Starting gun fired for Lib Dem comeback?

Keen athlete Willie Rennie is as comfortable in a road race as an election contest and he should be eyeing a podium finish in May’s council elections. The Liberal Democrats are at the election starting line with their Scottish conference gathering in Perth.

After a disastrous election showing in 2015, the party has been showing recent signs of good form.

Although it could not increase its Holyrood presence in the 2015 elections, team captain Rennie’s victory in northeast Fife – synonymous with Olympic star and party stalwart Sir Menzies Campbell – was significant.

South of the border, strong by-election showings, most recently in Stoke and Copeland where their vote share surged and most impressively winning in Richmond Park, have resuscitated the flagging party.

Rennie’s placement on the majority sides of recent referendums – in Scotland, if not the UK in the case of the EU poll – is not wisdom after the fact and he is right to drive that message home.

Larger, noisier parties continue to try and elbow their way to the front but with Labour in a tailspin and the SNP’s domestic record becoming increasingly tarnished, there is a chance for a third party to make up significant ground.

The Conservatives under Ruth Davidson are making the running and the Greens are pushing hard.

If Willie Rennie’s Liberal Democrats are going to make a race for it, they need to kick on now.