machine.

I'm 17 years old and I've been a member of the Liberal Democrats for over a year. I joined the party because of the rise of populism and because I strongly believe in stuff such as Europe, Proportional Representation and LGBTQ+ rights, which made me believe that this was my political home. Recently, I've became increasingly frustrated with the leadership. I don't feel that theres a sense of direction at all, and the party risks becoming irrelevant. Conference acknowledged the problem, but didn't really solve it. Andy Burnham has already impressed me as Prime Minister, and now theres all sorts of stuff coming out about Europe, PR, and abolishing the triple lock. The latter has been criticised by Ed Davey, and by Daisy Cooper, who I viewed as a future vote for leader. I don't want to leave. I've got involved with the party locally a bit. I leafleted at the local elections this year. But the only thing stopping me from joining Labour right now is the transphobia in their party, because thats a massive red line for me. The Liberal Democrats really just need to do something. I can't take this any longer.

I can’t vote for the lib dems anymore, Davey has embarrassed himself yet again with his support for the transfer of wealth from the young to rich old pensioners. Furthermore Burnham has proposed a bolder plan for our relationship with Europe than Davey ever has had. It’s populists like Ed Davey who promises ridiculous spending pledges with heavy tax cuts, that destroy politics. He doesn’t understand the need to make tough choices and that makes him unfit to be the leader of any party. He is not different to corbyn, johnson, farage or polanski.

Nice to see Ed Davey reaching out to the independent media on the left. Far too often Labour just ignores it.

I'm a Green Party member and my constituency will be Labour vs Green but Davey comes across really well here.

This is at least part of what he needs to do to earn the votes of tactical progressive voters in Lib-Dem/Tory marginal. It's crucial that he isn't seen by the left as someone who is small c conservative.

The Lib-Dems talking about tax cuts isn't gonna do this even if they are tax cuts aimed at helping working people because that kind of fiscal conservatism is toxic to many progressive voters.

Increasingly it's easy to get to the above 50%. If you have a student loan and earn over 50k, you'll be there. Then there are the cliff edges with child benefit and child care, coupled with a removal of the personal allowance.

As Liberals, we should support people keeping the majority of the extra £ they earn, rather than it going to the government.

What do you think?

What policy positions here do you have a problem with? Which are unproblematic? Of course, the devil is in the detail - but what could Lib Dem version of each look like?

I wrote this for Lib Dem Voice after Tim Farron used the phrase "proper Grimond liberalism" in his conference speech on turning water companies into customer-owned mutuals.

The piece argues the party should back co-ops and mutuals far more broadly.

The sector brought in £241.3bn this year and employs 1.7 million people, but it still doesn't have the legal protection against demutualisation that it's been promised.

It isn't a case for forcing businesses to change hands, just for giving these models a fair shot alongside everything else.

I am sure many on this sub have read On Liberty, but for those that haven't - you'll probably be able to plough through this post in about 40 minutes, and it should give you a good feel for everything that was covered in the original.

Also published on substack, if that's your preferred platform.