Awakened from a terminal torpor, the Lib Dems were giddy with relief

This job’s a lot harder than it used to be. Three years ago, if a new Lib Dem leader had announced that their party could win the next general election, I could have had a great time with it. But now… I’m not sure I dare. All right, so the very suggestion is completely mad. But these days that hardly rules it out. The more unlikely the idea, the more likely it is to happen.

At any rate: the Lib Dems themselves seem to be taking it seriously.

Yesterday afternoon in London, activists and MPS gathered to hear the result of their leadership election. The venue was a place advertising itself as “London’s sexiest West End superclub”. A slightly incongruous choice, not least because of the middle-of-theroad Radio 2 ballads that party officials had selected for their warm-up music.

Only the Lib Dems could book out a burlesque club and then fill it with the

sounds of Coldplay and Snow Patrol.

All the same, the atmosphere was cheerful, excited, even jaunty. Alistair Carmichael, MP for Orkney and Shetland, swaggered around tieless, shirt collar flapping merrily open. Chuka Umunna, that manbag made flesh, sauntered in from the sunshine, his suit jacket slung insouciantly over one shoulder. At one point, believe it or not, I would swear I saw Sir Vince Cable actually smiling.

‘Only the Lib Dems could book out a burlesque club and then fill it with the sounds of Coldplay’

When the result was read out, it wasn’t even close: Jo Swinson, the 39-year-old MP for East Dunbartonshire, had won 20,000 more votes than her opponent, Sir Ed Davey. To ear-splitting whoops she took the stage. Despite having been the bookmakers’ heavy favourite, she looked genuinely bowled over to have won. No smugness, no arrogance, no preening. Her smile seemed almost bashful.

Nothing bashful about her victory speech, though. It was short, punchy, and had three clear themes. One: Brexit (“I will do whatever it takes to stop it”). Two: Boris Johnson (“... Boris Johnson isn’t fit to be prime minister… Boris Johnson has only ever cared about Boris Johnson…”).

And three: there is “no limit” to what the Lib Dems can do. “I stand before you today, not just as the leader of the Liberal Democrats,” she cried, “but as a candidate for prime minister! I am ready to take our party into a general election – and win it!”

Her audience didn’t gape, or sigh, or call the emergency services. It cheered. Cheered with real feeling, real elation. Admittedly it was a very hot day yesterday, so one or two of them might have had a touch of the sun, but it’s possible that they truly believed it.

And even if they didn’t: they can at least believe that their party matters again, and that, in many seats, they can cause havoc for their bigger opponents. Not long ago, the Lib Dems were slumped in what felt like a terminal torpor. Suddenly, like so many survivors of a near-death experience, they’re giddy, euphoric, almost hysterical with relief.