There was a lot of talk about the general election at the conference, and some of it was completely unreaslistic. It is possible for us to win a few seats in Parliament, but I don't think that we are likely to take a hundred or more seats. As much as we like to talk about a political revolution taking place, such shifts actually rarely materialise. The polls always mislead.
Petrina Holdsworth held up a newpaper poll and claimed that it showed that we could get anything up to 50% of the vote in the election. That is nice to hear, but also very unlikely. Getting people to shift their votes away from the other main parties is monstrously difficult. The Lib Dems have been fighting to become a competitor right from their inception. And they are still struggling. It would be silly for us to think that we can sweep in and become the third largest party.
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