By implication, Mr Hughes appears to suggest that Labour is the bigger target.A complicating factor, however, has been overlooked by both approaches. There is also a need for Lib Dems placed second in Tory constituencies to recognise that the best way of gaining such seats is to appeal to Labour voters where their candidates lie in third place and have no chance of winning. Attention should also be paid to seats held by Tory frontbenchers such as Oliver Letwin, Theresa May and David Davis, where the margin of victory over the Lib Dems can be erased if the Lib Dems successfully pitch for the still substantial Labour vote.These tactical decisions may give the impression that the Lib Dems are more concerned with electoral arithmetic than policy considerations. That is an unfair characterisation, but such calculations do act as a spur and a guide in forming a coherent set of policies. But a better method of proceeding to a detailed manifesto may be a return to first principles.Menzies Campbell draws attention to the need for the Lib Dems to remember the roots of the party, based on John Stuart Mill’s utilitarian theory of “the greatest happiness for the greatest number”. Mr Campbell stressed the need at Brighton this week to ensure that the party becomes less prescriptive and more permissive – hence his willingness to take on the anti-foxhunting lobby and his unwillingness to criminalise law-abiding citizens.

In a sideswipe at his party’s occasional authoritarian tendency he said: “In the 1920s, the Lib Dems might have been in favour of Prohibition”.But the party is successfully discerning a profile of voters who are internationalist in outlook and concerned about the environment, public transport, civil liberties and constitutional issues, and who may provide a firm bedrock of support regardless of their previous party affiliation. The challenge is to capitalise on the disillusionment of Labour and Tory voters without the old charge of “all things to all men”, which haunted, and ultimately checked, the party’s advances in earlier decades.Charles Kennedy is accused by some activists of having no strategy. Others say that there is a strategy – which is to have no strategy. Either way, Mr Kennedy has successfully built upon Paddy Ashdown’s legacy; and he has time on his side.

His is an incremental approach rather than Paddy Ashdown’s “big bang” His biggest asset remains his image as the anti-politician. In an age when 40 per cent of all voters stay at home because they feel disengaged and powerless, perhaps the answer to this newspaper’s question should be: “Liberal Democrats are for the powerless.”mrbrown pimlico.freeserve.co.uk. We asked for a dossier on Iraq, we got a dossier on Iraq, and now we ditherers have to decide what to do about it Starting with whether or not we believe it. Unlike the propaganda pamphlets of old, the dossier does make passing reference to the contrary case (as presented by the arms inspector Scott Ritter). Its language is restrained, and there don’t seem to be any of those technological fantasies, complete with artists’ impressions of impossible new airplanes, that used to characterise US intelligence briefings during the late Cold War.